Oww...

Hello!!! My presence on our lovely blog has been lacking of late and I'm feeling guilty. The truth is it's hard to keep motivated and keep the momentum going, especially when the other members of the team are all in Bristol :-( And with general end of term busy-ness my training slipped which isn't good. I fear the same thing may happen again what with lots of big exams coming up but I can't really let it. Training must continue. So encourage me. I need it. Like Jenni said in her post below - if you see me, tell me I should be running. I may shout at you. But when I go to sleep on July 20th having completed Trailwalker I'll be thankful :-)

Now, on to the main point of this post. Last Friday saw me driving from Coventry and Diana driving from Bristol to meet Jenni for our first training walk along the South Downs Way on Saturday. Andy unfortunately couldn't make it - he was meant to be revising for accountancy exams. Sounds exciting, hehe, hope they go well! Jenni planned a route that finished in Southease and started somewhere that I can't remember the name of, near Steyning. We're not sure of the exact distance (yet), at least 20 miles though.

We had a bit of a reality check the night before about what pace we needed to be walking at. So we set out at a fairly quick pace, even running down some of the downhills. Weirdly, running was a break from walking. Which sounds odd I know, but strangely true. The weather wasn't too bad for most of the walk. Sunny to start with but really really windy along the tops of the hills. And it rained quite a bit near the end too. On the plus side, the South Downs Way is a nice walk. It was quite busy on Saturday too. A lot of (insane) people running along it, some horseriders, some cyclists and other walkers. We wondered how many other Trailwalker people there were. Definitely one group who greeted us with "Are you Gurkha walkers?". And although I took my camera, I was concentrating more on the walking than on the photo taking, so I only got 3 photos and two of them were at the start! But I'll share them here anyway...

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We set ourselves a target time of 5 hours, which gradually got lengthened as our walk continued. It ended up taking us 8 hours altogether, of pretty much non-stop walking. We didn't even stop to eat, we had to eat and walk at the same time (not easy when you have a coronation chicken sandwich and hair blowing in your face!).

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It's weird the different emotions you go through too. At the start it's all good, feeling positive and enthusiastic. But it can really start to drag. You start to wonder if you're ever going to get there and at the end the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I had no choice, I had to get back to the car. I had never been so pleased to see Diana's car either that's for sure! I think a lot of it is to do with preparing mentally for it. Having the stamina to keep going and the will-power. I would quite gladly have stopped at about 10 miles! But hopefully that will improve with more training. It better, since Trailwalker involves us doing three times what we did on Saturday.

As for the 'Oww' title, walking 20 miles non-stop hurts. We moaned. We talked about what didn't hurt instead of what did because there were fewer things to list. I moaned some more. I realised I need new walking boots since my current ones attacked my feet, again. And today everything still hurts. More training is definitely needed, although a few days to recover is definitely needed first.

Training a la francaise

(How annoying that I can't work out how to put accents on titles.)

Anyway, I have just returned from the land of many cheeses and thought I would blog about the training I've been up to! Last Saturday my dad was very keen to go for a family walk and picked a 15km circular trip starting from a village 5.5 miles away from our own. Whilst my family do enjoy walking, I didn't think they'd be too pleased if I tried to set off at Trailwalker pace - so I said I'd meet them in an hour and a half and struck off on my own from home to walk to our starting point.

I wasn't sure to be delighted or annoyed to tick off another weather condition experienced whilst training when it began to hail on me a mile from home. I settled for delighted as it made me feel chirpier, though it did sting rather! My walk was all along country roads and French drivers looked repeatedly shocked to have to be avoiding a pedestrian, as they do drive slightly madly if they know the area. It definitely kept me alert though and I only had to jump into a ditch once, so I was reasonably happy!

My dog sensors were on full alert, but I gradually stopped leaping for cover everytime one started barking at me - partly because every other house seemed to have a canine guardian and partly because I trust the French more to have them locked up near a busy road! I was beginning to relax and get into my stride as I passed through the village that marked my halfway point - even more pleased when I discovered it had only taken me 45 minutes to cover 3.5 miles over some mildly hilly ground. I eventually arrived at the arranged meeting point an hour and 25 minutes after setting off - not too bad for a 5.5 mile walk.

Mum, Dad and Siobhan joined me after a bit and unfortunately brought the forecast sleet showers with them. I had added a new French phrase to my vocabulary the night before in listening to the meteo on the radio - the French have 'giboulees de mars' (March sleet) rather than April showers, and that was certainly representative of the weather that day! Mum's recovering from a knee operation, so we proceeded at a more stately pace. I was pretty much ecstatic when we came across what from a distance we had taken for a donkey but which turned out to be a French llama! I think we should start a llama log on the blog.

We took a wrong turn and as the weather was inclement decided to shorten the expedition to 7 miles instead of the proposed 11. Muddiness underfoot was the only slight annoyance, but I was quite pleased to have walked 12 miles to keep my hand (foot?) in. I also went for a jog the next day and I think (hope) I'm getting better at running.

This weekend, bigger challenges await, as we are hoping to assemble the team together for our first walk (a) as all 4 of us and (b) on the South Downs Way, where Trailwalker itself will take place. As I type I'm plotting a 20ish mile route for us - I really really hope I can manage it. I'm finding motivating myself to train hard at times and have decided that when I return to Bristol I'm definitely going to have to do more than I have been - life rather overtook me in the last few weeks and training fell down the priority ladder! If you see me, tell me I should be running...

Randoms...

Just noticed an article on the BBC website about Gurkha soldiers; it had some interesting info on the inequalities they experience. It seems even more worthwhile that half our sponsorship will go to their welfare and that of their communities in Nepal!

Also, I found an article in the Bristol Evening Post about the Hearts First Jog that Diana and I did. In the paper, we'd even made it into one of the photos - but thankfully only as distant blobs!

I'm off to France for a week tomorrow - but never fear, I'm taking my running shoes and (new) walking boots. Training will go on, no matter which country I end up in! Hope all of you have a happy Easter :)

Llamas, Chocolate and Exeter

Hello!

Just to add a bit to what Jenni said about last Saturday's training, after Jenni had left us Andy and I came across a Llama! Not exactly what we were expecting in the countryside around Bristol as you can see from Andy's face (he's the one on the left...).



Yesterday we had a break from training and instead went to Exeter with our friends Dave and Heather. They were obviously a really bad influence as just look at the size of those hot chocolates!!! However, they were incredibly good hot chocolates and I think we all deserved them after trudging around in the rain.


Don't worry though, training is resuming again this week as Jenni and I get our running back under way.

That's all for now but please sponsor and encourage us and we'll attempt to keep you entertained with embarassing photos and stories of training!

Fundraising and fun running

Team Aching has had a busy weekend of both training and raising some much needed cash to boost our cause! On Saturday, Andy, Diana and I went for another attempt at the Bristol 3 Peaks trail in utterly foul weather - wind, rain and cold. Unfortunately I only made it about 7 miles round as I felt really sick - after throwing up twice (lovely) I decided I'd better call it a day and retreated to a pub while Diana and Andy walked some more. They didn't finish either (largely I think because they felt sorry for me on my lonesome in the George and Dragon with the rugby and drunken men - sorry guys) so we'll have to have another go at some point. It's fairly similar terrain to the South Downs so very good practice.

Anyway, on to more upbeat things - on Sunday, lots of stuff happened! Andy helped to mastermind a very successful cake sale at Victoria Methodist Church, raising £61.13 towards our total (see the updated widget on the right - 16%, hooray!) so thank you to everyone who contributed to that, either by helping or making or buying cakes - much appreciated!

Whilst he was toiling away over a hot coffee pot, Diana and I were also getting hot and sweaty - by participating in the BHF Ashton Court 5k jog. Despite the hideous forecast, it was actually beautiful weather, although very very muddy. At times, for every pace forward, it felt as though you slid half one back! After a rather energetic warm up, we lined up at the start line with those who wanted to run and were nearly deafened by a fog horn signalling to us to get going. The first part was through very long grass which meant quite hard work, high stepping to avoid tripping up. The majority of the event was also uphill so I soon found I couldn't run it all. Diana sped off (with my blessing) though and I was very impressed to hear she'd managed to jog all but 100 yards. I really tried to push myself even though I was walking some of it and despite one scary moment when I feared I was coming in last (everyone else just turned out to be behind a hill!) I was reasonably happy with my time of 46 minutes. Diana achieved 38 minutes which I thought was great! On finishing we were each given a medal (somewhat to Andy's derision) and a bag of nice freebies which was rather good! There are event photos here - if you require proof of our participation, feel free to search our names and laugh at how dishevelled we look... (I look about 106 in ALL of them.)

Next Sunday Diana and I are running the Sport Relief 3 miles which I'm rather looking forward to. I'm hoping for a time of under 40 minutes and I think Diana's aiming for under 30 - cross your fingers for us!

And finally whilst all of this was happening, I believe Robyn was busy being baptised - so congratulations! Hope you had a very happy day :) All in all, not a bad Sunday.

a brief follow up post..

...to add to Diana's more detailed one below. I just wanted to dance about with pride in actually discovering I'm not totally useless at map reading! I have never been more proud than when I worked out we were actually on the A37 rather than the B3130 yesterday - it even made me not mind that we had to walk a mile back on ourselves :)

And to add to the vital statistics:

Danish pastries consumed by me: 1
Blister count: 4
Number of planes spotted: 22ish (I should inform you Diana was excited by every single one)
Number of peaks achieved: 1
Dogs we trembled at for no reason: 5
Steps: 30 000
Wrong turns: 3
Times I wished I was somewhere else: 0. (or maybe 0.5 - I had a moment of wishing I was on the moon when the border collie appeared!)

Yesterday was great, all in all!

Peaks, Planes, Ponies, Paddling and Pain

Yep, Jenni's got me started on the whole iteration thing (or whatever the word for it is) and we decided there were a lot of P's in yesterday's walk!

We (Jenni and I) attempted the three peaks challenge... although it involved three slightly different peaks to the ones usually associated with such a challenge (for starters we stayed in Bristol rather than venture all the way to Yorkshire). The route we started following was a 17 mile circular trail that goes around Pensford, Clutton and Chew Magna and should have included the ‘peaks’ Maes Knoll, Knowle Hill and Blackberry Hill. After another early start we headed to Chew Magna where we left the car. We had a leaflet describing the walk as well as an OS map and compass... however, we still had a few... issues. We found the lane we had to start on and the first stile which took us into the first field. After happily following the very obvious path we landed up in the middle of a huge field. The leaflet said cross the field so we did (by going around the edge, to make sure we didn't ruin any crops or miss the next stile). Unfortunately, it was only after walking for about 10 minutes that we decided something didn't feel quite right and that perhaps we should use the compass to check we were at least pointing in the right direction. It turns out we weren't- in fact we couldn't have been more wrong! Instead of heading North we were heading South... ooooops!!!! We quickly retraced our steps around the field and headed back down the path (passing a pony on the way). We managed to find the stile we were supposed to have gone over the first time and eventually we were on our way again. This stile led us into a very muddy field and by the time we reached the other side we were both about 3 stone heavier from the amount of mud stuck to our boots!

Unfortunately it wasn't long before we were 'directionally challenged' again! We spent about 10 minutes wandering around the next field trying to find the 'plank bridge'. It turned out that it was made of concrete and disguised by a load of mud! Meanwhile...

Much to my amusement, throughout the whole walk planes had been coming in to land at Bristol airport and I used this to keep Jenni very entertained with shouts of 'oooh a plane'. I'm not sure she was quite as excited as I was though. But, if you ever have enough money I definitely recommend a flying lesson and then maybe you'll understand my plane craziness. There's an even more exciting plane story coming up.... (I bet you can't wait!!!). We reached the first peak Maes Knoll without too many incidents or getting lost. It's a man made fort type thing and there was a very nice view from the top. You can just see the Clifton Suspension Bridge if you look carefully: As we started walking away from the hill a dog appeared out of no where and scared the life out of us. After our adventures last weekend with the crazy dog we were a bit startled (actually, my heart was pounding, my legs turned to jelly and we decided we should both sit down and eat lunch before either one of us had a premature heart attack). Thankfully this dog was really very friendly and didn't try to eat us.

We found a bench to sit on for lunch and sat back admiring the view... I couldn't believe what I saw as I looked out over the countryside.... a PLANE!!! It was a light aircraft just sat in the middle of a field. I shouted 'plane', and even though I think Jenni had probably had enough of my plane antics, she was kind enough to look and even she was impressed this time! A runway had been made crossing over several fields and was obviously being used as a private airfield (there is a plane in this photo if you look carefully): What got even more exciting (it was exciting for me) was that the walk actually crossed the middle of the runway... Ok, I better stop boring everyone with plane stories and get on with it... you'll be pleased to hear there aren't any more!

At lunchtime Jenni had confessed that her brain was attempting to leave her head and was causing quite a lot of pain in doing so. So we decided we'd cut the walk short and head back towards Chew Magna by the most direct route which meant following another trail called the 'Two Rivers'. We reached Pensford ok but then I, who seemed fairly able to navigate through fields, managed to put us on totally the wrong road, heading in completely the wrong direction! Thankfully Jenni sorted us out and we eventually got back onto the correct track. This meant going under the Pensford Viaduct which was quite impressive: On the way back we saw some lambs (awwww) and a pony...
Despite me managing to get us lost on roads a second time we eventually got back to Chew Magna and had a well earnt piece of incredibly good chcolate cake. It turns out that with all our diversions we walked about 11.25 miles (30 000 steps). I think we've now learnt that I should definitely stick to getting us across fields, woods or anything that's not tarmac and let someone else handle the road navigation!!!! We're hoping to complete the 17 mile circular route next weekend possibly with the addition of Andy and a friend of Jenni's, so watch this space (and I promise there won't be any more plane stories)!!!