Lidia's Inspiring Hiking Story
Lidia has always loved hiking, with her exploring different countries. Getting injured is always hard to deal with, but is even worse when it stops you from doing the things you love. However, Lidia didn’t give up and was able to achieve her goal of successfully completing her 5 day hiking adventure in the Dolomites this summer. This is an amazing achievement and it shows what we can do with perserverance and determination.
Read below about Lidia’s story about her recovery journey:
‘One of my favourite activities is hiking in the mountains and over the years I’ve done many multi-day treks staying at high elevations in huts or ‘rifugi’ in the Italian Alps, South Island of New Zealand, descending and ascending the Grand Canyon camping over overnight, trekking in Nepal and even climbing Kilimanjaro in 2023, as well day long hikes in Scotland, the Lake District, or wherever I find myself in the world with mountains nearby!
In late 2024 I was devastated to have a recurrence of my right hip tendinopathy injury knowing we were planning another multi-day trip to the Italian Dolomites in Summer 2025. By early January it got worse and I was limping and could barely walk without pain. However, by diligently doing my glute, core and quad strengthening exercises every day along with treatment from Paul and Roisin by April I was walking normally again and could do short hikes without pain. It takes a long time to recover from tendinitis injuries – so one has to dig dip, be patient and keep doing your exercises. Â
Gradually Paul and Roisin updated my recovery exercises so I’d be able to carry a 10 kg rucksack while hiking for 5 days. And in my shorter training walks I gradually built up weight in my rucksack. And all the hard work paid off. At the end of August with five other friends and my husband we spent 5 days hiking around the Tofanes group to the west of Cortina in the Italian Dolomites-walking 45 km, from hut to hut and climbing almost 4000m. Great hikes with wonderful scenery and the highlights were doing the vie ferrate where you clip into iron wires, or use fixed ladders to assist you walk along quite exposed paths (level 1-2) or be more adventurous and rock climb vertical cliffs (level 3 and above) as we did on our last day when went to the top of Col Rosa ascending 700m on a zig-zag trail in the forest to emerge with a 300m ‘rock climb’ ahead of us to get the summit. The views over Cortina and of the surrounding peaks were stunning. A fantastic holiday.’
Lidia Lonergan
Client at BLH
