"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - Mike Tyson

Planning

I want to try and avoid talking about my plans for LEJOG with the fanaticism of a prepper reviewing shiny new kit. And I want to keep this simple so there's less to screw up. The end-to-end on foot challenge breaks down into simple units which can be dealt with separately: experience, health and fitness, timescales, navigation, where to stay and what to carry.

Note: the objective is to get there quickly by covering as much distance as possible as efficiently as possible.

Experience

I haven't done a thousand mile thu-hike before. 1,000 miles was my total mileage in 2016. Doing it in one go will be a different experience. I have some experience with multi-day walks involving O/S map navigation and rough camping - and I'm treating LEJOG in the same way, on a larger scale.  

Health and fitness

I've been distance walking since 2011 and have notched up a few thousand miles worth of experience. Training in 2016 laid the foundations for distance walking in 2017 and likewise for 2018. The difference is, for multi-day walks and weekend walks, the focus has been on high distance 10 hour+ days and long recovery times. LEJOG will be lower distance, shorter days with less recovery time. Right now, in March 2017, a year before LEJOG 2018, I reckon I'm fit enough to take it on. The challenge will be to replicate this in a year's time, and to avoid injury. Speaking of injury, I have a whole year of distance walking to get through injury free. That's a long time to stay clean.

Timescales

This will be a pain in the arse. I reckon I can do it between 40 and 50 days but I can barely scrape together enough days off work to make LEJOG doable and I might actually have to leave my job to make this happen. If I do that I'll have as much time as I want. But I'll likely have to do this under the shadow of a limited amount of time and a secure job to return to, which is the preferable option. Anyway, 40 to 50 days means 20+ miles a day, 6 days a week.

Health and fitness-wise I'm in good shape at the time of writing; again the challenge will be walking shorter 20 mile days for considerably longer than any of my previous thru-hikes. This will require great care and attention to warning signs. And rest days.   

Navigation

Assuming I get time off work for this, timewise I'll be very constrained. I can't bimble along difficult coastal paths and scenic up and down trails, slowly meandering my way northwards. I'll need to crack on. While I'll try to avoid busy roads where at all possible, I need to get this done efficiently. There'll be straight line bushwhacking, fence jumping, corner cutting and plenty of short cuts. More specifically, I have a rough idea of the route I'd like to take and I'm building up the relevant O/S maps to shape a line of attack between points, but I want to avoid putting a marker pen line down if possible because things will change when I'm on the ground and I'll need to be flexible.        

Where to stay

This is shaped by the need to cover distance as efficiently as possible. 

I'm going to camp en route. I very much expect I'll get sick of this after a while and will end up in a B&B or hotel along the way but I'm not pre-booking anything. Nighttime will primarily be an exercise in rough camping. Why? The main advantage is that I can walk till I drop and camp where I drop. I'm not planning on walking till I physically drop but you get the idea. Waking up on the trail means I can push off and add distance immediately without commuting to and from the start point. LEJOG on foot is, after all, a long distance thru-hike. Why make it more inconvenient for myself than I have to? Camping is also free of charge or, if I find a campsite that is conveniently on the route, it'll be significantly cheaper than roofed accommodation. And no, I don't care if I have to trespass my way up to Scotland. I have and will continue to camp in woodlands, fields, golf courses, behind hedges, on commons, heaths and moorland wherever I need to.

One of the more transcendent ideas behind this journey is freedom of movement, an idea so basic I sometimes forget about it even though I'm being shepherded along by signs and fences and walls and lines and other junk. And no, I'm not going to burn the woods or hunt animals, leave trash lying around or hang dog poo bags in the hedge or intimidate livestock. Rough camping rules apply: arrive late, leave early and LNT.     

What to carry

Since I'll be camping en route I'll need shelter and sleeping gear as well as clothes, water, food and sundries.

Some long distance thru-hikers and preppers seem to share an enthusiasm for Gucci gear, completely unnecessary survival equipment, each other's YouTube accounts and armchair navigation. Gear is the least important part of a thru-hike. The exception is clothing and boots. Everything else needs to be few in number and light in weight.

Boots are the most important piece of equipment I will carry. Without good boots I go nowhere. One LEJOGer did his end-to-end barefoot. Not I. I need boots. I've already talked at some length on this and won't bore you by repeating myself.

After boots are clothes, the first line of defence against hypothermia and accusations of indecency (that's in reference to you Naked Rambler who did (or tried to do) LEJOG naked). Clothes are light, quick drying, and few in number. One pair to wear and one spare pair. A light fleece. Merino hat. Multiple pairs of merino socks. One lightweight gore-tex jacket. One pair of lightweight gloves (thermal, not waterproof). One smallish microfibre travel towel.

Then there's shelter and sleeping gear. Camping gear needs to be ultralight: silnylon tarp, down bag, small inflatable mat, silk liner and bivvy bag. The whole lot packs away small and weighs sod all. Ultra-light gear is expensive.

Navigation: because I'll use O/S 1:25000 scale maps, I'll need to carry maps. Because I'll need at least 55 of these in total, I've broken the landmass into six sections and I'll carry the maps for each section separately, posting ahead those I will need using the poste restante service and posting back those I have already used. More on this later.

The backpack needs to be light as in 1 KG; no point carrying around a heavy great 4 kilo military thing (weight is inversely proportional to distance). The rest of the pack weight will be water, food and sundries.

I sweat a lot and drink a lot; I'll need to carry three litres of water every single day. That's 3 KG. I'll need to split this between a hydration bladder and a food grade stainless steel flask.

Food is high calorie low weight = dry carbs. Oats don't need cooking and are eaten with water. Rice needs cooking and can be done in a large titanium mug over fuel tablets, which weigh sod all. Instant energy is raisins, dates, sweets and cereal bought en route. There's a lot more to be said about hydration and nutrition, but not here.
    
And that's the basic plan. Anything more detailed at this early stage is pointless, with the exception of training and physical fitness.

As Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth".