Nothing to write home about

I’ve just come back from a week’s holiday in the Austrian Alps, in which I walked a total of 42 miles which included a whopping 11,661 feet of ascent. On one of the walks I burned 2,209 calories in 4 hours (that’s more than I burn in an average day).

To people who spend a lot of time in the mountains it might be a pitiful result. But to others it will sound impossibly high.

To me, recovering from chronic fatigue - it’s a near miracle.

So what’s the secret?

Well, there’s no real magic, no secret method, except Alpine pace.

When I was out there, I’d often come across Nordic walkers brandishing trekking poles. Most people let the poles drag along behind until every few steps they’d remember what was dangling from their wrists and pick them up and jab them into the ground. Trekking poles do help the knees, but they contribute to path erosion, and the sticks get in everyone’s way.

But if you know how to use them you can motor along, using the poles to ramp up the pace - the pumping action leads to a faster stride whatever the terrain. Except when things get tough - when the path gets steep and rocky, they’re just one more thing to have to find a place for on the ground.

I used to Nordic walk my way through life, never slowing down, just pushing myself to do more and more. Then I hit the difficult terrain of chronic fatigue and I found myself ill-equipped to cope with the obstacles in my way. Something had to change.

These days I prefer Alpine pace. You match your stride to your breath; take it slow when its steep, stride out on the flat, give in to gravity on the downhill stretches. And of course you should stop when you’re tired, but the theory is with Alpine pace you can keep going all day.

David Puttnam, once likened the feeling of CF to climbing a mountain. “Going to the loo was like climbing Everest,” he said.

I know what he means - some days I feel just the way I did up at Annapurna base camp (13,500 feet above sea level) in the Himalayas after I had recovered from chronic fatigue the first time round.

There’s that sluggish heavy feeling you get at altitude, you can’t get your breath and you feel like you’re wearing lead boots. It’s hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced it for yourself, or climbed Everest.

Perhaps the feeling that David Puttnam described is the body crying out for Alpine pace.

Take it slow, pause to take breath. Listen to your body and pace yourself.

And in the end all those little steps add up, metre by metre, calorie by calorie. And you might find you’ve done more than you ever thought possible.