Walking On, Walking On Broken Sunglasses

The Hardcore Four with added sun.

We were given the good news this week that we had reached 19th in the top 20 teams on the Trailwalker fundraising leaderboard. There are well over 500 teams competing so we were really pleased to see our name up there.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who has sponsored us, or played in our pub quiz, you are all great people!

If you haven't sponsored us but would like to, there is still time. You can reach our fundraising page using the button on the top right of the web page (not shown on mobile), or you can use this link.

This week we planned to hike between checkpoint 2 (Hilltop Farm) and checkpoint 6 (Botolphs). Support team Gem & Anna were going to look after us for the second time, on the three checkpoints in between. So we all met in Cocking Hill car park at 8am.

Opps, those sunglasses won't last long.

The sun was out and so everyone decided to get their sunglasses on as we were getting ready. Unfortunately for Gubbs he found that his sunglasses had broken with one of the arms missing. Cue a walk with unprotected eyes squinting all day - great!

We set off on the way to Littleton Farm on stage three and the discussion turned to breakfast. Julie had the best breakfast for long lasting energy of the team; a banana and porridge. Gubbs had a bowl of bran flakes, Josh had a bowl of THREE Weetabix, and Jo had Belvita Breakfast biscuits, which the rest of us all suggested was not enough for a walking breakfast!

Erm...where's the path?

While we walked along we spotted a number of marathon mile markers and arrows pointing towards the start of our journey. We hadn't seen any runners yet so we presumed that the race may not have started yet. As we neared the end we had a call from Gem to say they had gathered a crowd to clap us in to the checkpoint! The checkpoint on the day, which is a field usually closed to cars, was open for a marathon relay checkpoint.

Prior to getting there we had to cross a field of rapeseed though and this is where the path closed in on us.

Ready for a run Anna?

The weather, although sunny and very clear, was also very windy in the exposed sections of the course.  We spotted a downed tree on the route and we were worried we may fly off in some gusts of wind.

At the checkpoint Gem and Anna were telling us that they started stretching when people were looking at them wondering where their runner is!

We set off on stage four towards Houghton, where instead of meeting Gem & Anna at the checkpoint we'd meet them nearer Amberley for a rest up on the edge of a field.

Do they know something we don't??

In this section we came into contact with a number of the marathon runners. Many friendly folk who were saying/shouting/wheezing 'Morning' to us as we walked by. With so many running past Gubbs mentioned that he was reminded of a Monty Python scene.

We left the runners at the Roman Villa path and carried on towards Houghton, with Josh informing us all that today he was wearing his thermals rather than the PJ bottoms of last week, under his hiking trousers, after a rummage in the loft. We wouldn't want him feeling too comfy in the later stages of Trailwalker.

We met Gem & Anna for lunch where a variety of foods came out and so did Gem & Anna's nice and refreshing slices of orange, as well as some chocolate fingers! What a treat!

After a 25 minute break, with the support team shouting at us with every 5 minutes that had passed, we got up and set off again on to stage 5 to Washington.

We had the full force of the wind up at the top of the hills as we were at maximum exposure, but the views were clear and great.

Towards the end of the stage you reach a fork where you can carry straight on towards the A24 or go off towards the left which will take you to Washington avoiding the A24. The team had not walked this section before with Gubbs walking it with Gem and fellow support team members Tracy & Peter back in February, and Jo & Julie with Support Crew Jeff in April, so there was some debate over the correct path here as in the instructions it says to avoid the A24. We headed straight though as the checkpoint is just prior to the A24 so we believe the instruction is to stop people skipping the checkpoint and taking a short cut.

Today though, to add to the confusion, we did cross the A24 to the small car park where Gem & Anna were waiting, as we walked up to the car park they put on the car stereo with some selected tunes for the team.

Our top support team for the day

As we bopped our heads along to Tom Jones and Michael Jackson we were also offered a surprise treat by the support team, YumYums and Almond Twists from a bakery they had visited earlier in the day.

Morale was high and one stage to go for the day!

We crossed the A24 again back towards the checkpoint and followed the path to the posh boarding school mentioned in last week's blog.

We climbed the path to Chanctonbury Hill which seemed to last forever on this day and when we reached the top the wind was up again as we actually had to fight it to stay in a straight line. Luckily for most of the way it was behind us.

By Chanctonbury Ring we spotted a bike pannier sitting on the path. We weren't too surprised that it's owner hadn't notice it fall off as the wind would shield any noise. A little further along the path we saw a cyclist on the path coming towards us with one pannier...a-ha...

He asked us if we saw his missing pannier and of course we pointed him towards it for which he was very grateful and we were pleased to see it reunited with it's owner!

Lambs-a-leaping

The path also takes you past some fields with grazing sheep and we noticed that some of the lambs were a-leaping around. We stopped a moment for a chuckle as they jumped over one another which was very amusing. Unfortunately we did not get a photo of such behaviour, rather just of them eyeing each other up very much like a pole vaulter prior to their vault...

We walked on past the pigs of last week and the whole team found their bladders weakening by the minute! We presume it must be all the fluid taken on throughout the day. We wonder how we'll be after another 15/16 hours!

That last section seemed to take ages and we were a fair bit slower than the same stage last week, although that was the first stage of the training last week to be fair.

We completed the 27 mile walk in 10 hours and 13 minutes.

The car back to Cocking was one full of sneezing and sniffing though as the whole team, apart from a luckily (for him!) immune Gubbs, had fits of hay fever! Must remember to take the anti-histamines earlier in the day next time!