Saturday 24 October 2009

Moel Hebog aborted, Plan B the Brecons

A couple of years ago, the day following Boxing Day we had to abort getting to the summit of Moel Hebog due to gale force winds. The same fate laid ahead today, following the fore casted 80mpg Storm Force gusts that were predicted. To abort once was bad enough, so when the same prospect presented itself, then a decision was made at 5.30am on the day to consider plan B. Did plan B exist before 5.30am, No, but it was soon hatched with us select a walk from a list rapidly assembled. This instead took us to the Brecons, to hopefully a better weather forecast.
Well if constant rain and gales (not quite storm force) was better then we certainly achieved our aim.
So today saw us summit Fan Ned and another couple of unpronounceable named summits. In total the 17.3km walk topped out at 725m and despite the weather conditions I think all enjoyed.
Monday sees the family off to the Lake District, not walking but at Centre Parcs. May be able to get away for 3 hours to complete Binsley, a summit of only 400 odd meters, but it will be nice to complete it as its a Wainwright out on its own. Will let you know.
On a completely different note, my mate "Ade" is working on a website which will be linked off the Special Olympics site for the walk next year(This, after doing the Brecon walk today).
Ade working out which way to go (His websites are better than his navigation)
The aim is to:-
Have a facility for online donations for the walk
Hold all the route an walk details
Read in the blog details - so my planned daily enters can be viewed by those visiting the site.
By the look of it development is going well, in fact you may actually be reading this account on it (in the future), so what do you think???

Thursday 22 October 2009

Update on training walks

This weekend off to Moel Hebog for some uphill stuff along with the two mountains that neighbour Hebog. In October this far have completed a 19 mile walk around the Breacon's summiting Corn Du, Pen-y-Fan , Cribyn and Fan-y-Big , this was done in rain and gales force bluster winds up on the ridges. Also, done leg 1 of the Birmingham to Aberwysth walk out of Birming to Stourbridge on the canals. This walk will feature progressively more in the training, but the big feature of leg1 was walking through the Netherton Canal tunnel at 2800m in the dark (head torch on). This strictly isn't the route in the book but I couldn't resist, as I'm also working on covering all the canals within the Midlands ring of canals.
Planning 2 days off in November to cover more legs of the Thirlmere Way as I'm still interested in completing JOGLE but day and weeks walk(on a different route to next years epic.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Countdown at 192 Days 13 Hrs 49mins 40 Secs to what and why

Another month gone, another month closer to Walk Day 1, The countdown on the computer is identifying exactly 192 days 13 hours and 49 minutes to walking away from Land's End. I'm still trying to establish whether its ages away or really near, suppose it depends on whether I'm thinking about state of readiness or anticipation of starting. With Christmas and a birthday in between there is still opportunity to refine and buy any new equipment, more of that later. On a positive note accommodation booking is nearing completion, some 80% actually booked and locations for the other 20% known, it'll be a weight of my mind when it's 100% confirmed. In booking some of the accommodation I have sent deposits / payments so in doing so there is now significant financial commitment to the project. "In for a penny in for a pound….." . Along with the financial commitment, booking the accommodation has committed the route, to a large degree, local adjustments I'm sure will be made during the journey, based on terrain and how energetic I'm feeling day to day, but the start and finish are now known. These will be loaded to the Blog sometime soon along with the more detailed route. Walking the length of Britain has been an aspiration of mine for a number of years now. Up to 8 months ago, when I schemed this walk, I was working my way from one end of the country to the other in sections, sometimes in lengthier one week LDP walks, such as Offa's Dyke, West Highland Way, Great Glen and the Cumbria Way, and also in individual day walks interlinking these paths. This had no end date but it always felt that the continuous walk challenge was not being addressed. So, with a sudden moment of madness I wondered would it be possible to complete, using all my annual holiday for one year, plus optimising bank holidays, around April/May. 2009 would have been a great time to have done it, with the timing of Easter and its holiday, however, this was too soon for planning and financial preparation so 2010 was seen as the optimum timing. A plan was hatched, permissions were sort from family and work and as the snowball gained momentum, shifting to freefall. The planned activity was now declared to an increasing audience, that was it, no going back, so before a penny was spent, the project was really committed. It was at this point that the opportunity of the "Sponsored Walk" came to mind. I have in the past completed walks such as the Coast to Coast for sponsorship, so why not this one? Two charities, both of which I have walked for before immediately came to mind, these being Special Olympics Redditch, a group that I actively am engaged with and JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, as I like many I have a family members with diabetes. I'll talk in more length in the future about these causes and my links to them. So there it is the walk, the charities, next came the planning, this was completed using the Anquet mapping software. I had worked out that the shortest distance was approx 900 miles, I made it 49 days continuous holidays available, of which 4 would be assigned as rest days, so 45 walking days, that equates to 20miles/day average. (Always good at maths). This left me with a dilemma, the walk that I would chose to do would be off road all route, using the Pennine Way as the main path up the north of England. After buying a number of books on the subject and reading numerous blogs, this seemed the most popular way of doing it, only the length increases to over 1100 miles, too much for my 45 days. So, with regret, a more direct route was traced up the country, using major roads as the shortest way. From here, minor roads, parallel tracks, canals, rivers and paths which roughly followed the shortest "road" route, substituted the main roads. South West and North East will need to be road primarily due to no viable short alternatives. The major decision which had to be made was the route through Scotland, two options were available, one following from South of Glasgow to Inverness via Edinburgh and Aviemore, and the other preferred route following the West Highland Way and the Great Glen Way. Both of these paths have previously been completed, but the major consideration was accommodation choice. Besides I can do the other when I return to the original plan of long term LEJOG. The final decision to be made was, to complete individually or with someone. As I could find no one mad enough, the choice was taken out of my hands, so on my own it is. This does have benefits of setting ones own speed (within limits of reaching the accommodation at the end of the day) and not having to consider others. During the training to day I have done a lot of the training walks in isolation, this does not bother me, as I enjoy being totally accountable for route finding etc, but the nights of being on my own will be the biggest challenge, although writing the blog daily and preparing for the following day will keep me busy (Plus lots of food and Beer!!)