Seventh time lucky? - Our Seventh Training Walk - Part 1

This was to be our final 'long' training walk before the event in July.

A chance to see if we had learnt anything from both our previous walks and the 'tips' we had picked up from the Gurkhas in Nuneaton.

We did not intend to walk the full 100km, but to get close enough to convince each of us that we could. We would save completion of the whole course for some time on 17th July 2011.

The 'plan', as with our sixth walk, was to split the route over two days, but with a break in between, where we would rest and refuel.

I decided that I would tape my feet to see if this would save me from the the blistering that they (and I) had suffered on the last walk. I also, somewhat nervously was wearing new boots!

The intrepid foursome

Matt, Rob & I met up with Pete at the Queen Elizabeth Park just after 9am on Saturday. Our support team for the day was to be Teresa & Charlotte. We were due to 'walk' 50km. They were to 'drive' 250 km to support us!

It was back in January that we had last started a walk at the 'official' start in Queen Elizabeth Park. Then we had finished at Cocking. Today it was to be our first stop on what was to be a 50km walk.

The weather was good, although the forecast for the weekend was not. We had not yet walked in the rain, but it looked as though that 'statistic' would be broken sometime over the next two days.

We set off (at 9:10) at a steady pace - not too fast, given that we were planning to walk further than we had before....and arrived at Cocking three and a half hours & 20km later, where we met up with Teresa and Charlotte who had prepared a welcome lunch for us.

 

 

On our second training walk in January (23rd) we had taken the same to get there, but had been pleased to finish there. Today we still had another 30km to walk, but were perfectly up for it. The previous miles in our legs seemed to make the going a bit easier, as we set off again after a 40 minute break that had been much longer than we'd intended but the food, drink & company had been very good.

We then completed a further 18km in 3 hours 15 minutes, meeting up with Teresa & Charlotte again at Houghton. Here we underwent a few foot repairs, had some more food and drink & waved goodbye to Rob (who had a "prior engagement"), as Matt, Pete and I headed off on our final stage of the day.

Despite having already walked for 38km, Rackham Hill, which I have previously described as the worst on the route, didn't actually seem that bad either.

So, almost 10 hours after starting we got to Washington where Ali was waiting to take us home for some R&R, before another lengthy walk on Sunday.

Stats:
Duration: 10 hours
Distance: 50km
Walking time: 8 hours 40 minutes
Walking speed: 5.8km per hour / 3.6 miles per hour

Foot report: Taping works!