Training Walk No. 1

At 5am this morning the wind and rain was lashing at our bedroom window and the thought of having to walk for 4 hours across the South Downs was not overly appealing.

However, a matter of hours later, the rain had gone, the sun had come out and this was to be one of the nicest mornings - weather wise - that we had had in months.

The 'plan' was simple.

Walk for two hours in one direction (this felt rather strange as it was part of the Trailwalker route, but in reverse) and then turn round and walk for another two hours in the opposite direction, starting and finishing at a pub in the small West Sussex village of Cocking, where we had ordered Sunday lunch!

Whilst the plan WAS simple, its execution WASN'T!

Having missed a right turn on the route we added an additional mile to our total making us late for lunch by about 20 minutes. So as it happened, we started at Cocking, ended at Cocking and made a pretty good job of 'Cocking it up' in the middle.

So, we were nothing if not consistent!!

As for the walk itself, it was pretty sloppy underfoot, leading late in the walk to the one and only 'comedy fall' of the day, courtesy of Pete, which to be perfectly honest has always previously been my role.

(In 2011 barely a training walk went by without me having at least one fall, in addition to me also managing to fall off the podium after having been presented with our medals shortly after completing the walk itself!)

Today's stats - 14 miles in 4 hours 18mins, a pace which if maintained on the walk itself would result in a time of 19 hours and 20 mins...if we didn't stop at all!

Here we go again...!

On the 17th July 2011 we set off, as a group of four, attempting to complete the Trailwalker UK Challenge, of walking 100km across the South Downs in less than 30 hours.

Sadly, we failed in this 'Challenge', as only three of us were able to complete the course (which we did in just over 24 hours) with one of the team being 'forced' to pull out by the medics after 40 miles.

The decision to accept the 'advice of medics' in the early hours of the Sunday morning, was taken fairly grudgingly, but with the alternative being the possibility of featuring in a newspaper article entitled 'Death on the Downs' it seemed at the time to be the most sensible course of action to take.

However...having trained for 9 months, and been unable to finish as a team of four, we felt quite literally that we had been "Robbed!"

That being said (see the following link to prove that this was actually said! Final 2011 Trailwalker Blog) the three of us declared at the time, that whilst it would have been great to finish 'as a four', we were not doing Trailwalker again...ever, not even if someone asked really, really nicely. No! No, and we meant NO!

So why then are we about to embark on the first of our training walks for Trailwalker 2013.

Who knows, but as the title says "Here we go again...", and we plan to do a gentle 4 hour walk prior to a Sunday roast at The Bluebell pub, in the West Sussex village of Cocking. As for the weather forecast...