What is that makes you feel great? Is it the sense that you've achieved something that you never knew you could? Or that wonderful feeling when you help someone just for the sake of helping them to make their lives better? Or working together as a team to make sure that everyone can make it through?
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How about doing all of these things together? That's exactly what I did when I took part in the Edinburgh Kilt Walk 2017. I started working with Dreams Come True as a volunteer for the Edinburgh development team in Spring of 2017 and this was my first big fundraising event with them.
I wanted to do something big that I wouldn't normally have done before - it's funny how volunteering with a specific charity you suddenly want to go ahead and do every fundraising event you can get your hands on. You become so invested in what is going on with the charity and want to help in every way that you possibly can. So when the head of our development team mentioned the Kilt Walk I really wanted to give this a go. If you want to find out more about what made me want to take part in the Kiltwalk then head to my blog post Kiltwalk 2017 here.
Naturally the website terrified me and the rest of my team telling us how much we had to train before taking part in such a long walk. However a couple of eight mile walks with our dogs was as far as we really trained before the big day. To give you some perspective on that, our walk was the Mighty Stride - a massive 26 miles.
After registering for the Kiltwalk you get your welcome pack within the week of the big day which contains important items that you must bring with you. This includes your meal vouchers (you get soup and a roll at the halfway mark and a hot meal at the finish line), your registration ID proving you have paid to take part and are of course registered and then your little map. Now the map you don't necessarily need as there are arrows and mile markers and helpers along the way to keep you right, however if you're doing the bigger walks and want to know how far away you are from your next desperately needed pit stop, then you need this little beauty.
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The time lines are staggered for the walks so that not everyone is walking the route at the same time. This was a brilliant idea as when we started off I hated the walk - we were all so crammed together just walking in one big crowd until we got to the first pit stop 5 miles in at Gypsy Brae. After this and every pit stop afterwards, the crowds got thinner and thinner as the strong powered ahead and the dawdlers started heading to the back of the pack. There was one point where we were overtaken by a girl with crutches - I mean props to her because she managed the whole 26 miles on those crutches.
If you want to know the rollercoaster of emotions that take place when you try to walk 26 miles for the first, then let me tell you all about mine. When you start you don't think that it's so difficult managing to deal with this but then of course it doesn't stay that way. The first ten miles were not too bad, we all felt really good and were waiting for the tiredness that never came. Until of course we started flagging at Portobello. This was the halfway point where we got given our soup and we just felt the need after doing 12 miles to sit down for five minutes. Of course you can't really sit down for too much longer than this because you will start to seize up and you do not want to have to loosen off and then carry on doing another 14 miles. Once we were on the move again we weren't completely miserable, walking down the promenade that day there were sausage dogs everywhere as it was the dachshund meet up at the beach. It made the walking a little bit easier and as we lost site of most other people that were doing the Kiltwalk, it started to just feel like a leisurely stroll along the beach. Then we came to the end and had to walk down the boring road again and naturally at this point it started raining.
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We kept trooping on and managed to cheer up again when we came out to the cycle path and felt the sun on our faces and knew that the third last pit stop was mere moments away. This pit stop was the one where we decided that we would not stop again. We still had to walk from Niddry to Hollyrood and then on to York Place before heading back down again to reach our final stretch back along to Trinity and then on to Murrayfield. The sun was shining, the scenery was beautiful and we were happy again - but it did not last long.
One member of the team had to shoot off and do his own pace because his muscles were so sore that if he didn't just stride on quickly being in his own mindset then he would not be able to make it for long.
Another member of the team was struggling so bad with hip pain that we had to stop, slow down and make sure that we were going a good enough pace to keep going but not too fast that we would make the pain worse. I'll admit that I didn't really feel all that bad whilst doing the Kiltwalk and I said that to my team - but I knew that all my pain would come the day afterwards. And believe me, it did.
Making it to the last pit stop we decided that we had to take a little break, drink some energy juice and sit on the wet grass just for a few minutes. We also caught up to our steam ahead team mate so that we could all finish the walk together.
Seeing that finish line was the best feeling that I've ever had. Knowing that we were all in pain, knowing that we had been walking for nine hours with no more than 5 minutes rest at each pit stop and knowing that although it majorly sucked feeling so sore and tired at that moment, we had done it! We had completed a 26 mile walk around the city of Edinburgh and we had done it not just for the sense of achievement but we had done it to help all those children out there in Scotland, who don't have the opportunity to take life to the fullest the way that so many can and don't take advantage of.
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This walk has taught me that I can do so much more than what I believe I can; that just spending one day doing this instead of my normal routine of going to the movies or visiting my mum, helped raise money to help children around Scotland and that is a feeling that is so great and no one can take away from any of us (although I wish someone could have taken away the pain).
If you would like to learn more about Dreams Come True and what they do then visit their website - https://dreamscometrue.uk.com/
Or you can head to my post going in to more detail as to why I wanted to take part in the Kilt walk.
If you would like to donate to my cause for the charity then please head to my fundraising page and donate! I'm still accepting donations until the end of October. We are so close to reaching our goal and I am so grateful to anyone who can spare that small amount of money to make a child's Dream Come True.
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