Both My Knees Are Torn. Here's Why I Still Walk 8km a Day

I have all sorts of tears in the meniscus of both my knees. More than a couple, confirmed on a scan. I have never had surgery, and I have had no real knee pain for about three years.

That first sentence used to frighten me. For years my knees would swell up and ache, and I was certain the walking was making it worse. So I did less of it.

But, I had the whole thing backwards.

Two things flared my knees badly.

The first was a big bike ride, far more than I was used to. One knee ached for months afterwards. The second time was twisting it working in the garden. Sore and puffy for months again.

The daily walking I was so afraid of never once set them off. Not once.

I trained as a pharmacist, so I am not about to tell you that scans do not matter. They do. But a tear on an image and the thing actually causing your pain are two separate questions, and most of us quietly collapse them into one.

Turned out it was sudden, unfamiliar load that flared them, and steady, familiar load that settled them down.

These days I walk about 8km most days, commuting, always with at least a day pack on. Two or three kilos. Nothing heroic. It is the least impressive thing I do and I think it is the thing that matters most.

The alternative is what most of us fall into. You book a trip, you panic a little, you smash out a few big weekends, you do the walk, then it all falls away again.

The older you get, the longer the bounce-back takes. Your body adapts to exactly what you ask of it, so ask it something small and consistent rather than something enormous and occasional.

Pick a distance you can do most days without thinking about it. Put a pack on, even a light one. Add nothing for a month.

When a few of us set off on our big Southwest epic back in 2004, we had thirty-eight kilos (around 84lbs) on our backs.

Most of it was rubbish I was never going to use. Food was the biggest culprit. I had been told once that you take a kilo of food for every day you are out, so that is exactly what I did. By day two the weight flattened me.

These days I plan my meals properly and carry around 700 grams a day.

Here is the part I would hold onto hardest. The first things to wear out are the knees and the shoulders. Every kilo you leave at home is load those joints never have to pay for, trip after trip, year after year.

And I’m not saying you need to go ‘ultralight’. Just eliminate the un-necessary.

A lighter pack is not really about comfort. It is about how many good walks your knees have left in them.

A subscriber emailed me a while ago. He is 81.

He wrote that he is "81 years young and loving life", and that he "may be of that age but live by the knowledge that I am only 40 in my head and everything is possible if you want it to be".

He has switched to lightweight gear, he follows a training program religiously, and he is preparing for an epic 127km hike.

His motto: if you want to do it, you can.

That email rearranged how I think about all of this. I would like to think my mates and I are still doing big walks in another thirty or forty years. This subscriber makes me think we might.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks for reading Mowser’s Musings. I hope this helps you hike further and happier.

Until next week, keep exploring.

Mowser

Discover more. Hike further.

P.S. If you are thinking about what keeps you walking into your sixties and seventies, PeakBound is the planning tool I am building so the food, the water and the route decisions get sorted at the kitchen table, not worked out on day two with a sore knee. Waitlist at peakbound.app. It launches soon and you need to be on the waitlist for updates and release dates.