When the Saints go marching in...

... we go marching out!

Today Southampton FC won promotion back to the Premier League with a convincing 4-0 victory over Coventry.

While they were doing that... we were out training, in the wind and rain! More specifically, Gelly & Sam were out training in the wind and rain... I was at home supervising the plumber. Gelly wanted to do some hill training and suggested repeating the night walk route twice to make up 21 miles. We hatched a plan that Gelly and Sam would start off and do the first loop while I stayed at home to wait for the plumber to finish, then I would drive out and meet them for the second loop.

In reality it worked pretty well: Gelly got her hill training and I got to stay indoors until the worst of the rain had passed through!

After all the rain in recent weeks the tracks were like quagmires in places. This definitely slowed us down a bit and we really hope it's drier on the actual day as that will make such a big difference.

Due to doing the double loop and taking some detours to avoid the worst of the 'puddles' our route looks a bit odd, but here it is anyway.

Halfway There

We have now raised just over £1000 towards our pledge of £2000. Thank you to everybody who has helped to make this happen.

Streets of London

Last week's blisters have still not properly healed so we had a weekend off training this week. However, we still did end up walking quite a few miles around London as we went up there for a visit to the Natural History Museum and the musical Ghost in the evening.

Today we went to Cotswold Outdoors in Hedge End so that I could get some advice on shoes/boots for my narrow feet. After about half an hour of conversation and trying on I bought a pair of Salomon Sector Mid GTX boots which are much narrower at the heel than my Merrells, so they should hold my heels more firmly and prevent the blisters which I keep getting on the inside edges of both heels.

The last thing to mention today is the weather. We have been spoiled the last couple of months with very dry weather so the tracks and paths have been easy to walk on. Today it has not stopped raining all day and everywhere is drenched. The mud will definitely be back!

Multiple Possible Titles

I couldn't decide on a title for this blog post, so I've been creative.

The first possible title is 'Marathon' because today we walked just over 26miles, which is the marathon distance (to any purists... yes I know we were a few yards short of the official marathon distance... I can live with that). We did it in 7 hours and 32 minutes of walking, this is faster than some people complete an actual marathon so we're fairly happy with that. We walked from near Checkpoint 4 (Houghton) to two thirds of the way along Section 6 and back again, the route is here.

The next possible title is 'Cow Belles' because there were several cow incidents on route today. Firstly, as we joined the proper Trailwalker route at Checkpoint 4, we had to go through a field full of young cows and they were obviously expecting things of us because as soon as we entered the field they were after us. I wasn't happy, despite Sam's reassurances... I'm not a fan of big, unpredictable animals because they can do damage. So we whipped through that field as fast as my little legs would go. Not long after this we came across a tiny calf which had escaped from its field and was looking a little lost. Sam has some farm animal experience so we briefly entertained the notion of trying to get it back in, but it wouldn't let us approach, we didn't want to frighten it and we were on a schedule so we left it and went on our way.

The third possible title is 'It's All About The Feet' because, for the first time, today we realised the truth of this. Neither of us were particularly worn out mentally or physically by walking 26 miles but we were both suffering with blisters which really made part of the walk unpleasant. Sam was wearing different (not new,  but not recently worn) boots today and even just 8 miles in was feeling rubbing on the balls of her feet. We stopped and patched her up a bit and carried on but really for the remainder of the walk she was in pain... what a trooper! I started to develop a fresh blister on the inside of my left heel (to go with the existing one on the inside of my right heel) with about 10 miles still to go. When I looked at it at the next break, my sock was very sweaty: lesson - take spare socks, and use them! Blister tally by the end of the walk: Sam - 7 (!), some of which are huge; Becky - 2, a matching pair on the insides of my heels. I decided not to include photos of the blisters!

The fourth possible title is 'I got chills, they're multiplying!'. Any doctors reading this who can explain? When we stop walking and allow ourselves to relax we start to get really cold & shivery, even if it is quite warm. Is this our bodies doing something useful? Note to self: take blankets/warm jumpers in the car for training walks, and in the minibus for the real thing.

The final possible title is 'Early To Rise, Early To Bed'. Having got up at 06:30 for a departure of 07:30 to start walking at 08:30, we were in bed by 21:30 due to being bloody knackered.

Night Walk

Yesterday evening we did our first training walk in the dark, and the first as a full team of four now that Gelly has recovered from her broken toe. We gathered at our flat and set off about 7.45 with plenty of layers of clothing and our head torches (or in Sam's case hand-held torch).

Before we left we actually managed to take our first full team photo!

The route was an exact replica of the route we walked during the day on Friday so starting and finishing at Farley Church via a figure of eight through Parnholt Wood and Farley Mount Country Park. Walking at night didn't seem too bad, the torches generally worked well and we were only 1 minute per mile slower than walking during the day... very pleased with that.

We're each going off to work on our own training now for a while then will get together again for a full team walk, with support crew, along the first four sections of the Trailwalker Route, on Saturday 5th May.

Recce

Today we walked a 10 mile figure of eight walk around Parnholt Wood / Farley Mount area. This is the route we are planning to do with the full team tomorrow evening in the dark and we wanted to see how far it was and how muddy it was and how long it took before tackling it at night. The answers are 10.55 miles, not very and 3 hours 4 minutes (walking time). We think it is likely we will walk slower at night due to having to take a bit more care with foot placement so it will be useful, for scheduling purposes, to know how much slower.

On our second trip along the 'waist' of the figure of eight, through Parnholt Wood, we bumped into a couple of friends who we sometimes go out walking with, they were out photographing the bluebells with their niece.

Route here as always.

Oh Deer, Oh Dear

Due to the ridiculous panic-buying of fuel during the week meaning that neither of us had more than half a tank, we decided not to drive out to the trailwalker route but to do a long training walk locally, starting and finishing at home.

We are lucky to live in a small town deep in the Hampshire countryside, on the edge of both the New Forest National Park and the western end of the South Downs... what a shame not to make the most of it. We trekked out towards the east, trying out a lot of new footpaths along the way, and made our way in a wide anti-clockwise circle staying off road as much as possible, and finishing off along the towpath of the Romsey canal  to within half a mile of home.

Along the way we saw a few deer. A couple were obliging enough to pose for a photo!

The walk ended up just over 24 miles, our longest yet and also the most difficult. Both of us were suffering a bit with various minor problems and found it quite hard going. However, it was encouraging that despite the difficulties and the proximity of home (meaning we could easily have cut it short), we kept at it and walked the whole planned route, still at a good pace. This was the first real mental challenge we've faced in training and we passed!

On the plus side... the hydration kits worked very well and this time we did take enough food.

The route is here, although it hasn't quite recorded the start properly as it took a while to lock on to satellites. Yes, we did go slightly wrong again!