Nabeel is a GP and clinical leader in Doncaster who walked over 300 miles in the month of March 2021 for ‘Walk all over Cancer’. He talks about his unexpected injury just before the Covid pandemic, his motivations to walk more and the challenges he faced along the way
On the 1st December 2019 I was enjoying a rare jaunt into the Peaks, walking down the famous Mam Tor hill, when I heard a sudden, painful snap in my right knee. I ended up being stretchered down by Edale Mountain Rescue Team for the last part of the walk and a week later had my newly broken kneecap surgically repaired.
Early recovery stalled between April and November 2020 (I’m sure you can guess why!) but a renewed commitment to my exercises and a drive to get back to sport at some point in 2021 had also really started to bear fruit in terms of much-needed progress by the time Walk All Over Cancer came up.
Almost a million steps takes you a long way around Doncaster (March 2021)
Walk All Over Cancer 2017
I had previously taken part in ‘Walk All Over Cancer’ in the summer of 2017 with a group from Doncaster Clinical Commissioning group, where I work 2 days per week. I had been playing indoor football and squash at least 5 times a week back then, and most of my steps were playing sport or walking to the leisure centre. I am generally pretty laid-back but a switch flipped that month and what started out as a fun attempt to win one of the weeks, against some slightly more competitive people, escalated into getting the most steps over that month!
Coronavirus and into 2021
In the absence of any sport and the ongoing Covid restrictions, I felt a physical challenge was just what I needed and 10,000 steps a day through March seemed both a good starter and sensible test of my improving knee. I have a very sedentary, yet busy job, and from my 2017 Walk All Over Cancer experience I knew that my surgery days would be the hardest ones to hit 10,000 steps on so when the first day was a clinical day, I knew what had to be done…
This turned out to be the right call, as the 2200 steps I picked up in 20 mins was pretty much double the haul from the 10.5 hours that followed in the practice; showing just how sedentary being a GP can be. It was also easier psychologically to start the post-work walk on a decent chunk of steps rather than from scratch; on that first evening I ended up passing 16,000 steps.
Through the course of the month, I would get to the surgery earlier and earlier and started adding to laps of the local estate with more adventurous ones in my walking boots, alongside the odd lunchtime escape. I think the walks helped get me into the right mindset for the day ahead, and then more importantly, mentally and emotionally check out once the day’s work was done.
Other things to keep up my activity levels whilst working were watching webinars on the move on my phone with my headphones in, asking people if they were OK with an outdoors phone call for a 1:1 rather than a video call, and doing the occasional walking meeting if it worked for the other person as well. It’s important to pick the right spots for these meetings, both in terms of who/when and especially where, as you don’t want to be in a busy place bumping into people or being bumped into by cars!
After a week I noticed that I had managed at least 15,000 steps each day (6.75 miles for me) without having set that as a specific goal. This became my minimum target for busy days and I took advantage of more flexible days to do as many steps as I was happy with, sticking to a rule of no driving if it wasn’t a work-related journey. I have a variety of nice walks within a few miles of home so I could mix things up enough without getting in the car when a long walk was on the agenda. Wherever it was possible, I’d try and head back a different way, to keep things interesting.
I soon set my sights on beating the 567,000 steps I’d done in 2017. Storming to that target with 5 days to spare I started picking various round number milestones; on the final morning I hit 300 miles and I finished off the month paying homage to 2017 by walking to the same takeaway to round things off!
This challenge gave me a real sense of purpose and achievement and it took me to lots of areas really close to home that I’d either never been to or didn’t know that well. I don’t think I’ve ever said “hello” to quite so many strangers without introducing myself as Dr Alsindi and asking them to tell me why they’ve made an appointment today! It also definitely helped both physically and psychologically with this phase of my knee rehabilitation. The increased walking accelerated the rate that I’ve been losing weight; an additional bonus of walking a lot in the evenings is that there’s much less time to snack!
I always try to be an advocate for Doncaster, despite it’s unfashionable reputation :-( and I’m really proud that all my 716,561 steps / 311.3 miles were in the place I first called home over 20 years ago now but which I know a lot better now.
Finally, I wanted to thank those that donated over £800 to Cancer Research UK through supporting me, in total fundraisers raised a phenomenal £8.5 million through Walk All Over Cancer.
Nabeel Alsindi, April 2021