Firstly - I'm not sure whether we wrote on our blog that our start time for Trailwalker is 8.30am, which we found out a while back. Good time :-)
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Secondly - Our first whole team photo (minus support crew!)...
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Thirdly - Details of our weekend exploits...
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This weekend we all headed down south to invade Jenni's house again (thanks Jenni and Jenni's family!) with the intentions of a training walk along the South Downs Way. We planned to do the same walk that we did before but added a couple more miles at the start. It was meant as a kind of 'dress rehearsal'. We had our support crew with us and 4 checkpoints along the route. We started around about Steyning, then met out support crew at checkpoints at Devil's Dyke, Ditchling Beacon, the one by the wall with the tap, and finally at the end in Southease. It was also the first time we'd walked together with all 4 of us as a team. Big weekend!
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So we approached the weekend with good intentions.
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But then it all started to go a bit wrong.
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Saturday saw Andy waking up feeling ill. Not good. But we all set off anyway and started the walk as a 4. But after a couple of miles we had to lose Andy and half of our support crew (Jenni!) rescued him and took him home.
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The 3 of us carried on to our first checkpoint at Devil's Dyke and met the remaining half of the support crew (mum!). By this point we were feeling pretty hungry. So on getting to the car we asked mum where the coolbox was. To which we were greeted with a rather blank expression and the never-good-to-hear-when-your-walking-and-hungry question of...
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"What coolbox?"
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"The one with all the sandwiches in."
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Not good. We had only managed to leave behind the coolbox with our sandwiches in. But never fear. We had remembered other munchies. Peanuts, Haribo, crisps, fruit... provided much needed sustenance instead. But mum did make a list of things NOT to forget on the day. Sandwiches are on it.
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At this point I (Robyn!) also had to switch boots. If you've read this blog you'll know I got new walking boots because my old ones really messed up my feet. Pretty much every time I walked (although I found last time that wearing 3 pairs of socks did kind of help!). But having been locked away in a dark room with only maths to keep me company for about the last 2 months I hadn't broken in the new boots. But I put them on at the start anyway, figuring that my old boots would mess up my feet so I might as well risk them being messed up by the new boots in the process of breaking them in a bit. Not good. And I forgot blister plasters. Not good. They were fine to start with but that soon stopped. The flats and downhills I could cope with, but the uphills hurt. Lots. I drew the line at taking pictures of my feet at Devil's Dyke but it wasn't pleasant. But being all brave and stupid I swapped boots, taped up my feet and set out on the second leg with my old walking boots on. But the damage had kind of already been done. I've gotten quite good at just ignoring the pain that my feet are in when we walk but I couldn't keep up with Diana and Steve on the uphills and it got pretty depressing because I was just slowing them down. That and the combination of my back hurting meant that I stopped when we reached our second checkpoint at Ditchling Beacon.
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But Diana and Steve stocked up on Haribo and set off on the third leg and I navigated mum to the third checkpoint - the one by the wall with the tap. Mum left the car and walked to meet Diana and Steve and this is the three of them approaching...
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...seeing a support crew member walking towards you is definitely a nice feeling. And aiming just for the next checkpoint and not thinking about having to get all the way to the end seems to be the right mental attitude. By this point even Steve admitted that his legs were starting to hurt. Much to Diana's relief!
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But after more Haribo, they set off on the last leg. I navigated mum to the end at Southease station and via a very nice pub in Kingston where we stopped for an hour for a drink and some crisps - oh to be on the support crew, hehe! The last leg took a while but not being beaten the guys even managed a sprint finish! All in all they did about 27 miles in 8.5 hours. Pretty good going.
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And the title of most completely insane team member goes to Steve who, after doing the 27 mile walk, then got up at some stupidly early hour the next morning to drive back to Bristol so that he could take part in a 50 mile bike ride. Crazy!
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But in conclusion... it was a very useful weekend. We learned lots.
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And dress rehearsals are always meant to go wrong anyway... right?
