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| The PEAK |
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| McLaren Leisure Centre |
It's been a strange year. In 2024, I had climbed about 60 mountains in Scotland and the Lake District. Only slightly less than my average of the last thirty-five years. And it included some of the best days on the hills, including a glorious winter's day on Buchaille Etive Beag in December, it could yet be my last ever Munro. I had also climbed my two local micro hills, Lime Craig and Ben Gullipen, over a hundred times as pre-breakfast exercise, as I had done every year since Covid confined us to our homes in 2020.
I was looking forward to 2025 with plans to climb 40 or so Munros, helping friends complete Munro rounds and to finish my second round of Wainwrights in the Lake District. After a good start in January, climbing Lime Craig three times in 24 hours, things changed in February during a three-day trip to the Lakes. I was struggling as we climbed 8 smaller Wainwrights. A viral infection grounded me, my leg muscles ached, and I was panting on ascents. I was referred to the hospital, where I was found to have inflammation of the lungs. I had been looking forward to trips to Fisherfield and Glen Affric, two favourite areas, but had to give my apologies to John for not managing to accompany him as he reached the end of a fourth round. I was struggling to get up the micro hills and haven't managed any since May.
I climbed a couple of smaller Wainwrights during a week in the Lake District in July and forced myself up Mount Pantokrator in Corfu during a family holiday. I have always climbed the highest mountain on any island I visited. The breathing was easy, but a sore hip meant I was limping badly. On return, I was sent for an X-ray, which showed that I had worn away the cartilage around my hip joint. The surgeon discovered that this had been apparent since 2019, when I had a previous X-ray just before Covid. I had not been notified of the problem, as with many medical diagnosis during this period, the health service was dysfunctional. It had given me an extra five years of hillwalking and explained why I had found it difficult to run on the roads. Nowadays, I am not even going out.
In August, the respiratory consultant referred me to an exercise class at the PEAK Sports Centre, and since October, I have attended an exercise class at the McLaren Sports Centre. I had never used gyms apart from the annual week in Langdale, when I would use the treadmill on wet days, or when working in Shetland, where I would occasionally attend a spin class in the winter months. Exercise had always been an outdoor activity: running, hillwalking, cycling, mountain marathons, climbing, skiing or in younger days playing lots of football and cricket or occasional games of rugby and hockey. And I walked whenever possible in towns, cities and the countryside, never using the car unless necessary.
I had been dismissive of gyms; you were stuck inside, with repetitive exercises, no scenery, and they were too organised and costly. I have been pleasantly surprised. Partly the discipline of performing 15 or so exercises for an hour, with the chance to set targets and improve week on week, even whilst my hip was getting worse, at least my other muscles were getting flexed. Less so any cardio exercises; I doubt my pulse has exceeded 110 since April, when I last ran the longer 5-kilometre descent of Ben Gullipen.
I have never used either the McLaren Centre or the PEAK before, despite being responsible for guiding both of them through the council. In the case of the McLaren Centre, this involved bringing two capital programmes together, one for a school swimming pool from the region and one for a community sports centre from the district, neither of which had funding, and combining them into a Sports Centre adjacent to the school in the capital programme of the new council. In the case of the PEAK, I supported a very determined sports manager to go for a comprehensive sports centre to replace the failing swimming pool and helped persuade councillors that this would be a vital facility for the well-being of the public. I was now part of the public and very grateful for the facilities. Apart from anything else, they got me out of the house and gave me a chance to meet others with far more severe conditions than I had.
It was the social aspect that kept me going. When one of the council cleaning staff greeted me with"What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be fit", I felt I had been inducted into the third age. I bumped into the former world over-50, 1500 metres champion, who I used to run with; he is now over 80 and two or three others who told me that they had worked for me, I recognised the faces. Three ladies now regale me with how to cope with a new hip; two of them have had both hips replaced. The instructor tells me to slow down during the exercises. The centre is busy, school children in the gym and outdoor pitches, young mums and third agers in the pool, the car park is full, and there are electric chargers. This place really works. It gave me a flicker of hope at a time of troubles across the world, and a sense of despair about poor services and the cost of living in the UK.
