Jennifer Rudd: For some people, walking isn’t so simple

Walking is easy right? You just put on a pair of shoes, leave the house and walk along the pavements, woods or beaches right outside your door. We all know the importance of walking; it’s good for our blood pressure, circulation, keeping a healthy weight, muscle tone, heart, lungs etc. etc and it can give us some much-needed headspace as we strive for the perfect work-life balance.

However, for some people, walking isn’t so simple. Their gender, health conditions, menstrual cycle, sexuality, location, domestic situations and religion can affect how confident they feel when they leave their house.

My ability to walk is dynamic, following the pattern of my disabilities. On good days, when I am topped up on B12 and have remembered to take my heart medication, I love a walk through the woods at the back of my house. I have a fixed route and I go after I’ve dropped my son at school. The routine helps my autism and gives me a chance to reflect on the day and week ahead before I switch on my computer and become engulfed in academic “noise”.

During my morning walks I think through my to-do list, responses to questions that I’ve been asked, student work that I’ve read, and research projects that I have running. My autism means that I have a longer processing time than neurotypical people and so I often replay conversations that I’ve had or practice conversations that I need to have in my head. Walking gives me the time and space to be able to process things that have happened or will happen through the week.

Outside of my pre-work walk through the woods, I have set routes that I know and love for various reasons. I feel safe in the knowledge that I’ve done these walks before, I know their length, their demand on my body, where the rest stops and food stops are, and where I could be rescued from if I suddenly got wobbly and could go no further.

New walks are scary. I’ve never been able to separate the anxiety induced by the autism (which can often be irrational, but based on something rational), from the B12 deficiency and heart rate induced anxiety of finding myself somewhere too tired and out of breath to continue. However, I am learning how to overcome all of these. I read walking books to get a sense of how long a walk is and to try and familiarise myself with where I’m going. I figure out how I will get to the start and end of the walk. I locate places with food and drink so that I know I have a chance to stop and refuel. I make sure that I have someone with me – my family, a friend, my parents! It sounds like a lot of planning for a walk but it is reassuring and it helps me to quell the butterflies in my stomach and the anxiety that tells me that I cannot do this, that I’m not physically fit enough, that I won’t cope.

Jennifer walking the coast path

With all those tasks accomplished I can finally get out onto the coast. I’m so fortunate to live near the Gower Peninsula, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where you can walk for miles between green fields, lapping waves, gorse, heather, apple trees, cows and beaches.

An early achievement was walking the South Gower coastline over a week with my husband and, then 4 year old, son. Through wind, rain, rainbows and sunshine we plodded on, mile after mile, sometimes with friends and sometimes just as us. We slid through mud, bypassed cows, ate boiled eggs like the Famous Five, cleaned mud from our waterproofs, made up silly stories to encourage our son to keep walking, and returned home exhausted but happy, ready to start again the next day and the next day until our challenge was complete. Since then I’ve climbed Pen-y-Fan and Moel Siabod in Wales, the Cairn Gorm in Scotland and taken on the challenge of walking the entire Pembrokeshire Coastal Path.

As I’ve walked I’ve become stronger and more confident and I can’t wait to get back on the coastal paths this summer.