New Year, New Targets, New Blog

Armed with a Garmin for the
new year of trails ahead!

Achieving my target of 1,000 miles on foot before my 40th Birthday, and then exceeding it by a further 400+ miles, in 2014, in no way brings my walking odyssey to an end, for a brief look at the map shows up large areas of territory around West Yorkshire where my feet are yet to fall, and despite passing 40 and having not gained any additional good health, I'm still of a mood to continue using walking as my method of keeping fit. So 2015 brings on another walking season, and a whole new set of walking targets, notably my new goal of 5,000 miles before my 50th Birthday, in 2024, a pretty straightforward total when that would require only 3,600 miles to go down in the next decade, or only 360 miles per year, when I have already averaged 100 miles above that.

Otherwise, the target list for 2015 seems as predictable as ever:

• Strike for the Coast! Far too many miles have gone down within the West Riding, and I'm sure that the East Yorkshire Coast and the North Sea can't be more than six days distant from home. If that's achieved, I might aim through Lancashire to hit the Irish Sea Coast too!
• The Wakefield Way, that's the third time of asking for the last and least of West Yorkshire's five Circular Trails, and it cannot be missed again.
• Burrow further into Wakefield District as a whole, as this is the only major corner of the county on which my feet have yet to fall.
• Make more paths to the north and east, as so much attention has naturally been drawn to the Pennine fringe, it has proved to easy to ignore the apron of unexplored territory that stretches around Leeds from Harrogate to Selby.
• Burn more trails in Leeds, as aside from my many jaunts into the city from Morley, I have only cut four routes through this particular conurbation in three years, which is far too few.
• Seek out more railway and canal walks, because just when you think you are starting to run out of unexplored routes, a search will easily find you a few more.
• Finally, whilst the legs are still young(ish), let's see if I can manage 500 miles in a single year. 

The new year also deserves a new Blog format, as the 1,000 miles tale seemed neatly self contained, and the write ups of my walks had gotten rather wordy and long winded, so it seems natural to put that one to bed and to start anew, as the modern internet seems to demand brevity, and I have far more pictures to share than I ever managed to put out. The future of my blogging should provide many more pictures, and a lot less writing, making it an easier ask on my time, and breezier read for the casual browser, as the scope becomes less about my personal odyssey and more about what I see on my ways around the land. Also I'm now armed with a Garmin (courtesy of My Sister and Dr G), so I might bring in a lot more accurate mapping to this table, no longer having to rely on Google Maps plots for my measurements, and displaying such things as route profiles and elevations as well, once I've sussed out how the damned thing works, of course.

To the trail, then, as soon as February starts to come on, with the target set at 5,000 to be met within the next ten years, setting the ticker going once again on the numbers below:

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1402.2 miles
Up Country Total: 1306.6 miles
Solo Total: 1175.2 miles