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Nobody writes about the drive. Every walk I have ever written about on this site started and ended with a car, and some of the best lanes I know are an hour and a half from my door. The walk gets the photographs. The drive gets nothing, except the moment when I climb out at the end of a long day, straighten up beside the car, and feel every one of the miles I sat through, not the ones I walked.
This is a short post about the hours around the walk rather than the walk itself, and about a sock I did not expect to be thinking about on a walking blog.
The walk is three hours, the day is nine
When I added it up one autumn, a typical day out looked like this: an hour and a half of driving, three or four hours on foot, a stop for something to eat, then the drive home in the dark. More of the day was spent sitting than walking. And the sitting comes at the worst possible times, first thing in the morning when I am stiff anyway, and last thing at night when my legs have done their work and would rather be anywhere but folded under a steering wheel.
I used to treat all of that as dead time. Something to get through so I could get to the lane. These days I think of the day as one thing, and I pay a bit more attention to the parts of it that are not on the map.
What I already do about the drive
None of this is clever. It is just what an hour and a half in a car has taught me.
Stop before I need to
On the way out I stop once, usually at the same lay-by, and walk up and down for five minutes. It feels silly when I am keen to get going. It makes the first mile of the actual walk a great deal kinder.
Change before the drive home
Wet socks and muddy boots are not what I want to sit in for ninety minutes. I keep a dry pair of socks and a pair of old trainers in the boot of the car, and changing at the gate has become as much a part of the walk as closing it behind me.
Do not plan the long drive and the long walk on the same day
If the lane is far away, the walk is shorter. If I want a long walk, I pick somewhere closer. Trying to do both in one day is how I end up tired, late and short-tempered, which is not why I go out.
Where compression socks come in
The dry pair in the car is where this post really started. For a long time that pair was whatever was clean. Then a friend who drives for a living mentioned that he wears compression socks on long days behind the wheel, and that he had stopped thinking of them as something only for the very old or the very athletic.
I had always assumed compression socks were all beige and clinical. They are not, or not any more. VIM & VIGR is one of the brands that makes them in proper patterns and colours, the sort of socks you would not mind anyone seeing at a petrol station or a pub door. If you have never looked at what is out there, the banner below goes straight to their range.
I want to be clear about what I am not saying. I am a walker who writes about lanes and mud, not a doctor. I am not going to tell you what compression socks do for your legs, and if you have a medical reason to be thinking about them, or a condition that affects your circulation, that is a conversation for your own doctor before it is a shopping decision. Compression is not right for everyone, and it is not a subject for a walking blog to be confident about.
What I can say is that the hours around a walk deserve some thought, and that the socks you sit in for the drive home are part of the day too.
Keep the walking socks for walking
One distinction I would make, because I have written before about how long it took me to get my walking socks right. The socks I walk in are chosen for the boots, the mud and the miles. The socks in the car are a separate decision for a separate part of the day. Mixing the two up, wearing something for the drive that you then try to walk five miles in, is a good way to undo everything you learned about blisters.
So the kit list for a day out now has a small section that never leaves the car: the dry socks, the old trainers, a towel for the dog, a bag for the boots. It is the least interesting part of the kit and possibly the part I am most grateful for at eight o’clock at night.
The whole day, not just the lane
I still believe the best part of any day out is the bit where the tarmac gives way to gravel and then to mud. But I have stopped pretending the rest of the day does not count. If your walks start with a long drive, it is worth looking after yourself on the way there and the way back as carefully as you do on the lane.
If you are curious about the patterned side of compression socks, you can browse VIM & VIGR socks here. And whatever ends up in your car, stop at the lay-by on the way out. The lane will still be there.
Photos: cottonbro studio and UMUT via Pexels.