Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Soph's Canal Walk
Fifty odd miles, and some stinking blisters...
Our first day of walking led us from Edinburgh around the outskirts of several West Lothian towns, including Winchburgh and Linlithgow with Falkirk as our goal, a mere 33 ½ miles away! The route along the canal was calm and peaceful for the most part; well if you don’t count what seemed to be a constant echo of bicycle bells! We had the company of many a duck, swan, signet and swallow, not to mention two canoeists come windsurfers who paddled along the canal at roughly the same pace as we were walking! I think they took the easy option! We also passed several barges full of people... well they passed us, some even had champagne! We looked longingly at the barges sticking our thumbs out for a ride; I think one barge named the Bonnie Prince Charlie passed us at least three times during the day!
I made a bit of a rookie mistake on this walk, one which I will not forget in a hurry. The two things I usually do to prepare my feet for walking are to wear two pairs of socks and prior to putting these on, I strap my feet with zinc oxide, or sports tape. Did I do either of these things? No, and my feet paid big time! Andy was very kind and patient as I tried best I could to sort my feet out at our lunch time stop but unfortunately the damage was already done. I did however eat the best and biggest Scotch egg I have had in a long time!
We hobbled back to the canal path and managed to
pick up the pace again. Winchburgh was our half way point and it was great
setting off after lunch knowing we were making good time. After this point
we decided on a checkpoint for us to stop and sort our feet out and kept our
eyes peeled for another bench to come to our rescue, I knew that if I sat on
the floor, I wouldn’t be able to get up again! We marched on and finally
stumbled across one 6 miles after our intended stop!
We were kept going and were occupied counting down
the bridges, and looking for bridge number 26 (correct me if I’m wrong Andy!) as
this was the last bridge we had to pass before venturing off the canal path
into Falkirk in search of our bed for the night. Of course this bridge didn’t
appear to actually exist, instead by pure luck we walked past a giant Tesco
which allowed me to get stocked up on new insoles for my boots and many a
compeed pack. By this stage and many a mile before it, I was really starting to
struggle. My feet were in agony - I
could tell the blisters had come back, and some had burst, and even the wonder
drug wasn’t helping, Andy was a superstar listening to all my moans and groans
along the way and still managing to keep us both going! Through sheer
determination and the thought of our dinner reservation waiting for us at the
Premier Inn, we struggled through Falkirk to our hotel. The offer of walking
further to go and see the Falkirk wheel, although interesting, was dismissed
within seconds - I don’t think my will
power or feet would’ve lasted long enough to get there!
Food, bath, feet and bed was pretty much the routine for the evening. The restaurant attached to the Premier Inn provided us with a very tasty meal. I think I would’ve eaten anything at this point, but we were actually really impressed not only by the meal but also by the rooms - it was heaven! After dinner, Andy helped me with my blister ridden feet, one in particular was roughly 4cm in length and about 2cms wide, no wonder I was in so much pain! The thought of walking back to Edinburgh made me want to cry - walking with blister free feet would have been no problem, but I did not have this luxury, instead my own feet looked like they were going to fall off! What a sorry state of affairs!
Food, bath, feet and bed was pretty much the routine for the evening. The restaurant attached to the Premier Inn provided us with a very tasty meal. I think I would’ve eaten anything at this point, but we were actually really impressed not only by the meal but also by the rooms - it was heaven! After dinner, Andy helped me with my blister ridden feet, one in particular was roughly 4cm in length and about 2cms wide, no wonder I was in so much pain! The thought of walking back to Edinburgh made me want to cry - walking with blister free feet would have been no problem, but I did not have this luxury, instead my own feet looked like they were going to fall off! What a sorry state of affairs!
Andy and I
had completely stiffened up by the next morning, we must’ve looked like a right
pair, hobbling and flinching our way to breakfast! The breakfast set up was all
you can eat! A fry up and continental breakfast! We ate so much we hardly had
to stop to buy lunch! We decided that we would take our time on the way back to
Edinburgh and phoned in our back up (Dave’s mum Mo) to be on standby in case we
needed to be picked up earlier than expected. I put on a brave face and
concentrated on the beautiful countryside as we marched towards and on past
Linlithgow. We walked through a long dark tunnel at the start of our journey a
lot of concentration was required here as it is almost completely dark with
only a few pretty useless spot lights to guide us, thank goodness Andy had a
torch! We spent most of this dark tunnel trying to dodge water drips, some of
which were very heavy... and didn’t always succeed!
We came to
the decision early on in the morning to make our finish point at Winchburgh,
which was 17 ½ miles from Falkirk and our half way point to Edinburgh. We
walked over the Avon aqueduct near Linlithgow which is 810ft long and is the
second longest in the UK; and stopped to pose for some photos which we had
completely forgotten to do on the first day!
 |
| The Avon Aqueduct |
We actually made pretty good time on the way to Winchburgh and stopped off at a farm café/ restaurant, which was unfortunately rather pretentious, for a cup of tea. They actually ushered us to the seating outside, who would’ve thought our walking gear and rosy foreheads would be too much for them! I was religious in the sun cream spraying from the word go on day two and to say that Andy had said the statement ‘I told you so’ regarding my red forehead incident from the day before would be an understatement!
We gladly greeted Winchburgh and collapsed onto a park bench in wait of our support crew, Mo and Dave who came to our rescue, and were whisked off for a lovely meal out! Standing up and leaving the table after that meal out....well that's another story!
The four biggest lessons I learnt this weekend are: strap my feet, double up the socks, put on sun cream and have a supportive team!! The big 4! A great weekend walking, despite blistered feet. With 51 miles under our belts - next stop, bed!
Soph xx
Monday, 9 July 2012
Another late blog post - Phil writes about our first training walk to the South Downs.
Our first venture to the South Downs:
Night walking, Ankles & Misplacing Ourselves....
Our first venture to the South Downs:
Night walking, Ankles & Misplacing Ourselves....
The plan was relatively simple,
arrive at a campsite at Check Point 5 (Washington), set-up camp, grab a quick
dinner and walk through the night to the end point. The aim was to prove that we
could walk through the night and walk our last long distance training walk
together. In the words of a famous Meercat, “simples”.
Alas all was not as simple as hoped.
Firstly as we should have realised, the M25 is evil and no matter which way
round it one travels, the result is almost certainly going to be long periods
of stationary traffic. Once we finally all got there, we were 2 hours later
than anticipated. Not to matter, with perfect weather and massive amounts of
pasta and cake we set off.
 |
| Our campsite in Washington |
First challenge was a massive climb
up to the top of the ridge way. We practically ran up the hill, walking poles
are an amazing invention and got there just in time to see the most amazing sun
set over the south of England. Once we’d located the South Downs way, it should
all have been easy, follow the track all the way along until Brighton…
A couple of miles onto the South
Downs Way (although as you’ll see later, I’m not actually sure if it was the
South Downs Way), just as it was starting to get dark I fell down a small hole.
It really was a very small hole, normally the sort of thing you’d jump right on
over and not notice. Unfortunately for me, I caught it at just the wrong angle,
and I went over and pain shot through my leg. I tried to stand up and almost
as quickly fell right over again. After a couple of minutes lying on the floor,
(with Claudia holding my legs in the air after a possible faint), I stood up
and decided to carry on. It actually didn’t hurt that much after that, I
assumed I’d just gone over awkwardly and we carried on. Adrenaline/ endorphins
are amazing drugs.
Well it turns out that at some point we were no longer walking along the South Downs Way. It turns out night navigation is particularly difficult, as there is only a small area to look at, we made an age old mistake of looking at the map and then matching that to what was around us. Not really sure where we went wrong, but we ended up about 15 miles south of where we should be. In our night-time delirium we decided to walk along the road (a major A-road) to where we should be. Around this time my ankle was really starting to hurt (fighting back the tears hurting) and we were hopelessly lost. After walking over a very scary dual carriage way bridge with no pavement, we decided to call it a night and get picked up.
 |
| Waiting to be picked up... |
After a night in the tent, it was apparent that my ankle was actually really damaged. My whole foot was black and blue and my ankle was the size of a tennis ball. A friendly nurse on the campsite, bandaged it up for me and we spent the next day lazing in the sun, eating a pub lunch and reading books.
Time for attempt two! The next evening the team set out to walk from Devils Dyke to Lewes. As I was unable to walk more than a couple of meters I was to act as support crew. I waved them off at the path to Devils Dyke and set off to Tescos so I could meet my team with cookies, water and other tasty goodies!
The team walked fast, very fast. I’d barely stocked up on supplies when the call came to meet them at the first check point, after a little bit of a map reading fail I met them at a windmill to watch a lovely sunset.
Fed and watered them and sent them off again – next meeting place Ditchlin Beacon (a hill I know well from the London-Brighton cycle ride) Annie my car struggled valiantly up the hill, while I thought of my poor teams legs and feet. Once at the top I had about 20 minutes to spare. I think the beacon is a ‘doggin’ spot – all I can say is there were lots of couples on the hill and they all looked at me rather strangely when I turned up with a boot full of water and flapjacks and stared intently at my kindle while listening to classic fm! Anyway the team turned up, all in good spirits and we agreed to meet in Lewes.
The journey to Lewes was short and
sweet. Lewes is a fascinating town, there is a castle at the top, a train
station at the bottom and an incomprehensible one-way system. Mike and I (I’d
picked up Mike for moral support by this stage) sat in a car park waiting
nervously for girls to arrive. We laughed at the Saturday night revellers,
jumped at the firecracker let off round the corner (they really do sound like a
gun shot) and tried to calculate the time to finish.
So it turns out that I tore my
Anterior tibulofibular ligament – which means lots of weeks of rest. I’m out of
the walk now, which is really upsetting. However Julia has stepped into the
place, which is brilliant. I’m now support crew, which has its own challenges.
I’m stupidly nervous that we’ll lose the team/ not provide enough food for them/
get lost trying to find a check point/ not have everyone’s number and miss a
check point/ run out of blister plasters arghhhhhh the stress – only a couple
of nights to go now!
Good luck everyone!
Philippa x
Friday, 6 July 2012
Apologies at the lateness of these blog posts...life whistled by without us noticing the time, and now Trailwalker is in 1 week!! We'll be updating the blog with our latest walks over the next few days - we have been training - honest!!
A 'wander' in the Pentlands
Saturday 7th April
A 'wander' in the Pentlands
Saturday 7th April
As we were all up in beautiful Scotland for one reason or another
(weddings, gliding holidays or simply life), we took advantage of this rare
occasion and decided to go for a training hike together. This time we were led
by Andy, Sophie’s boyfriend Dave’s dad. Andy
is an old hand at walking in the Pentlands, and set us up with a good route,
and as an ex-army chap and hill walking regular, certainly knew how to set a
pace!
We were all keen to get going on this one, especially as we struggled
with speed before, though this was mainly due to faffage and generally being
disorganised. This time however, we had
our equipment in order and our minds set to just getting on with the walking.
So off we went on a rather cold and grey morning to the Pentlands. Luckily the
rain had just stopped as I pulled into the car park where we planned to meet
and after some hasty introductions, we set off. Andy didn’t even want to waste time waiting
for my Garmin to get a GPS fix, which set the mood for the rest of the day!
The first few miles took us pretty steadily up, into the
Pentland Hills and got us all huffing and puffing a little bit. After all it
was early in the morning, we were pretty much walking in cloud, and it was very
muggy - we didn’t even have much of a view to spur us on.
 |
| Ascending into the cloud... |
Once we made it up the hill though we finally started to enjoy
ourselves! The paths smoothed out and we were promised an ascent free walk for
the rest of the day. Now if that doesn’t lift your spirits, then nothing does!
Plus we got to play with the last bit of the spring snow too J
We steadily carried on along the ridge and with the cloud starting to
disappear, the city of Edinburgh revealed herself to us. What a view!
Most of the walk us girls spent chasing after the boys, who made good
speed at the front and got us to carry on. This resulted with Andy turning
round to whoever was in charge of the map, or otherwise called mapboy, to find
out the direction we should be heading with a smug smile on his face - of course, he knew where we should be going!
Although, we had one minor success over his smugness later on, as Andy steadily
walked past one of the turns we were supposed to take, so we simply followed
him along the wrong path. I’m sure there’s a lesson there somewhere?! Luckily
this made not much of a difference and we didn’t have to turn around to correct
for it. From then on we made sure we got our headings right!
We made good progress, walking along the river, and passing through the
edge of town, and were soon at Threipmuir Reservoir. Here our spirits were kept up by spotting way
markers with animals of all shapes, sizes and colours, that were seemingly
randomly placed along the path. We still wonder what they were for....
Part the way round the reservoir, I got very excited by this podium, as
we could fit everyone on it (apart from Andy who took the picture), but I think
the excitement was mostly on my side, and maybe Leigh’s - just a touch :-)
After Soph’s earlier ‘sausage hand’ incident in the Peaks, we also
carried on with our new routine to keep the blood moving in our hands. One of
us who was feeling a bit ‘sausage fingers’ would shout “Jazz hands” and we all
had to comply - an idea that seems to be effective and fun! Thanks to a member
of the Trailwalker Facebook group for that one (can’t remember who exactly
though sorry). At least now we knew we
weren’t alone with this problem!
 |
| Jazz Hands! |
Finally we got to our lunch break, a relive to all of us, but mostly
Dave. His boots were a touch on the small side but we had no idea how much pain
he must have been in until he uncovered the blisters on his feet. I won’t go
into much detail here, but I can tell you this much: It wasn’t pretty, and they
were massive. So at this stage we decided to cut the walk a little shorter to
get back to the cars and get poor Dave out of his misery! However, we all felt
we very much achieved something that day as we finally managed to walk at a
decent pace, without getting terribly lost and without faffing far too much!
Here's to efficiency! :P
So here are some numbers:
So here are some numbers:
- Distance Walked - 16.3 Miles (26.23
km)
- Time Taken - 6 Hours 19 Minutes
- Average Pace - 23 Minutes per Mile
(This is including breaks)
- Average Moving Pace – 17.22 Minutes
per Mile
- No. of "Jazz Hands"
Manoeuvres – Just enough to entertain us!
- No. of blister plasters on Dave’s
feet – too many!
- No. of houses with turrets that we
wanted to move into – Probably about 10, more than you
could ever imagine
seeing!
Other interesting stuff we learnt:
- Legs were hurting considerably more
at this pace (at least mine did) – Future training should
involve more walking and less running I think!
involve more walking and less running I think!
- I lost my beloved hat, and I won’t
shut up about it! I will drive another three hours to the same -
Christmas market next year to get another one!
Christmas market next year to get another one!
- Everybody loves Pombears and
CapriSun :-)
- Em wants to move into a house with a
turret (or two)!
- We are still circulating the role of mapboy (map
reader/leader), which continued working well!
- Sophie decided to buy some new
walking shoes while mine thankfully didn’t let me down this
time :-)
time :-)
The next time we will all meet will be a real test. We will be walking
at least half of the Trailwalker track on the last weekend of May, and we will
be braving it in the dark. We must be mad! It is getting serious J
Claudia xx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)