Gritstone trail – trailwalker, final preparation #fb
(This and the next post will be in the wrong order! Note to self, write next post about Friday night.)
So, essential facts from today.
Bedtime: 12:10am
Getup-time: 5:00am
Leave house: 5:45am
Arrive Kipsford: 7:30am
Miles walked: 30
Stop time: 6ish
Reward: two pints and two packets of good pork scratchings.
Fun had: plentiful
It was an excellent, excellent practice. We walked almost all of the Gritstone Trail,a 35 mile walk from Kidsgrove to Disley (a challenging walk over 2 or 3 days!) . We left early, aiming to do it in about 12 hours ish, which would be a similar sort of pace to the walk in two weeks. Terrain was mixed, roads, narrow paths, fields, a couple of lovely meadows, a few steep ascents but plenty of flat, gentle gradients. Plenty of opportunity to stretch our legs, some jogging (up and downhill), a few aeroplanes. We learnt a lot about what the 64 miles would be like. Somethings we learnt:
- That we perhaps wouldn’t want to stop for as long as we did sometimes – it just took time to get going again and there wasn’t much benefit in stopping for longer.
- That we might want to reward ourselves occasionally
- That at about 30 miles, it starts to get mentally tough – having been walking for nearly 12 miles. We ended up playing I spy – laughing a lot. It buoyed us considerable. Perhaps as a distraction technique.
- That we need to work as a team, that we are only as strong as our weakest person. That to do that involves being able to ask people in our team how they are feeling and being honest about how we are feeling/coping and
- That we need to look after our feet, powdering them made a whole lot of difference to me.
- That a change of clothes will make us feel a whole lot better – especially sweaty clothes.
July 4, 2010