The Weekend We Walked 100km Part 3

...continued from Part 2 (if you haven't read Part 2 yet, check it out here).

Off on our way out of CP9

We said our good byes to everyone for now and headed up the hill from Kingston. To keep themselves going, Julie and Jo came over all philosophical and tried to think of some inspirational quotes to keep the team going forwards.  Julie decided that our moto should now be...

'Pain is only temporary, but the achievement lasts forever'.


They shouted this back to the boys to give them an extra incentive to carry on up the big hill. Then disaster struck... Josh's other knee (the right one) gave way. He was swearing at himself. Not now, why now...

There were no more support crew checkpoints to pull out (though I doubt it even crossed his mind), and there was no way he'd turn back. It was just a case of getting through it.

Jo and Julie were in fine form (i.e. just had to keep powering on otherwise they would collapse in a heap and give up!) and were laying down some decent pace in front of Gubbs and Josh. They were getting cold when stopping so they headed on to a point where they had some shelter from the wind while they waited for the boys to catch up.

Once we were at the top of the hill we knew the worst of the stage was over and we made a good time into checkpoint 10 where we were met with a group of cheering Gurkhas supplying squash and crisps!

Josh spotted an ambulance and so went over to get his other knee bandaged up. When he returned the team downed their last energy shot of the day with a chaser of mini eggs supplied by Julie and set out on the very last stage of Trailwalker UK 2012... up another hill...

We took it nice and slow, Josh's knees allowed him to only have one gear now, but that was fine, we were going to make it to the finish before the 4pm cut off we had been warned about at the previous checkpoint.

Nearly there...

We met a couple of teams on the way in, one - the Walkie Talkies had knee injuries also so while Gubbs was Ice spraying Josh he offered it around the group. It turned out that one of this team went to school with Gem, small world ay!

At the car park at the end of the footpath part of the stage, Jo and Julie came across the sorry sight of two members of another team lying on the floor in agony.  They managed to get themselves to their feet again, but were bent in two with the pain in their knees and feet.  Jo offered them some of her pain killers, but they said they were already topped up to the max.  Julie overheard one of them mention that they wish they had brought walking poles with them.  The sight of two grown men, in agony, staggering hand in hand towards the final stage of this epic adventure brought tears to her eyes.  Julie asked the guy with no poles if he'd like to borrow one of hers to the finish.  His face lit up like a beacon and he gratefully accepted.  Jo and Julie gave guys some encouraging words and told them that they only had around another 20 minutes to walk until they reached the finish.  We didn't find out the name of this team, but we were very pleased to see them hobble across the finish line behind us a little while later.

Victory is ours!

We reached the start of the race course to much delight. This was now a time of getting the job done. As we came closer the emotion was high. Josh had a final spurt of energy to get himself closer to that finish line, which took the rest of us all by surprise. The 500m to the finish line sign had to be the best sight we had ever seen in our lives!! The bagpipes started up and so did the tears in the eyes. Jo was pleased to see that her father-in-law and his wife had made a suprise journey and were waiting at the finish line along with the rest of the support crew, friends and family

We made the line and fell into loved ones embraces. There wasn't a dry eye at that finish line.

The job was done, we had walked 100km and all we needed to do now was to walk up two steps to have some pictures taken. I think we could just about manage that!

Our finish time was 31 hours and 26 minutes. Just a shade over the 30 hours originally set, but we didn't care, it was about finishing the challenge. We didn't sleep or anything! All those hours were for walking. Minus the 4.5 hours that were spent at the checkpoints altogether, so 26 hours and 56 minutes of walking. Wow.

Julie & Jo sign the support crew up for next year.

Lots of hugs given around, popped opened a bottle of champers and then there was just one last thing to do... Eat some Gurkha curry!! Best part of the day by far! That's when we met the Blister Sisters who had come in just after us. Another team we had met prior to the event via twitter. Such a sociable event this! Then it was home to our beds via our baths.

So that's it. The last walk of the Hardcore Four that you, the reader, will have to endure.

Team with support crew
minus night support Tracy & Peter

If you have been a regular reader, thank you for sticking with us. If you are a sponsor, thank you for sponsoring, your donations have made this easier to do, believe it or not! It also goes to a great cause don't forget. Additional thanks need to go to the people who called, messaged, text and tweeted us throughout the event - that really helped, thank you.

Also thank you to Oxfam, the Gurkha Welfare Trust, the Queen's Gurkha Signals and the volunteers who made the event what it was.

But biggest thanks go to our long suffering support crew! Without you guys we would not have been able to complete it... and we would have also needed bigger backpacks.

The Weekend We Walked 100km Part 1

Well, this was it. We had been in training since the beginning of the year for this one weekend. Trailwalker weekend.

The distance doesn't look too bad like this...

It started with a trip to Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QECP) on Friday night to register for the event. Support crew Jeff and Julie met Gubbs, Jo and Josh at the park and they were joined by support crew Gem and Anna.

While on route we were already discussing the conditions that would await us on the course as we had been already made aware of the news from Trailwalker HQ that due to waterlogging, the conditions of two checkpoints (CP3 & CP4) were closed to support crew vehicles.

On arrival it was clear that the car parking at QECP had also been affected by the mud with long queues to the entrance. We decided to make our way down to the QECP visitor centre tarmac car park and walk up to the field instead.

Gem makes some friends

What' the plan Jo?

The welcome tent had a white board showing that a further checkpoint (6) was also closed to support crew now also. We rushed through registration, got our tracker tags and on to get a tasty pasta meal.

Then we were given our safety briefing, proceeded by a fantastic display by the Gurkha's marching band. They played some funky tunes too! The safety briefing had too many mentions of this being a race and participants being referred to as runners... er, yeah, not bloody likely!

Then it was off home to get some much needed sleep in our own beds rather than at the wet and muddy camp site provided. Not that it made much difference though, with most of the team not getting an ideal amount of sleep due to their excitement.

Returning to QECP on Saturday morning we were there for a 8am start with the first support crew car packed to the absolute brim. Josh's girlfriend Lucy joined Gem and first support crew Jeff and Stewart to see us off. It was an emotional moment for Gem and Gubbs with Gem having to pull out with a couple of months to go, she really wanted to be doing this with us.

The team and 1/2 the support crew

We said our last goodbyes and headed into the competitor pit where we met our Twitter friends The Red Harrows and Paul from Jon, Paul, Tom & Olly for a quick chat. It was nice to meet these guys face-to-face finally after many months of sharing tips, stories and banter.

The bagpipes set us off after a motivational speech by an officer of Queens Gurkha Signals (sorry did not catch the name), with the weather looking dry for the moment.


A moment we had been looking forward to for a long time. We walked along with The Red Harrows as the crowd entered the forest.


We knew that the first stage would not be too affected by the inevitable mud due to the number of metalled roads we'd be covering. The 8am crew were a big bunch though and it took some time before we had space to gain our normal stride.

We got through to CP1 Harting in 1 hour and 49 minutes, which was spot on with our plan. Jeff & Stewart, were in charge of support for the first few checkpoints and they kept us fed up with snacks and water, parked up next to our friends the Red Harrows.

The crowd on Beacon Hill

We set off on to stage two towards Hilltop Farm, Cocking after a 15minute break and as we did a light rain started.


We headed up Beacon hill, though this time very different from training due to the swarms of other Trailwalkers climbing at the same time. In those slippy conditions one faller could have taken out most the pack of trailing walkers!


At the top the rain got harder and the rain covers went on the bags. The paths were a lot muddier here, and were a sign of things to come. A little further along we had our first comedy faller of the day, Josh. Not satisfied with one, he managed to slip on his arse a second time in a space of 15 seconds. Poor Josh.


We walked down to the checkpoint with the rain not letting up. We could see the cars all parked at the edge of the field and it looked messy. On arrival we checked-in and found all kinds of vehicles slipping around in the mud, that's if they could even get going.

Josh and Gubbs went to one driver's aid and almost immediately regretted it when a spray of mud went up into their faces! Oh well, the driver was very pleased to get out. On to Jeff & Stewart where they had made up a makeshift shelter that did a great job of keeping us out of the rain, which was now getting heavier. Thunder sounded overhead too. This wasn't what we signed up for - the distance would be enough of a challenge on it's own thank you!


We had a tasty hot meal here for lunch and waited for the worst of the rain to pass before heading out onto stage three after a 38 minute stop.

Onwards to Littleton Farm and we reached the checkpoint after 1 hour and 50 mins. A quick stop here for a stretch, cup of tea and a toilet break before heading on to meet Jeff & Stewart by the car park on Bignor Hill due to the checkpoint being closed to support crew cars.  The rain really hammered it down as we approached too.

This was the last time we'd be seeing Stewart, who had also been a victim of a mud spraying too while helping Jeff out the second check point.

Jeff would be staying though to the next checkpoint as he was going to attempt to see us at as many checkpoints as possible.

We set off to Houghton which was another checkpoint closed to support crew and we could tell why on arrival. The puddles in the field were huge and maybe some of the muddiest paths so far.

We continued along the trail to meet new support team Gem and Anna waiting for us on High Titten, joined by Jeff. They had the car stereo on loud which was apparently being enjoyed by many of the other teams going by.

CP 4 makeshift shelter 

They even had time to make us a hot meal here with all that air guitar; a nice pasta meal to keep us carb-ed up.


Josh and Gubbs took the time to do their first sock change of the day, Jo and Julie having been more regular with their changes already. Apparently the stink under the shelter was something else, the boys didn't seem to think so...


Leaving this checkpoint we headed onto stage 5 knowing we were a bit behind our schedule. The conditions meant that plans had pretty much gone out the window.


It was just about finishing it now.

See Part 2 here...

5 Funky Llamas, 2 Hardcore 4-ers, 3 Sleeping Ponies, 2 Leaping Walkers, and a bit of climbing through some beach-side trees!

With Gubbs away at (another!) stag do, and Julie carrying out a 12 mile loop closer to home, remaining team members Josh and Jo decided to put in one last training walk, taking advantage of the 'winding down' recommended in the training guide in terms of distance. 

As both Josh and Jo suffer from hayfever, they decided a walk near the coast might be in order to avoid all of the pollen in the fields closer in-land, so they decided on a 5 mile loop at Lepe Country Park in the New Forest.  5 miles now seems like a stroll in the park compared to recent training walks (I did say we were taking advantage of the 'winding down' part!!).

On arriving at the car park next to the beach, Jo and Josh were met with a view of around 1800 yachts, sailing the Solent for the annual Round The Island boat race. This is one of the largest yacht races in the world, starting and finishing in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, so it was quite a sight to behold. The race is 63.3 miles long, coincidently almost exactly the same distance that we will be walking in Trailwalker in a few weeks time!!!

The walk route started from the car park and took us along the footpath next to the shore line. The wind was blowing quite a gail, which was good news for the sailors, but not such good news for Jo's hat which had to be removed within a few feet of starting the walk and safely placed in her rucksack for fear that it would be blown away without ever getting to experience the full trailwalker experience!

The instructions for the walk at this point gave two options, one for high tide and one for low tide. Noting that the tide was well and truly in, Jo carefully read the instructions through and instructed Josh that they should follow the footpath on to the beach and continue along here until they reached a road. It wasn't until they'd been walking for 15 minutes or so, and on noticing that the area of the beach not covered by the sea seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, that Jo realised she had been following the low tide instructions rather than the high tide intructions!! Oops! (No doubt this will get a laugh from support crew member Jeff!!).

On realising her mistake, Jo alerted Josh, but as we are coming to realise after his few team training walks so far, nothing seems to phase Josh, so rather than turn around, Josh decided that they should continue along the beach and see where they got to! This did mean that they had to climb through quite a few trees and marshy areas at some points when the shore line ran very thin, but eventually they made it to the road and headed in land in to farm land and away from the blowing wind.

The break from the wind gave Josh and Jo a chance to chat more about the up and coming trailwalker event, which seems to have snuck up ever so quickly in the last few weeks!  They talked about the food, enduring the challenge, and the effect that a few energy shots could have in the later stages of the trek!  It also gave the two team members a bit more time to get to know a bit more about each other, having only met each other once before Josh bravely stepped in to take the place of Gem in the Hardcore Four team.

The route at this point of the walk, passed a field containing some newly shawn llamas.  Jo and Josh were pleased to see that their owner had completely shaved their bodies, but had left them with some funky haircuts, obviously so they still looked cool to their llama friends in the next door field!.

Josh jumping puddle.
It was bigger than it looks in the photo! 

The route then took the two walkers through a copse which got a little boggy in places, and then further in to more fields. At this point, the pathway became very boggy and flooded and in one part was nearly impassable due to the huge puddles that covered the footpath and the surrounding field area. Jo carefully picked her way through this bit, leaping here and there to reach drier parts of land.  Josh however, decided that this obstacle needed a different approach in the form of a long running jump directly over the puddle obstructing the pathway. He went back a good 10-15 feet in preparation for his run up, ran as fast as he could and lept in to the air like a gazelle... and made it (sort of!!)!

At this point Josh and Jo were pleased to find that they were now approaching the end of the route - we could get used to these nice little 5 milers! They passed through a field of New Forest ponies with their foals, who were sleeplily laying on the grass chilling in the sunshine while their mothers kept an eye out for strange leeping walkers!

We soon found ourselves back at the car, completing the 5 miles in 1 hour 22 minutes. Now its time to bring on the real thing!!!

The Last Team Training Hike

This weekend we planned our last full team walk, dropping the mileage by almost half of last week's 31 miles. We also fancied a change of scenery after the recent weeks on the Trailwalker route, so we settled on the medieval route of the Pilgrims Trail, a route that takes walkers from Winchester to Portsmouth, and if you are really keen, on to it's final destination of Mont St Michel in Normandy.

It was a sunny, but chilly start in the car park at the foot of St. Catherine's Hill, just south of Winchester, at 7:30. We set off on our planned 16 miles walking through a valley named the Plague Pits to a crossing that took us over the M3, and then on to Twyford Down. We became quickly aware that the paths were to be wet and muddy. This was not a good day to ditch the gaiters, but ditched them we did.

This early part of the walk covered some of the same route that Jo & Julie did on their walk back in early March, where they experienced a range of all weathers. Today though we were thankful it was just sun with the occasional cloud cover.

We skirted around Hockley Golf course on to our first checkpoint destination today, Owslebury, a village that sits not only on the Pilgrim's Trail, but also the Monarch's Way (a 615 mile footpath that approximates the escape route to Shoreham taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester), and also a Roman Road that works its' way to Portchester, which we were also to walk along for some distance today. It can also boast at being the highest village in Hampshire.

Here we met support crew Gem & Anna on the lawn in front of the medieval church for some snacks and stretches. On the menu today was Gem's pecan chocolate brownies and peanut butter fudge, very tasty.

Erm...which way?

After a short break we set out again, through the grounds of the church and on to a field that was home to a motocross track. This was a navigation test, as the instructions for the route did not specify a direction and so we crossed straight over said motocross track, which involved climbing to the top of the incline. With no sign of the path at the top, Gubbs remembered that he had a map as well as the instructions, which showed the path quite clearly that we should have followed the edge of the field. Opps, so we headed to the edge and that's when we saw the Bull watching us.

He was sitting down so we felt comfort that we'd have a little notice if it had decided to take offence of our presence. Also we were right by a fence we could leap over if push came to shove...

Turns out we weren't as interesting for him as he was for us and we left the field through the electric fence in the corner. Josh decided to jump over fence not realising there was a handle to open it up without the need for such athleticism.

Watch out for the caged animal

We survived the bull run and Josh decided to tell us about the time he peed on a electric fence, unintentionally of course (well the peeing bit was intentional, the on the electric fence bit not so much). He described it as painful. Ouch.

Shortly afterwards we entered a copse that was surrounded by a large fence and gates. It looked like something from Jurassic park. Julie begged the question, what are they keeping in... We luckily didn't find out as we made it out in one piece on the other side without seeing a single T-Rex.

Hardcore Four coming in to land

We then crossed over a field which happened to have a wind sock at one end of it. Yes, that's right, in-between the crop, there was a grass airfield. Lucky for us not in use while we were crossing it.

The paths became narrower and narrower and we got the feeling that perhaps this isn't a well travelled route. With plenty of scratches we made our way through. We did get a little lost on the way to Bishop's Waltham though. Crossing over another field - we were learning that open fields were not our best friend for keeping on route. We did find our way however with just a little extra distance.

Bacon rolls coming up

Gem & Anna were making bacon rolls and were asking us for a number of ETAs (after each one past). They had already had their own rolls and they were starting to get peckish. This was now a race against the hunger of our support team. If we were much longer we'd have to go without!

I am happy to report that we did make it and lunch was served up. The menu today was bacon rolls, potato salad, boiled eggs and chicken bites... as well as more of the treats from the first checkpoint.

With topped up stomachs, we set off on our final 6 miles of the day. Hay fever was taking it's toll again with a couple of the team suffering the effects of being through all these fields.

The final part of the walk was completed without the navigational issues of earlier. We finished the route in 100 acre wood near Wickham. No sign of Winnie-the-Pooh or Tigger though, but there were a number of groups of heavily laden DofE students, and families enjoying in the woods today, and most importantly our support crew which signalled the end of our walk.

We completed the walk in 7 hours 1 minute covering just under 17 miles. Next time the whole team will be together will be in three weeks on Trailwalker weekend. Looking forward to it.

A Fathers Day Yomp

This week was the big one, the longest we'd go before the Trailwalker event itself, 31 miles - half the Trailwalker distance.

We all met in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, at the start of Trailwalker, at 7:30 Sunday morning. Today we would be walking the first 5 stages of the route to Washington. We completed a 27 mile walk last week so this was only going to be another 4 miles.

Support today was led by Jeff, who was to have his first taste of the support crewing. He brought with him an abundant supply of meals, snacks, energy bars and rehydrating tablets, along with a gas canister for the cooker we weren't able to use last week because, em..., we didn't have any gas to run it on.

Gem would be riding shotgun with Jeff for the day to aid in the support, and also as it turns out provide that paparazzi feel that any good walk should have.

With feet all taped up, support car packed to the limit, and team in good spirits we headed into the country park for our first of the 31 miles. Today was Fathers day and it gave us some great weather.

We left the boundary of the country park as we discussed food for the event day and Julie informed us that her brother Keith, a Major in the Royal Marines, had been able to provide her with a number of ration packs, each with a 24 hour supply of meals and snacks, for which we are very grateful! If it can fuel an army then it's more than good enough for us! It doesn't look like we'll be going hungry on the day.


We completed the first stage in record time, arriving on Harting Down in 1 hour and 45 minutes. We obviously had fire in our bellies, and it wasn't long before Jeff was dishing out lots of other treats for our bellies while Gem was snapping profusely, in between filling camalbaks of course!

So, on to our second stage of the day towards Hilltop Farm at Cocking.  The sun was shining so the sunglasses came out and for the first time in his relatively short Hardcore Four history, Josh took off his fleece! We had been ribbing him a bit last week about how he had kept his warm fleece on while we were walking in the warmth, but he shrugged it off. First he said how he couldn't really be bothered to take it off, then the explanation was that it would help him acclimatise to the heat of July when it hits us, but we'd take a guess that the first of the two was the truth.

It was also the first time Josh had been introduced to our 'old friend' (as Julie put it), Beacon Hill. When Josh approached he said "It's not so bad, I'm going to run up it". Yeah, yeah, sure you are Josh.

Well he didn't run up it, but he didn't hold back.  He was the first member of the team to scale the height and by some distance too. We've found on these past few training hikes that once Josh gets going, it's hard to stop his rhythm! He shoots off and you have to call him back for he is in some kind of trance that enables him to go at almost superhuman speeds, usually when going up hill.

We continued on our path, steaming past the Devil's Jumps, there was no stopping for them today, we had 31 mile to eat up.

As we approached the second checkpoint at Cocking we were told by a walker heading the other way, "There are a couple in the car park that would like me to ask you to hurry up!"

We were not late by any means, we were early, again in record time, completing the second stage in a little under 2 hours and 4 minutes.

The support team, which at Cocking was bolstered by night-shift support team Tracy & Peter, had readied us a picnic! We had the blanket out for stretching, with each of our boxes at the four corners together with a camping chair each! This was the life.

We were each handed a bowl of pasta for lunch which Jeff cooked up for us on the camping stove, and we tucked in enthusiastically.

Heading off on stage three with more fire in our bellies, Josh was commenting on how much more he felt he had to give in this walk as opposed to previous walks. A sentiment that would be shared through the rest of the team. The supply of food was doing us some real good.

Stage three to Littleton Farm is is pretty short one really, and we were in the field of rapeseed at the end of the stage before we knew it. This week it appeared that someone had driven over the path we took last week. The creeping rapeseed had been pushed down so we had a better path to walk down.

We arrived at checkpoint 3 in 1 hour and 40 minutes, again a good time, almost the same as when we did the same stage last week. We were greeted with bunting on a nearby hedge (though I don't think that was the support crew's doing this time...) and the picnic set up again. However, this time Gem shouted as we went to sit down, "No, those chairs aren't for you, take away the chairs, you'll stay too long!"

It was like Jim Bowen on Bullseye showing us what we could have won... the chairs were out for the waiting support team apparently. Oh well.

We again stretched and stocked up on food, water and treats, taking some for the road this time to save time at the checkpoint.

We headed out on to stage four towards Houghton and Julie supplied us all with an energy shot drink that we would take together later on this stage to give us that boost we'd need. Josh didn't read the script though and downed it before he had even left the checkpoint. He's still new bless him.

It did provide the rest of the team with some entertainment shortly after setting off again though as Josh was saying how much he was "more aware of everything", and how his aches had vanished.

Julie, what's in those shots?? Did you get them from a special pharmacist?

Anyway the rest of the team took theirs a little later and the conversation moved on to our favourite 70s and 80s TV shows, with Josh and Julie trading quotes.

We were at the next checkpoint and arrived after 2 hours and 23 minutes of walking. This wasn't the proper Trailwalker checkpoint, but a little higher up the route at a convenient stop of the support team.

It was also our second cooked meal of the day, with sausages and beans! Yum... who wouldn't like beans..?? Well Jo apparently, as she had another pasta meal instead. Jeff was offering all kinds of treats again and Gubbs had a second helping of sausages and beans, a move he would shortly regret when we commenced the walking again.

After leaving this checkpoint Gem would head off with Peter & Tracy to show them the checkpoints that they'd be responsible for on the day, meeting everyone at the end in Washington.

We started stage five with the sun beating down our our backs, as the food sloshed around in Gubbs' stomach.

That sun soon faded as a thin veil of cloud formed. Julie commented on how much she enjoyed being on the top of these hills at this kind of time, early evening. The number of people dwindles and its time you can enjoy the scenery, etc. in quiet.

The aches on the feet were intensifying now. We were all feeling great, apart from that though. Much better than the week before, even Gubbs was agreeing now his dinner had gone down a bit.

When we came into the car park at Washington we were greeted to cheers, music and medals thanks to our support team!

That was it, 31 miles done. We were very happy with ourselves. We felt we had more to give, and we did it well within the 12 and a half hours time we had set ourselves. Total time including breaks was 11 hours and 16 minutes.

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!

History, Wildlife and Hamstrings

This week Julie went away for the long bank holiday weekend with husband, and support crew member, Jeff. So the remaining three of Jo, Gem & Gubbs decided to head for the South Downs again for some Trailwalker training... that was until we checked the forecast and decided that it looked a little drier West.  Jo & Gem found first hand last week that some of their waterproofs were not as waterproofed as they had hoped, so the idea of avoiding having to test them out again seemed like a good one.

Salisbury Cathedral

So a plan was hatched to hike the entire distance of the Clarendon Way, a 24 mile route starting at Salisbury Cathedral and ending at Winchester Cathedral.

Being pretty local we know that long stay car parking isn't cheap in the centre of Winchester so we left a car at the foot of St. Catherine's Hill (which featured on Jo & Julie's damp training walk back in early March) and headed for Salisbury.

We arrived at Salisbury just before 8am before any of the Saturday shoppers were out, so all was relatively quiet. We parked up, got kitted up, and headed for the Cathedral.

Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest spire in the country, contains the world's oldest working clock, and has the best surviving of the four original copies of the Magna Carta. Although there was no time for checking out all that history, we had walking to do.

We we set off from the Cathedral towards the main town which is where we'd follow the Clarendon Way East. We past the Saturday market in full swing and crossed a river on to a road which eventually ran into a track. Here we had left urban Salisbury behind us and could get into the full swing of our walk.

The remains of Clarendon Palace

Our first point of interest on the way out from Salisbury, are the ruins of Clarendon Palace, which sit in Clarendon Park. This is where the Clarendon Way get's it's name.

Clarendon Palace was once a royal residence and palace, these days though it just has the one wall of flint still standing above ground level, although you can see the foundations of the other flint walls. This is one that archaeology fan Julie would have loved.

We took some time here to read the information boards and walk around the ruins. To Gem's surprise when looking down on the Royal Courtyard she witnessed that it was now occupied by a pack of Llamas enjoying the lush grass. Cue photo opportunity...

Llamas at Clarendon Palace

We headed away from the ruins to the opposite end of the field, hoping to pick up the Roman Road path that would lead us towards our destination. As it turned out we realised had taken the wrong footpath forcing us to adjust our route.

We were a little distracted with the bluebells carpeted woodland and the yellow rapeseed fields. It was only when the map showed that we shouldn't be seeing yellow rapeseed fields at all, just the woodland, that we realised that we had our bearings a little out. We found the path again without too much hassle and moved on towards our first village of the day, Pitton.

Swings!

Here Jo & Gem took some rest time on the swings in a nearby park. Gubbs eventually got them off, reminding them that there was plenty of walking left.

The next village was West Winterslow, and as we approached we were met with loud calls from the crows sitting upon their nests in the trees overlooking the nearby Church.

We had struggled with the route between Pitton and West Winterslow. It seemed that we had been quite spoilt with the signage over the South Downs and we had come to expect the same quantity of signage on this walk too, but apparently this wasn't to be. Gubbs, today's navigator, had many map checking moments to ensure we were on track. The number of map checks probably caused a little anxiety for Gem & Jo, but Gubbs was keen to show the girls where we were on the map at every point. If nothing else it was to have someone else to blame when running off course.

The Church in West Winterslow

We reached Middle Winterslow and stopped for lunch. The route looked like we were supposed to be back on the Roman Road but the route we had been taking seemed a little too windy for a Roman Road, so we checked our phones to see our positioning using the GPS.

Where would we be without our smart phones?? ...probably Bournemouth as it turns out as we again were heading a little too South for this Easterly trail.

After getting back on track before leaving the village we found ourselves crossing the county boundary into Hampshire.

Now, we didn't get to a big sign saying 'Welcome to Hampshire' or anything, we just made some assumptions based on the signage. We can only assume Hampshire must have a bigger signage budget than Wiltshire. After moaning about the lack of signposts and arrow markers we were given more signposts and arrow markers than we really actually required.

A little further on in the path we hauled ourselves up a pretty nasty hill so we took a break at the top for some snacks and stretches. Unfortunately for Gem she threw her walking pole down on a patch of grass containing the only bit of dog poo lying around. Nice one Gem!

Time for soup

After cleaning off Gem's pole with a tissue and lots of anti bacterial gel, we headed on towards the next village of Broughton.

We then powered on to Houghton (a different one), crossing over the river Test and onwards to Kings Somborne, which contains some fantastic old cottages and houses. We stopped for some of Jo's delicious home made potato and leek soup (with added salt to replenish the stocks).

Onwards we went once more, this time knowing that the next sign of civilisation we would see would be the outskirts of Winchester.

The plaque at Farley Mount

There was plenty of walking to be done prior to that though. We climbed up up Beacon Hill (a different one), and reached Farley mount which is home to a monument for a horse. Yep, that's right a horse. But no ordinary horse as it turns out. That's right, this horse was special, for this 18th Century horse leaped into a 25ft chalk pit with it's rider still sitting on it's back during a fox hunt, and survived no less. The year later it won the Hunters Plate entered in the race with the name 'Beware Chalk Pit'. Nice touch.

...The strange things you find on these walks.

At the mount however the views were great, the sun had come out and we could get a good look to the South over Southampton, the Isle of Wight and our home town of Eastleigh.

Farley Mount

Anyway, this was now very close to Winchester, and after our mishaps with the navigation and also with the added walk from the car park to the Cathedral to start in Salisbury, we had already got to our 24 mile target. This and the fact that Gem's right hamstring was getting seriously tight (meaning she was using her walking poles almost as crutches!), meant that we made a change of plan to head straight to the car which was on the other side of Winchester, to the South, rather than go via the city centre to the cathedral. We had done the miles so we didn't want to anger our bodies any further.

The problem was Winchester had other ideas. Every time we thought we were getting closer, it seems like the city would move further away from us, the trek seemed to last forever on these last few miles.

Finally we got to the car on the edge of the river Itchen, after 28.35 miles and a total time of 11 hours 23 minutes.

Gubbs horsing around in the rapeseed field
(maybe he should concentrate on his navigation...)

All three of us have never walked as far or as long as this in a day, so we feel this was a real achievement, even if, it wasn't exactly planned on being as far.

We seem to have developed a knack of adding the miles when doing these training walks (especially when Gubbs is navigating, Jo & Gem are quick to point out).

We just hope we don't inadvertently add the extra miles on Trailwalker day.