Christmas Training!

Over Christmas Robyn and I decided it would be a good idea to get some training in. Not only did this start our preparation for Trailwalker but it also allowed us to eat as much Christmas dinner, mince pies, homemade ice cream and chocolate as we wanted without feeling bad about it!!!!!

We started with a very relaxing 5 mile walk that followed a cycle route through the Wyre Forest on a beautiful sunny but slightly misty day- weather that provided some amazing photography opportunities- as demonstrated below:

The next day (Christmas Eve), we thought it would be a clever idea to go to the Malverns, not just to walk a short distance but to walk over all the peaks from Worcestershire Beacon to Herefordshire Beacon and back again (about 12 miles)…. The first challenge is just getting up onto the Malverns from the car park- no time for warming up- just straight up the steepest, longest hill! When we got to the top we weren’t about to start cutting corners so rather than heading for our start point at Worcestershire Beacon we walked up North Hill and then on to Worcestershire Beacon. Robyn decided it would be a great idea to have a photo of us at the top of every hill. This was fun for about the first three… but by the 8th we were fed up of us looking windswept and we’d kind of lost count of how many peaks we’d got to as well!!!! Somewhere close to Herefordshire Beacon we were feeling pretty tired and our walking boots had decided to start attacking our feet. We got to the top of Herefordshire Beacon and then decided that the return trip to the car park would be around the hills rather than over the top of them to try and save our feet! It was a wonderful walk and great exercise but we learnt a valuable lesson- blister plasters must be applied before walking and an investment in a truck load of them now wouldn’t be a bad idea!!!!!

Christmas Day- no walking today we were in too much pain and needed to recover!

Boxing Day- Another lovely sunny day! We decided to walk south along the canal from Tardebigge. We packed our incredibly amazing ‘Christmas Dinner Left-over Sandwiches’, made by Robyn (an expert in such sandwich making), complete with duck, roast potato, stuffing and sausages, and set off along the canal. We had every intention of going so far and then turning back to Tardebigge but…. we got a little carried away… Neither of us really felt like returning along the same route so instead (and without really thinking this through), we chose to walk ALL the way to Worcester (about 18-20 miles)! The idea being that we could then get a train back to Bromsgrove. We made it to Worcester, although the last couple of miles were done in the dark. Just as we were wandering around trying to find the station we got a phone call from one member of the support crew (our mum), who offered to drive to Worcester and pick us up. We were very grateful (since it was Boxing Day and we hadn’t really thought through the whole train thing and whether they would even be running)- but also thought that it’s good for the support crew to get some practice as well! This allowed us to have a much needed rest in a pub!!