Halfway through the year

Back at the beginning of the year, as I was looking back at 2019, and forwards to 2020, I wrote this:

“With success in 2019, the mind turns to 2020. I still have to fully crystallise my thoughts, but I can declare a few things. The journey towards Santiago will go on. There will be more marathons. I will aim to reach at least 6.5 million steps for a second year in a row. I have some other ideas, but they are less definite.”

Now that we are just past the halfway mark in this year, it is a good time to look back again and to look forward to the remainder of the year.

And what a year this is. I don’t think that any of us could have predicted in January how 2020 would actually turn out. Like many people, I had great plans. I had high hopes for the year, and I was going to achieve great things. My mother used to say that “man proposes, God disposes”. And so it has been, whether it is random fate, or divine intervention, those well laid plans have been set at nought by a virus.

I had actually made all the arrangements to go walking the next piece of the Camino in May. Flights were booked. The initial accommodation was arranged. The guidebooks had been well perused. But all flights out of Basel stopped, and the borders were closed. The guidebooks are still there, and I still look at them. Luckily, I was able to reorganise my flights for later in the year, and the borders have reopened, so it is possible that I might yet succeed with that objective.

My plans to do more marathons suffered the same fate. With travel restricted, and with most countries banning large events, there are no marathons of interest this side of November.

But, by a curious twist of fate, one thing that has worked out well is my step count. In spite of not going on the Camino, my step count for the first half of 2020 is actually higher than the first half of 2019. Between January and June 2019, I completed 3,400,962 steps. In the same period in 2020, I completed 3,717,456 steps. This is almost 10% higher than the 2019 figure. In the rest of the year, I suspect that there will be good days and bad days, but for now, my step count is on course to equal or exceed my 2019 figure. So at least there is one success this year.

I also mentioned that I had some other ideas as well. One of those was to walk the Jura Höhenweg, and of course that is going ahead. The trail consists of 16 sections, and 11 of those are done in 10 days of walking. So that is on course. With luck and determination, I will complete it in 2020.

Overall, it shows that even though times are difficult, it is possible to remain active. Walking remains my passion, and even in these difficult times, I can still continue to indulge that passion.

Let’s hope that the second half of the year is at least as good. I am an optimist, and as the year passes its halfway mark, my glass is definitely half-full.