A woman is set to walk 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain in memory of her wife. Tracey Howe’s challenge will take around year and she hopes to raise £100,000 for charity .
The 60-year-old hopes that that hiking day after day will provide some therapy as she tries to cope with the “horrific gaping hole” left when Angela White, her partner of almost 40 years, died of two different types of blood cancer last September.
Tracey said: “My long walk will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done by a long way – both physically and mentally – but I hope it will turn my grief into a positive.
“Losing Angela – my soulmate – has been so incredibly difficult and when she passed away I found myself falling into a deep depression.
“I was in a dark space. I wasn’t sleeping but then I would spend all day on the sofa and not want to get up again.
“However, our dog Poppy needed to be walked. Initially I had to force myself to take her out but then I realised that walking was a way of reconnecting with life and nature. Walking became a kind of therapy.”
The idea for 5,000-mile Tracey's Trek
The enforced walks turned into a more enjoyable activity for Tracey, who lives in Scotland and raised two sons, now in their 20s, with Angela.
The former professor of rehabilitation sciences said: “The regular automatic movement of walking is sort of meditative. Being out and walking also provides a safe place to think, to remember and to cry. The physicality became an outlet for my anger, too.
“Another benefit is that when walking I meet a lot of people who never knew Angela or me as part of a couple. I have found it easier to talk with these people without the burden of grief that I feel with friends and family.
“It was all the local walks, which started to progress to longer walks and further afield, that led to the idea for Tracey’s Trek.”
There was another reason for the UK tour. The couple, who were married for nine years, had decided that after retiring they would travel in a motorhome around the British coast.
Tracey said: “I will be visiting a lot of places significant to us as a couple and it will give me an opportunity to think about those memories.
“I think about Angela every day and I talk to her while I’m walking, so this is a pilgrimage of sorts.
“It will be a special way to maintain a connection with Angela and also with a sense of purpose because I am raising money for charity.”
A year of daily hiking
Tracey will start the long-distance walk on November 1 at The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, where Angela was treated, and walk anti-clockwise south through northern England, then around the Welsh coast and back to England again.
She hopes to be back in Scotland, first on the east coast, then north and west by next summer and finish back at the Beatson.
She will aim to walk 20 miles each day, six days a week following as many way-marked coastal paths as possible.
Turning 61 during the hike, Tracey believes she will become the oldest woman to walk the entire mainland British coastline, either anti-clockwise or clockwise.
She said: “I need to be prepared as I can for walking day after day when I set off and I will be facing a wide range of terrains and all four seasons of the UK weather.
“I know it is going to be tough but this challenge I have set myself is an immersion in nature and all its rawness to help me feel alive again.”
Tracey’s Trek will be supported by friends and family driving a motorhome and she hopes that local people will walk with her and offer places for parking.
Tracey, who is self-funding the challenge, has chosen a number of charities to benefit form the walk, including the Beatson Cancer Charity, Marie Curie and Braintrust. Her sister-in-law, who is being treated for breast cancer, has also chosen Breast Cancer Now and CoppaFeel.
You can keep track of the walk on Facebook by searching for “TraceysTrek” and on Instagram @traceystrekuk. She welcomes donations to the fundraiser.
