Two Miles Is Enough
For a long time I thought a walk had to be substantial to count, which meant most weeks I did nothing. Cutting my standard down to two miles is the change that actually got me out the door.
Wade Holloway
Walking Past Somebody Else’s Living
A wet April morning, a man on his knees in a gateway fixing a water pipe, and me strolling past with a flask of coffee. A piece about what it means that my favourite view is the surface of somebody's working year.
The Forecast Decides What I Wear, Not Whether I Go
I used to open the weather app looking for permission. It gave me a reason to stay home most weeks, and most of those reasons turned out to be wrong. Now I only ask it what to put on and which roads will hold.
What I Learned Talking to Farmers on Their Own Ground
I once opened a conversation at a gate by asking whether the path was a right of way. It went about as well as you would expect. Six seasons of gate conversations, one bad opening line, and what actually works when you meet somebody on their own land.
Walking Into Fog on the Bottom Ground
Fog turns a road I have walked hundreds of times into somewhere I have never been. It is also the one condition where being seen matters more than seeing, and the morning I missed my own gate taught me that the hard way.
The Same Loop, Four Seasons
I walked one four mile farm loop through a full year. The distance never changed and almost everything else did, from how long it took to whether I could see where I was going at all.
Three Years Of Being Wrong About Socks
The blister I blamed on my boots was caused by grabbing the wrong socks from the drawer. Why cotton fails, how sock thickness is really part of boot fit, and the liner experiment that did not work for me.
The Afternoon the Sky Turned On Me
It looked like nothing when I left the house. Forty minutes later I was in the middle of an open field in horizontal rain with a fleece and no waterproof, making bad decisions. What went wrong and the three habits I actually kept afterwards.
Why I Still Walk the Same Three Miles
Same gate, same stile, same three miles, several hundred times. On what repetition shows you that novelty hides, the honest argument against walking one route, and what a familiar walk is actually for.
Everything I Eventually Took Out Of My Daypack
I found a sealed emergency blanket that had been carried two hundred miles unopened. What came out of the bag after that, what stayed, the unglamorous things that earned their place, and why lighter meant walking more.