LEJOG 2017

LEJOG or JOGLE? The idea of walking north until the end of the land fascinates me. So I'm a LEJOGer. Pat Jilks decided to walk the end-to-end from north to south and flew from Gatwick to Inverness, catching buses to Wick and John o'Groats. "It was just how I wanted to do it," she said, "and psychologically, I'd be walking towards home."   Why LEJOG? "Because it's there."  That famous quote has been attributed to George Mallory in his response to a journalist from the New York Times who asked him why he wanted to climb Mount Everest.  Because it's there is the sort of answer I expect an educated man like Mallory would have thrown at a reporter to shut him up. It's glaringly scant for a mountainous challenge like the first ascent of Everest, or even for LEJOG, and  I'd be doing Mallory's expedition a disservice to use that phrase out of context. Wade Davis t he historian who wrote  Into The Silence  ab...

I've posted my walking calendar for 2016 because it outlines what walking means to me in its most basic units: time and distance. It also hints at fitness, stamina, endurance, fortitude and other nice words. Some of the day walks were done alone. All of the larger multi-day walks involved my walking buddy. Note: these are bare-bones calendar entries and they miss out the details that made those walks unique. January 23rd Jan (Sat): 25 miles (Basingstoke circular/training route) TOE INFECTION - OOA until - [correction: it was gout as I suspected; I was misdiagnosed by the GP] February 21st Feb (Sun): 10/12 miles (Sarah's route around town) 27th Feb (Sat): 25 miles (Basingstoke circular/training route) March 1st March (Tue): 15 miles (work and back x 5) 4th March (Fri): 18 miles (out to Sherfield on Loddon via Wildmoor Lane and back) 6th March (Sun): 20 miles (Winchester to Basingstoke) 13th March (Sun): 23 miles (Reading to Basi...

Distance walking has a habit of uncovering truths and secrets one did not know about oneself.  I'm interested to see what's left of me after LEJOG. How it shapes me as it's shaped others.  Journalist Michael Herr heard a soldier remark after surviving combat in Vietnam, "I've been scaled. I'm all smooth now." Now that's interesting...I want to know what smooth means.  Mountaineer George Mallory knew that to struggle  leads to understanding. I want to understand what it's like to live to move and move freely, to experiment being nomadic, to slip anchor and drift north east with the wind until the end of the land. Hopefully this journal will be of interest to fellow LEJOGers and JOGLEers, or anyone else who's setting out on what LEJOGer Mark Moxon called "this ridiculous walk." If you have any questions, get in touch. Sam.