Week 43: Walking on Volcanos

A bit of a gap since my last post, things have been a bit busy on the work and home fronts.  On the work front I was testing students English level for entry to the local business school.  On the home front school broke up, so I found myself looking after kids.  I did manage to gets some runs in though.  Just short 5 or 10 kilometres, while I break in my new insoles.
My first 5 kilometre run with the went fairly well.  Unfortunately the longer 10 kilometre run left me with pain in my tibia.  After some research on the internet, I discovered that this is quite normal, even logical.  My tibia is being turned in a different direction to that which it has been used to for the last 44 years.  The doctor had said results in one month so I will soldier on. 
Also during this period my family headed to the Auvergne region for three days of walking on volcanos, as part of my preparation for the mountain guide qualification.  The first walk was on the Puy de Sancy, in very overcast conditions with a cold North wind.  The footpath was badly eroded and the last leg was on 800 wooden steps formed from railway sleepers.  There was no view from the 1800 metre summit and we retreated to the cable car restaurant as the hail blew in.  It was amazing to watch the ill equipped tourists arriving in the cable car to tackle such a dangerous terrain.  Once the hail clouds had blown over we followed the ski piste back down.  Both my knee and tibia were giving me problems as I hobbled into the town of Mont Dore.  Happily after some serious stretching the pain eased and almost disappeared.  The next day we had another long walk but with less altitude.  The weather was sunnier but still with a cold North wind.  We did a circuit that took in the Puy de Dôme and a number of other extinct volcanos.  The lower slopes were covered by beach and hazel forests which, with the numerous poorly signposted paths, made navigation a real challenge.  The Puy de Dôme was a bit of a disappointment with its hoards of tourists transported to the summit by train.  Once again I finished the walking hobbling with knee and tibia pain, which eased after stretching.  The final day was much better both weather and pain wise.  However it was more frustrating navigation wise as we were never totaly sure where we were.  We crossed a number of people who seemed to be in the same situation so maybe this is a feature of walks in this region.