LEJOG 2017

LEJOG TRAINING 1,000 miles in 6 weeks. That is my aim, and the aim of my training.  Background The plan was to start my LEJOG attempt on Thursday 29th March 2018. I therefore planned to train for LEJOG from January onwards. As often happens to plans this one got shelved on Friday 14th April - one month ago - when my employer intervened with an unexpected summer holiday allowance for all members of staff. They knew about my plan for 2018; even so, I thought that requesting a minimum of 6 weeks off would be pushing the boundaries of acceptability. I was mistaken. I got a yes. The revised start date is Saturday 29th July, with a predicted finish in the first half of September.  This has prompted me to bring everything forward: route planning, gear testing, gram counting and most importantly fitness. One month has disappeared already. What emerged from this first tentative month was a  question of singular significance: will I be physically fit enough to walk 1,000...

1 year becomes 3 months This was unexpected. I'd planned on LEJOGing in March/April/May 2018. Because it was so far away, my thoughts turned to existential matters and my reading material took the form of travelogues, biographies of explorers and accounts of expeditions in far flung places.  Then the unthinkable happened: my boss told me to take a holiday in August. 'How much holiday?' I asked. 'How much can you take?' she said. 'How about all of August and half of September?' She looked at me in surprise. Was this a holiday request too far? My boss already knew about my LEJOG plan for next year but it didn't occur to either of us that it could happen at much shorter notice. I jumped at the chance - and I got a yes.  My next thought was 'Oh shit...'. Now it's really real. I've got less than three months to prepare, get fit enough to stand a chance of walking the end-to-end in a reasonable time, trim my gear to its bare minimu...

If you were to ask me "Why do you go walking?" I might reply "It's good exercise" or "I don't drive." Words I have used to describe walking - commute, exercise, travel, explore, freedom, challenge, escape, holiday, view and countryside - hint at an explanation. Individually these experiences accumulate to form a lasting impression that changes or refines my opinion about many subjects, and this is a curious side-effect of distance walking that draws me back to contemplate walks long after the fact.   To put it another way, walking is a series of revelations strung together in a long unbroken line. Components such as fitness, endurance and navigation lead the walker along this path but they are not the end, they are a means.  I like distance walking because of its (sometimes brutal) honesty. It feels good to be eroded by the land and by the weather, and by the rocks and trails I walk on. My layers are peeled away. Stripped back. ...

One person's trail trash is another's trail treasure The more often I explore, the more treasures I find. These happy discoveries are always a welcome surprise and the variety of the things I find amazes me and invites speculation on the history of the objects.  A friend helpfully displaying a roe deer skull In summer 2011 I found a TomTom satnav at the edge of a field near a busy road, thrown presumably from the window of a speeding vehicle by an enraged delivery driver inconvenienced by the infernal machine's contradictory instructions. At the end of the same field on the same evening I found one of those wide metal hoop fly fishing nets abandoned by a poacher, entangled on a barbed wire fence on the bank of the River Loddon, right under one of those aggressively written "Private No Fishing!" signs. Later that year, a little further along the same route, I found a large bag of sweets carelessly discarded by a child on Halloween, which I helped myself to. ...

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 i...

2017 in miles, hours and boots Note: I wasn't planning on training for LEJOG until early 2018 with a proposed start date of 29th March. However in April an opportunity arose meaning I'm on for LEJOG this summer. Training has therefore been brought forward: January  29th December (Thursday) 2016, Training route,  24 miles , 6 hours 42. 2nd January (Monday) 2017, Training route,  24 miles , 7 hours 15. 8th January (Sunday) 2017, Basingstoke to Winchester,  23 miles , 7 (hard muddy) hours. 14th January (Saturday) 2017, Reading to Basingstoke via Calleva/Silchester, 7 hours, about  23 miles . 21st January (Worting Road to Kingsclere via Cottington's Hill/Hannington and back), 5 hours 45,  17.6  miles. 28th January (Saturday) (Cottington's Hill and back; hill training, 3 ascents) 6 hours 40,  22 miles . Turned my right ankle on a divot. Ouch. 29th January (Sunday) training route full circle (with various shortcuts)...