Born to run - not me

I read on another Trailwalker blog that running is a quick way to improve your general level of fitness. With Trailwalker being a mere two months away, I thought I’d give it a go.

So far I’ve been for two (very short) runs. It’s a bit hard on the old joints and I’ve yet to break the “I feel like I might vomit” barrier, but I’m going to persevere. The thought of some of those nasty South Downs ascents is keeping me going.

The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Walker

As our fearless leader mentioned in her previous post, some team members have been walking their legs off in a solo capacity.  I myself have been trying to do at least 3 walks to and from work in a week.  That’s 6 hours walking, which does seem pretty paltry when compared with a fast approaching weekend in July that I’m looking forward to with excitement and rising dread.  Those of you who live in London may be aware of the ark-building weather that we’ve been having lately - not pleasant, but it didn’t deter me from my planned Tuesday morning walk.  I find that walking in a wet weather puts me in an introspective mood.  I think it’s a combination of the moody greyness and that sense of being cocooned from the outside world that you get from a close fitting hood.  So, I’d like to share with you some walking induced meditations on the big issues of the day:

 

• Can a mother remain blissfully unaware for 24 years that her daughter is being held captive in her ever expanding basement?  Seems unlikely to me.
• Is Boris fit to be Mayor of London?  This is not a political forum and I wouldn’t want my opinions to be misconstrued as the opinions of my team mates or our sponsors.
• Custard tarts – why?  Inexplicable.
• Various musings on the nature of gravity that are too lengthy and mind-blowing to elucidate here.
• By doing Trailwalker, are we saving the world?  No.  But we are demonstrating COMPASSION and HUMANITY – these are not cheesy or embarrassing words.  WE ARE ALL SUPER HEROES – now that is cheesy and embarrassing.
• Is this a one way or two way street?  I’m still undecided, but feel that I should reach a conclusion on this before I fall foul of my own confusion.
• Should I be annoyed that this child has nearly bundled me off of the pavement, or pleased that she was so polite about it?  Good manners go a long way, and she was sprinting in the hope of catching a bus against all the odds.  On a side note, are you the kind of person who derives pleasure from seeing someone running for public transport, but not quite making it?  Or do you cheer in unbridled glee when you see someone sprint through the doors of the 8.11 to London Bridge in the nick of time?  I fall into the latter camp, but there’s no right answer.
• Do I really have to wade through this puddle?  Not when a flying leap will see me sailing across unscathed – I am woman hear me ROAR!
• What can I do to ensure that Mansun are preserved for posterity?  This is a public plea to you all to spare a few meg on your mp3 player for one of the cruelly ignored bands of the 90s.
• Are those my legs?  In all probability, yes.  They seem to be occupying the appropriate space in time, but I can’t actually feel them so it’s hard to tell.

 

 

All quiet on the Trailwalker preparation front?

If you’re thinking that things have gone a bit quiet on the no sleep ’til Brighton Trailwalker preparation front, you’d be both right and wrong.

On one hand, we’re having a bit of team walk mini-break, but these will resume with a vengeance in mid-May. Rumour has it that some team members have been walking their socks off during this period though.

On the other hand, all of us have been working hard at fundraising and our target is in sight. A big thank you to our sponsors so far. If you’ve been holding back, don’t be shy, now is a good time to visit our fundraising website: www.justgiving.com/nosleeptilbrighton

The ghost of Trailwalker past

Look what I found. My Trailwalker finish photo from 2003.

The photo shows Dawn, Fi and myself crossing the finish line (and cutting it fine) in about 29 hours and 12 mintues. Unfortunately, we lost a team member (Jean) along the way.

Yes - I am using the walking poles as crutches. The sunglasses are hiding tears of pain and joy of course.

Introducing…

…our new team mascot

 

We don’t know his name, but he was plucked from a casting couch over 5 other promising hopefuls.

For an appropriate contribution to the No sleep til Brighton charity fund, perhaps you could name the duck!  Let the bidding commence… 

Got my favourite (insert bit of kit here)

Walks like team walk 3 make you appreciate how important your kit is. For example, your choice of footware could be the difference between Trailwalker success or failure. However, there are one or two bits of kit that endear themselves to you for other reasons or sometimes for no reason at all. So I thought I’d share my favourite bit of kit with you.

It’s my metallic orange Life Systems whistle. I bought it for my first Trailwalker back in 2003. And am delighted to say that I’ve never had to use it. It hides away clipped inside my walking rucksack, just in case. It’s been on every single walk with me since 2003. I’m not exactly sure why it’s my favourite. It just is.

Thanks to Jack Penate for the post title. Check out “Got my favourite…” - it’s almost as lovely as my whistle.

Geek Report, Status: Muddy

A tough walk, helped only by the humour and sparkle made so apparent by the photos in Viv’s post…

Following is the Elevation profile - felt much harder than I thought it would be!
Elevation Profile

Following is the speed profile, Noticeable is the early lunch at just over the 6km mark and me suddenly, rashly sprinting for about 10Metres while holding the GPS at 12.5km!

Speed Profile

Walk Data:

Date: 29/03/2008
Start Time: 12:01
End Time: 16:15
Elapsed Time: 4:13
Total Distance: 17km
Average Speed: 4.02km/h
Total Ascent: 462m
Total Descent: 462m
Weather: Grey, cold, windy, rainy and very very muddy
Comments: Hard work for the distance, mostly because of the muddy terrain

And see this map to see the route we actually took:

Route Tracks

Team walk 3 in pictures

Muddy, wet and windy - sums up our third team walk. I thorougly enjoyed it though. Finally, we got a chance to try out our wet weather gear. Anyway, thought I’d report back in pictures.

(1) Nick and Alex get ready to ramble (2) shortly followed by another duck sighting:

(3) Don’t like the look of that sky (4) church at Radnage

(5) We stopped and had our lunch here - it was a rubbish spot (literally) (6) Nick eats exotic fruit from his superior packed lunch (7) lunchtime entertainment

(8) Kit-tastic Viv (9) mud, mud, glorious mud (10) finished - who hoo!

Team Walk 3: (Insert Humorous Route Name Here)

So I’ve been given the honour of choosing the route for Team Walk 3. Amazing really considering driving in London this weekend I managed to get Viv and I totally lost and ended up in front of an unhappy policeman who kindly directed me to the correct direction to drive down a one-way street.

Anyway, I’ve chosen what looks like an interesting route that starts in Stokenchurch and just nudges the Ridgeway. It’s slightly shorter than we were planning (as we really need to start upping the distance) but I may add a bit to it tomorrow.

Thanks to walkingworld.com for providing a great site for walkers and geeks alike, as they publish great route info along with the Memory Map file.

They call the walk: Stokenchurch - Bledlow Ridge - The Ridgeway - Stokenchurch (Walk ID: 49)

I think we could possibly create a more interesting name than that for it though - answers on a postcard (or in the comments section) please.

Anyway the route info (pre me messing with it) is:
Distance 10.00 miles
Duration 300 mins
Height gain 365m

Route map:

3D Route map:

So I’m quite excited about another walk - mostly cos I’ve been pretty lazy recently. So I’m getting psyched up, downloading some Ocean State music on my iPod and waxing up my hiking boots in preparation!

omg I’m blogging

I never thought the day would come that I would be blogging. It just sounds way to much like d*gging. Anyway, I thought I should pop my head above the parapet. I may not be an avid blogger, but I’m the geek of the group and will hence be reporting on the walking stats… (of the walks I actually manage to attend that is.)

So I’m a little late, but here is the Walk 1 “Four get lost in Bucks” Geek report:

Map Route: (Saunderton Station, around West Wycombe)

Elevation and speed profile:

Summary Data:

Date: 17/02/2008
Start Time: 09:29
End Time: 13:04
Elapsed Time: 3:33 hours
Total Distance: 14.4km
Average Speed: 4.05km
Total Ascent: 284m
Total Descent: 284m
Weather: Beautifully Sunny but cold (7degC)

When I work out why my web server is blocking mmo files I’ll publish the Memory Map Overlay files too.