Success Stories
Katherine Hughes
Success Stories
Katherine Hughes
Hi I’m Katherine and in May I took part in a 100 mile walking challenge with Race At Your Pace.
As a bit of a background about me, I’m a stay-at-home, work-at-home mum of two and before the challenge I wasn’t getting out and about much. The average person does around 10,000 steps a day, and I was only managing around 2000 a day. Over the course of the month I wanted to really challenge myself and see what I was capable of doing. I needed an average of around 6500 steps each day to reach 100 miles by the end of May, and accounting for rest days I would need to push myself a lot.
For years I have suffered from knee pain due to weak muscles in my legs so my hope was that increasing my fitness by walking more would ease that for me. I also hoped to see a change in my daily mindset and my mental health.
At the halfway point of the challenge I was starting to notice some of the improvements I had anticipated and hoped for.
The main benefit of the challenge for me at this stage was the mental health side of it. I saw a great improvement in my mental health and even my PMDD symptoms had decreased. I found myself happier, and getting out and about more was great. Where I would normally take the car or get my other half to do errands, I would walk instead. It was more refreshing, I got to take in the scenery and spend time walking with my family.
At the end of the challenge, I can’t believe I actually managed 100 miles.
I took myself out for 2 days due to a sprained my ankle, and took a few cheeky days off here and there, but it was all distance I had to make up in the end. The most I walked in a single day was 10 miles! As a result of doing this challenge my legs feel a lot stronger and my knee pain is gone. This challenge has made me really able to focus on things a lot more when it comes work and daily tasks, because I feel like walking has really helped clear my mind as well as got me out of the house and away from my computer screen. It has been brilliant and I have every intention of keeping up with it from here on. I’m hoping to hit at least the same target next month, fingers crossed.
I really enjoyed the challenge, the scenery is a lot to take in when you sit and stare at four walls every single day. It’s been amazing and it’s right on our doorstep.
I can’t believe I’ve actually completed the challenge and I want to say thank you for coming along on the journey with me.