Going Nordic in the South

Before we left England, Danielle and I had taken to the sport of Nordic walking. You do it with sticks and, in principle, at speed. The idea is that the sticks keep your posture better than walking without them, and mean that the exercise affects 90% of your muscles, including arms, shoulders, back and abdominals, as opposed to only your legs.

It’s also quite fun.

We thought we’d try it here in Valencia too. A long way south of the Nordics, but hey, latitude doesn’t count, does it? We went out several times on our own, in the park the city has made where the river Turia used to run before it got directed outside the city. But it seemed a good idea to join a group, so we went for an initiation session this weekend.

It was in a lovely location, outside the town of Riba Roja, on that same river Turia, but where it actually still runs today.

One of the people going offered us a lift and suggested we meet at 4:00. We were there bang on time, even a little before, as was she – it keeps surprising me that the Spanish people we meet completely belie the reputation of the nation for lateness, summed up in the word ‘mañana’. That’s become an internationally recognised synonym for delay, procrastination and downright tardiness.

By meeting at 4:00, we turned up the rendezvous point a good half-hour early. Not everyone else was as punctual, so the actual session didn’t get started until a while after 5:00. And it didn’t start with the walk. Instead, a representative of the municipal council gave us a brief talk about the castle where we’d met, which was worth hearing, since the place had been built as a fortress by the Moors during Arab rule in Spain, before becoming a noble’s home and then falling into disrepair until the council restored what it could and added new – and rather spending – modern building elsewhere.

The castle explained to the group: a striking venue

That interesting talk was followed by another that was was far less so. It was given by the Nordic walking instructor, who spent an inordinate time getting his PowerPoint slides to project and, even worse, a video (have you noticed how often presentations with video in them seem to fail?) I learned that I’d been holding the sticks wrong, which was a useful lesson, but frankly could have been communicated in five minutes rather than the hour it took.

Finally, we got on the walk at rather after 6:00. Well, I say ‘walk’ but it was more of a Nordic stroll, frankly. Though those of us who complained (not in words but by getting out in front and moving a little faster) were soon given a taste of our own medicine (proving you should be careful what you wish for): the instructor’s friend got out in front and he had that capacity of tall men to walk in a leisurely manner but, with colossal steps, set a punishing pace we struggled to keep up with.

In the end it took an hour and a quarter to do four and a half kilometres, which is pretty dire. But, with the pace so much quicker in the stretches between pauses to allow others to catch up, by the end I was exhausted.

Pack of Nordic walkers in the southern sunshine

That made it great that the organisers chose to finish with a snack in a local bar. We were given beers and (rather good) sandwiches. Danielle and I sat with people we’d never met and enjoyed a conversation with them, though conversing is something of a challenge – a double challenge, indeed, since in our broken Spanish, we have to work to find the words to express what we want to say, and then they have to work to mentally translate what we’ve just said into the words we would have used if we’d said what we meant correctly. But we still got on swimmingly, despite the difficulties.

And then we headed home, having taken rather over five hours for what, left to our own devices and staying local, would have taken under one. Still, we saw some wonderful places. The walk was along the river, where it flows strongly in its old course (it was to guard that precious water that the Arabs built their fortress in Riba Roja). The sights were wonderful, as we walked between vegetable plots and wild flowers, with glimpses of the river every couple of minutes.

Then to finish with beer, sandwiches and good company – what more could we want?

A glimpse of the Turia on our walk

Forced march to a metaphor for life

For months – or is it years now? – my wife Danielle has been joining Nordic walking sessions run by one of Luton’s fine leisure centres.

‘It’s excellent exercise,’ she would tell me, ‘you really know you’ve done some sport when you’ve finished. It’s a lovely setting, too. And the people are great. You ought to come along.’

Somehow, I always had something else to do. Excuses, of course, for not taking part. What I don’t understand is why I was even looking for excuses. I enjoy walking. I enjoy sport, for that matter. And when we used to live in Germany, I even took part in Nordic walking sessions there, and they were tough: they started at 6:00 in the morning. Ah, yes. The Germans. When you’re doing something demanding, you just have to make sure it really is demanding.

Having followed Danielle into Nordic walking,
I followed her around the Nordic walk

For whatever reason, I dodged and ducked and avoided taking part. Until just now. Which is pretty silly, since we’re planning on moving away (from the country, not just the town) early in February. If I’m to enjoy, and benefit from, these Nordic walking moments, I’m truly going to have to get my act together: I only have a few weeks to do so.

Because I really did enjoy it. And no doubt benefited, too. Certainly, if the ache in my legs was anything to go by, I must have done. As a good Englishman, steeped in the country’s puritanical traditions, I know that it’s only if it hurts that a thing can possibly be doing you any good.

It surprised me that it was so much fun. For me, walking is something I do with the dogs. And I do it – slowly. Generally I’m chatting with the other people out with me or, when alone as is more commonly the case, I have earphones in and I’m listening to an audio-book. Recently, that’s been some Le Carré novels (or his autobiographical sketches, The Pigeon Tunnel) interspersed with a couple of recommendations from colleagues: Prisoners of Geography, a highly readable account of how geography often determines a nation’s behaviour, and Lawrence in Arabia (note the ‘in’ rather than ‘of’) which is proving a fascinating study not just of Lawrence but of all the extraordinary, seismic events that took place in the Middle East in World War One and whose consequences we’re still feeling today.

What that means, of course, is that though I pick places I like, I tend not to notice them that much. I’m generally listening to the book and paying little attention to what’s going on around me. Which is a bit sad. Sometimes I become aware of that and decide I should snap a photo of a scene that’s particularly striking in its beauty, but that only means I’m looking at things through my phone instead of listening to it.

Sometimes I stop listening to the phone
and use it to take a picture of the scenery

Nordic Walking’s different. It’s a social activity so something as solitary as listening to a book is out. And, in any case, it’s much more of a forced march than a country stroll, so I’m not sure I’d be able to spare the attention to a book. That may have been what put me off.

But, naturally, it has other charms. It’s certainly more physical. It feels a little more like a challenge. And it isn’t that bad: I had no trouble keeping up with the leaders. Which gave me a certain satisfaction.

Of course, I found myself following Danielle all the way round. Straining to keep up with her. But that was satisfying too.

After all, there’s no better metaphor for a marriage that has lasted 35 years – so far.