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.