Catch-ups and preparations

Rising sun

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I inflicted my words on this long-suffering blog, but we are where we’ve landed. While I have been silent the weather has warmed, the world outside my window has turned green and happy…and some of my usual walking routes have buried themselves under stinging nettles.

Through much of April I gradually increased my training mileage, discovered how it felt to walk good distances in very warm weather – especially near the end of the month – and gradually acquired various bits and pieces which I shall need for my trip to Wales at the end of August.

At the end of April, and for half of June, we were in Japan, visiting my younger son and travelling around. I won’t bore with a full-on holiday travelogue, suffice it to say that the weather was very kind, and we were treated to some spectacular views around Mt Fuji which last year were denied us by rain.

While the jetlag from a 23-hour journey and 8 hours’ time difference can be nasty, my cure was to get my walking shoes on, the day after arriving back in England, and go for a 9-mile stroll. It worked.

Full load

In preparation for my August/September walk – a 240-mile trek from London to the coast of West Wales – I then started training with a full load. I reckon the total weight of my backpack will be around 11kg, which is significant but not a killer. I loaded my big Osprey with old clothes and weights and started at just four miles. While I’m no stranger to load-lugging it had been a while, and I confess my legs felt like lead on that first trip. It did concern me, as the average daily trot on my journey will be twenty miles! Time to build up then – five miles the next day, feeling good, then up to eight miles, still good, then ten. Apart from being aware of the hip belt – which carries most of the pack load – by now it was all feeling very much easier. At the end of the second week I covered 16 miles fully laden one day, followed the next day by 18 miles, and my confidence took a real boost.

It is a little amusing seeing people’s reactions to someone strolling through London streets carrying a very large pack, with a hydration tube clipped across the front, but so far nobody has actually said anything!

Gear notes

Anyone who read my earlier stuff will be aware that footwear has been a preoccupation for me. I knew that going out with a full load would be a serious test. Would it mean a shift in my centre of gravity which could make so far comfortable shoes into painful devils? After favouring low-rise walking shoes, would I find that the heavier load demanded more ankle support? Answer no, to both. I went out and bought the replacement pair of Merrells (Moab 2 GTX) which will be going on the actual trip. My wife did query what looked like extravagance, until she saw the wear on the heels of the shoes I have been using for training – after about 700 miles the heels are pretty much shot!

All the other gear, especially the Osprey backpack, but also technical clothing, has performed brilliantly, validating the sometimes expensive choices I made.

And nobody is paying me to say so, but I have discovered “Eat Natural” fruit and nut bars, in particular the ones with dark chocolate…amazing!

Next…

It’s become a regular thing for me to disappear for two or three hours to clock up some miles, so that will continue. For the moment I am holding steady on distance, but in a week or two I need to get kitted up and go beyond 20 miles in a day, later doing it on two consecutive days just to be sure. Closer to the departure, which is now less than three months away, I can taper the training once I’m fully confident I’m “there”.

There are also some practical things to do. For navigation I use Anquet’s OS 1:25,000 maps on a smartphone, together with GPX files created on a PC. The Anquet app defaults to live streaming of the maps, so I shall ensure I’ve downloaded what I need, because the data signal in some parts of Wales and the border country is anything but guaranteed. I’ll repeat all that on a spare phone in case the main one ends up crunched in a puddle somewhere.

On the planning side I am reviewing all the points on the journey where I’ve noted “shop” or “pub” – nothing worse than arriving hungry or thirsty to find the place closed five minutes earlier…