Almost a Munro!

Trailwalker Training Walk 11 - 26/04/08 with Sasha and Katie - 18.5 miles from Dorking to Leith Hill and back. Av speed 2.48 mph. Total vertical ascent 2750ft

A Munro, I'm told, is a Scottish mountain over 3000ft high. Well out total vertical ascent was only 2750ft but it was close enough for me!! For locals, that's the equivalent of going up and down Box Hill almost 6 times, so all in all a pretty good effort I feel.

However my Memory Map toy tells me me that the Trailwalker event is some 8000ft in total ascent, so we've got to get used to the hills!

Over all this was a good walk, though it did seem that we went slowly overall for some reason, and I'm not really sure why. Provided the path was not muddy we kept up a good pace and never really stopped for long, other than for half an hour at Leith Hill for lunch (where we were disturbed for the whole time by a bunch of D of E kids mucking about!) and another 10 minute stop for plasters and a wee rest. We had a couple of toilet breaks and the like, but did that really account for our slow mph? Maybe the mud slowed us down as we gingerly picked our way round patches that we kept encountering, especially on the Wotton Estate, that much of the early part of the walk was on. We didn't get badly lost ever, though we made a few small wrong turns, and found one footpath blocked, which caused a bit of a diversion.

We're doing a full marathon distance on 11 May along part of the South Downs Way so hopefully assuming that is reasonably marshalled etc we should be a little quicker.

I think by and large we fared well, though Katie's hip/groin seems to play up after about 10 miles, so hopefully a trip to a physio might help sort that out. It's probably muscular, but worth checking as 50 miles is a long way to go if it was causing her the discomfort it was whenever she went up a slope.

You'll see from the maps that we didn't do the full circle, but following our enforced diversion we decided we deserved a car to pick us up, so fortunately Katie's boyfriend was able to come and rescue us. we'd done out target of 18 miles so nothing lost!

I've got some mutterings in the camp about boredom whilst walking, so any ideas as to how to tackle it gratefully received!!

Sun and the Rain

Trailwalker Training Walk 10 - 13/04/08 with Jo, Anne and Claire - 11.4 miles up Box Hill, down Box Hill then the same again. Av speed 2.43 mph. Total vertical ascent 1950ft

Another assault on Box Hill, another day of miserable weather, this time with Jo, Anne and Claire. It started OK weather-wise (except for Anne who was blowing hard at the top of Box Hill - again we parked at the bottom) but pretty much as soon as we got to the top the weather turned and pretty much rained for the rest of the walk. Occasionally the sun broke through but overall the clouds and rain won the day.

The walking was slow going, partially because of the hilliness of the course and partially because of the muddy conditions. There was one uphill stretch for a mile or so when pretty much every step was slipping, which made for very tiring and slow progress.

At the 8 mile mark, back at the top of Box Hill for the second time, Anne had pretty much had enough. A combination of the weather and the hills had left her utterly fed up and knackered, so she and Jo headed straight to the car park from the viewpoint at the top. Claire and I headed almost vertically down the slope to the Stepping Stones - thank heavens for the steps cut into the hill! A fallen tree and the heavy rain flooding the river meant we could not cross there so we had to use the bridge a little further downstream. We then knocked off a few more miles of relatively flat walking in the rain to get back to the car park and home for a hot bath!

Once again, and in the face of heavier and more prolonged rain I stayed dry in my North Face Softshell, aside from where the logo is, which did get a little wet inside annoyingly. The only other thing of note was that I ran out of water which surprised me. I didn't fill up my bladder to the brim so not 100% sure how much I got through, but maybe seeing all that water around me all the time made me want more than normal?!

Overall a good workout, still not 100% solved the rain problem. I tried a wide brimmed hat that kept the rain off my face but did get utterly sodden and was a pain to deal with.

My personal marathon

Well with the London Marathon coming up on Sunday, I thought it appropriate to update the world on my own training.

I went out again today for a run. I was quite pleased to find that after 10 I was feeling pretty good, strong even. The next 5 weren't too bad either, the next 5 were hard going, and then on to the finish line was hard going, but I kept running to the end, which was a cause of personal pride.

If only that was miles and not minutes!!

A bit hilly!

Trailwalker Training Walk 9 - 22/03/08 with Katie - 10 miles up Box Hill, down Box Hill then the same again. Av speed 2.96 mph. Total vertical ascent 1630ft

Damn it was hilly! But a good workout it has to be said. I didn't win myself any friends by parking at the bottom of Box Hill as a starting point, but the morning was a beauty to start with and the views over Denbies and the villages around was well worth the effort required to get to the top!

The weather got a bit more miserable but fortunately it never rained, just felt cold and miserable when in the shade or under tree cover.

It was good to walk a new route for a change, and nice to do Box Hill for once. Katie will be the first to admit sh slows up a bit on hills but there's never any hesitation, and a couple were fairly steep. Overall a good workout and one I think we should do again.

I'd really like to get down onto the South Downs Way but its an hours drive each way and I think we'll have to wait til we are doing longer walks which will make the time spent travelling more worthwhile!

Another run!

Just bragging now, went for another run before work today!! Same distance only. Not going to extend too soon!

If at first you don't succeed...

then skydiving is probably not for you! Ha ha!

Since Saturday's disastrous attempt at a fitness run I've been brooding on my failure and thinking about trying again. I had hoped to go Monday after work, then Tuesday after work, but work finished too late each time. I knew I was out Wednesday and Thursday late so they were no goes, so it only really left me one option - to go before work!

Yeah right.

Only I did! Surprising even myself, I found myself outside the house at 7.10am ready to run. This time I'd remembered to do my inhaler before and set off nice and slowly. To my pleasant surprise 20 minutes and 1.6 miles (2.6km sounds a bit longer!) later I was already back home having managed to run all the way to the tea shop by the racecourse and back. Ok, not the longest run in the world but its a world improved from what happened on Saturday and I could probably have carried on a bit, so all in all very satisfactory. I'll try and do the same distance a couple more times then up it to a couple of miles maybe!