Gem's Totally Sole-less

Welcome to Spring! The weather over the last week has been fantastic and the story was very much the same Sunday. This week the team had planned a walk in the afternoon due to Gubbs' running commitments in the morning. It was going to be a one way adventure through stage 3 and 4 of the Trailwalker course.

Gubbs in the Eastleigh 10k in the morning*

The morning started off with Gubbs lining up for the Eastleigh 10k alongside Iwan Thomas (when we say lined up, he was also in the same crowd of 2,500 runners). Gem, Jo and support team members Stewart, Peter & Tracy all turned up to provide Gubbs with some support from the sides, which I'm sure they would argue was just as much effort as the running given the shouting, waving and clapping involved. Gubbs would argue different...

After a decent run in the strengthening heat of the morning's sun there was time for a quick shower and lunch before meeting Julie at Houghton Viewing Point at the top of Houghton hill, from which we would leave one car, and drive to checkpoint 3, Cocking.

For future reference, while attempting to get instructions on how to get to Houghton Viewing Point, be careful what web sites you access on your work computer from the Google search listings. For one of the top options, which was accidentally selected, highlighted that this viewing point is also a hotspot for gay cruising. With work laptop browser history deleted, we met Julie at 2pm, who then drove us through the windy country roads back to Cocking.

Gem & Gubbs have walked Stage Three in the snow back in early February, and so although it was the same route, it was good to see it looking a little more like it will in July.  For Jo & Julie this was a first time of seeing this part of the route. The course starts by going up a decent sized incline but when at the top it levels out and although there are some ups and downs they are quite gentle.

With the sun beating down on us at the beginning it was good to get in the shady woodland which stayed with us, at least one the right side (South), for most of this first section. For July this would be a good stage if you get a sudden urge for a 'tinkle'.

Rapeseed field at the end of Stage 3

We reached the end of Stage 3 walking through a field of rapeseed, which will turn to a field of yellow in the summer. Further on through that we reached a grassy field which will become a check point in a little under four months time. Here we took some time to stretch, take in the scenery and most importantly eat some of Julie's now famous flapjack.

Once we started again we descended down the hill to the busy road which we crossed to the path opposite. On entering this path we were met with a foul smell which stopped us mid conversation. This wasn't a pleasant experience. It looked like there was a trench filled of all kinds of nasty smelling things with a sign on the fence saying "Warning: Keep Out". Don't you worry we made our way away from there as fast as we could, up a new incline.

Something we have found on our training walks so far on the South Downs is that each stage has it's own character, and Stage 4 was again different to Stage 3.  This was more open and also threw in a few more ups and downs. This stage also had more loose chalky tracks which were not the nicest underfoot.

That's a funny way to hold your poles Gem

It was along this stage that Gem realised that she hadn't put the inner soles back in her boots! To explain; when buying new boots a couple of weeks ago she also brought a pair of Superfeet Green Innersoles which she decided were so good she would wear them in every pair of shoes she wears. So at this point of the walk she remembered that these innersoles were back home in her every day shoes... oops... She will not be making the same mistake again as these paths were uneven to say the least.

Gem was navigating today. After her boast in the team profiles released last week about keeping the team on track, it was realised she hadn't actually done much of the map reading. She did a good job considering we didn't end up getting lost. Maybe some of this may be down to Jo exercising her new act of measuring distances in her stride as we walked step by step. As an example; when we were told through the instructions that a important branch in the path was 150 metres away she measured this by counting her steps which she adjudged to be a metre. We witnessed the birth of the Nugent Strider Measurement (NSM).  However, on the one occasion it was unleashed it turned out to be 30 metres off so it was given up fairly quickly.

Old Roman sign and modern white car

Part of Stage 4 covers an area which housed a Roman villa back in Roman times (it's just a guess). So when walking along here, archaeology enthusiast Julie had a keen eye out for Roman pottery. So naturally we were excited when Julie exclaimed an excited "Check this out!" after picking up an item from the floor.

...Unfortunately, to our disappointment, on this occasion it was a piece of pottery coloured plastic.

There is that saying, "every cloud has a silver lining". For us yesterday losing an hour sleep moving to Summer Time, meant gaining an hour sun at the end of the day, and this was well needed towards the end of our walk. As we made our way down towards Houghton and checkpoint 4 the ever lowering sun give a chillier feel while also providing some dramatic light against Amberley and hills on which we could see the pathways which we would take on stage five. But that wasn't for today and we worked our way back up a different incline towards the car park looking out for any cruising gentlemen.

Getting darker

We finished our walk at 7:15pm walking a total of 11.75 miles in 4 hours and 27 minutes.

As we drove back to drop Julie at her car in Cocking we were given every chance to run down a pheasant as these birds seemed to have some kind of a death wish. It was officially Pheasant Hour, so many of them wondering the roads you would be forgiven for thinking they had their own Trailwalker. In an attempt to move them on Gubbs resorted to some strobe light flashing of the headlights which did absolutely nothing but add a disco effect to their evening stroll. 

So that was our Sunday. We hope you enjoyed the read, but before you go, there is just one more thing for us to tell you...

The Hardcore Four Trailwalker Pub Quiz is open for bookings!

The details are as follows:

Date: Sunday 27th May 2012

Time: 4:00 pm 

Location: The Queen's Head, Fisher's Pond, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 7HF

Entry Fee: £5 per person (Teams of 5 please)

Prize: £50 in cash!

Please get in contact through our media outlets (Twitter or Facebook) or if you do not have either accounts please try our newly created email address: HardcoreFour2012@gmail.com

Or if you know any of the team members well - send us a text or give us a call and we'll book you in.

Please be aware there is limited space so get in touch as soon as you can!

*Picture courtesy of Paul Hammond of Eastleigh Running Club (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hammy8241/sets/72157629303445152/)