My first fifty miles in one go
I'd never walked more than a long afternoon before this. Fifty miles over five days doesn't sound like much when you write it down, and it isn't, until the second morning when your legs cast a vote against the whole idea.
Day one: too much, too early
I did what everyone tells you not to do and pushed hard on the first day because I felt fine. You always feel fine on the first day. That's the trap. By the time I reached the barn I'd booked I'd done nearly fourteen miles and couldn't feel my left heel in a way that turned out to be important later.
The middle days
The old coach road is the kind of path that keeps its shape long after its purpose is gone. You can still see where it was built up to stay dry, where it swings wide of ground that would once have swallowed a cart. I spent a lot of the middle days just following that logic and thinking about nothing.
Somewhere on day three I stopped checking the map every twenty minutes and just trusted the road to be a road. That was the point it started being a walk and not a task.
What I'd do differently
Fewer miles on day one. Better socks. And I'd stop telling myself the blister would sort itself out, because blisters, in my experience, have never once sorted themselves out. But I finished, sat down on a wall at the end, and immediately started thinking about the next one — so it worked, in the way these things are supposed to.