The Longest Day

Evolution is a good thing. No designer would have thought to create a memory system that recalled painful events but made it difficult to visualise and remember the pain itself. And so I can say with little precision that The Trailwalker 2010 event was the most awful voluntary thing I have ever experienced. Oh, was its despicable agent ever well camouflaged. A vile and cruel enemy, lurking until kilometre 55 that struck simultaneously on several fronts in several guises. I suddenly realised I was just a passenger on this 100 km walk. Pain used my feet as a pawn in a war with my will. I cursed my ancestory. I had just learned I am the evolved product of generations of determined people who didn't use their feet enough.

The pain in my bruised soles burned on every step, lessened with speed but returned with unwanted dividends on slowing. Lucozuprofen was a trusted ally for kilometres until my sugar-averse body decided a dose of nausea would protect it. Around there, kilometre 55, things go decidedly hazy. Where there had been fields of wheat and barley shimmering in the breeze, now there was nothing. A beautiful sunrise, worthy of comment yet compromised by team mates whose earbudded music was actively displacing their own hells. I broke my own code. I listened to The Kaiser Kings and Arcade fire on speakerphone but as invigorating as Closer and Intervention anthems are, I had become the cheerless, careless, dehumanised, sociopathic walking machine # 246C (aka 1074).

March or die said my head, recalling pain-seeded stories of soles falling from overused feet. Take that said my feet (and oddly enough, so said an Oxfam marshall who was telling walkers of Take That reforming for a limited time - talk about pain!). By then I knew victory would be mine. I would and did defeat pain by walking through it safe in the knowledge that it was ephemeral.

This time.

To 650 and beyond!

At last, the 650 km are done. Today I walked down to Killiney Beach and across to Whiterock Strand which is an easy 3 km. Then straight up to 'the castle' (once a semaphore station) via the 238 step Cat's Ladder and across to 'the obelisk', local landmarks at the top of the 200 m hills.  Lots of steps. I stopped into the source of dogwalker's latte at Victoria Gate for a bottle of water and then headed to Coliemore Harbour via Sorrento Park. It was very, very humid today. Not hot, tropical humidity but the chilling, temperate version that leads to illness if you don't get dry and warm quickly. And then it poured rain, but that was OK because a car named Buzz had come to photograph and collect me at the 650 km point (thank you). I was getting comments from my Facebook stalkers via Walkmeter as I was walking - I learned that the iPhone touch screen does not work with sweaty fingers nor in the rain so sorry if (any) replies seemed terse. 

While this walk, my 53rd,  was only 8.5 km, I feel the need for a rest before we start Trailwalker 2010 this day next week. Which matches the Oxfam training guide quite well. I've lost almost no weight over the last three months in doing all this walking but I've benefited in many other ways. It's made me get out and about more and while I regret a few missed opportunities (Bordeaux, Los Angeles), I managed to rack up some klicks in New Zealand, Spain, England and Ireland. Fantastic. Lucky.

Work out how to follow me in Facebook (Walking Commentary). You are invited to stalk us virtually next weekend across the South Downs, assuming the iPhone battery extenders I've borrowed work. A Gurkha curry in Brighton at 7 am Sunday will be our goal.

YES, YOU CAN SPONSOR 8.5 KM ANY TIME 24/7! 

Racing Narrowboats?

The dreaded shin splints returned today when I went back south to Little Britain. First real pain in a month and they lasted four kilometres. Once they passed, I was walking efficiently enough to overtake narrowboats on the canal. I beat one called Willow to the Toll House and Malt Shovel Pub at Cowley Lock, wondering if a dead Muntjac deer that had been floating there had been removed since we saw it earlier in the week. I think this the warmest day so far this year; it felt over 30 C but TV will confirm later.

Having walked another 10 km today, I have just 8 km left to walk to reach my personal training goal of 650 km. Here's an interesting aside: current Walkmeter statistics tell me that I will have been out walking for 140 hours and used 41000 calories. These seem like big numbers to me.

WANTED: SPONSOR FOR 10 KM

Yet Another Canal Walk

A short walk, just 7.75 km up to Denham and back. A humid, overcast day and not a lot more to write about it. Bashful and I ate lunch during a telephone conference call between the Oxfam Trailwalker organisers and the walkers. Lots of questions about the checkpoints, signage and facilities as you'd expect. It seems that the Gurkhas prepare curries at several locations and the traditional completion meal is another curry. An interesting development, perhaps a bit worrying; I think I'll bring my own food. Other sage advice included waving arms at bullocks (which will be exhausting since we have a Bulloch in the team!).

Walkmeter linking into Facebook has a dark side. The volume controls are disabled when the iPhone speaks the comments posted on my 'wall'. Good outdoors. Awkward in meetings if people comment after a walk has completed. Very awkward.  Couple that to the sense of being stalked and I'm going to have to get off Facebook.

And if you have problems making a donation on the site, forget it, don't waste your time. Thanks anyway but even I was unable to donate today so I understand your frustration. But I'm really pleased to see we ten have reached £12,707.70 despite the intermittent problems on the site.


Thank You BOB! Once here and again HERE where the pain was worst! 

Railway Sett

My 50th training walk, this one over lunchtime together with Snow White and Bashful. We went along the Frays, up to the Common, past the abandoned ski slope, across to Swakeleys, through the Harefield Place golfers and back along the disused railway. Not quite disused, there's a path and it took us through a badger sett. Then under the A40 through the graffiti gallery and back to work.

I am now 'broadcasting' the walks on Facebook and it was nice to get your comments today - yes, the iPhone voice synthesiser spoke the comments to us while we walked our 9 km. Weird or cool or both, it's an interesting development.

9 KM FOR £18?

Canal Fishing

Bashful and I were off down the canal again today. A light breeze made it a pleasant 10 km hike though tiredness is beginning to set in and I'm looking forward to the rest next week before the big event in just eleven days.

Saw a few big carp lolling around in the middle of the canal. Later a casting fisherman on the Slough Arm of the Grand Union Canal told us that he was after carp, tench, roach or even pike (though I think he meant perch). There was an article in the papers recently reminding people that carp must be returned. Why would that be? Answers in the comment box please.

10 KM FOR £20?

Canal Lunch

Snow White, Bashful and I walked down the canal to Little Britain where a burned out car reminded us that the apparent tranquillity is just a veneer. We also watched some swans, the cob harassing horses to protect their cygnets while the pen kept an eye out for other trouble. 

And today is a day for some statistics.We walked 10 km because we have to continue the training. I have just passed 600 km and only have 50 km training to go. FatBoy lost 33 lbs which is amazing as is the money he is raising. Our funding total has jumped to over £11,000 which is incredible (and still rising).

THANK YOU IRENE!

Sugar Loaf

A walk from Killiney to the top of the Sugar Loaf through Bray and Kilmacanogue. One I'd done two years ago for the Three Peaks Challenge. And I knew I had to do it again because the other two walks this weekend had the Sugar Loaf tempting me from the horizon. The first 15 km were in my wet gear, the first time I'd worn it this year. So sweaty but good to have the opportunity to wear it just in case it rains on the day (only thirteen days from now).

I changed out of the majority of my clothes, laying them on the bracken to dry once the sun came out. This was on the slopes of the mountain, in the area where the Irish round of the Trials Bike world championship was held years ago. I had looked at the map and even having walked it before, I still underestimated the distance and the effort. I called to be rescued from the car park just below the peak rather than miss a special Sunday lunch. I later ended up in the bath soaking my knees, jarred and twisted by climbing up over the boulders on the east side of the Loaf, forced there by the 50 km/hr sand blasting winds. It was a tough walk of 19 km that took my total in the last six days to exactly 100 km.

THANK YOU ZITA & RYAN!!!

Rockery Envy

The first thing I saw after I walked up to Curtlestown Wood were some Sika deer. They were as surprised by me as I was by them. I came across three groups of them in the next hour, all grazing on the edge of the managed pine forests. Yesterday I went south to Djouce, today north, back to the start of the Wicklow Way in Marlay Park. And again, there were not too many people but was I wearing a Mr Helpful sign? Two German hikers stopped me in Glencullen and asked me the way to Glencullen. Two tired women resting in the heather, sipping tea from a thermos needed to ask me for a shortcut back to where they'd parked their car - sorry, but it would help me if you told me where you parked it. Miles later,  a Mercedes pulled up, the window slid down and a very frustrated man demanded to know the way to the Fairy Pod. The Fairy Pod, you must know the Fairy Pod? 

Why do foxgloves grow (and in such profusion) in the clearings after trees have been felled? Suggestions in the comments box please! The granite pathways and standing stones always inspire me to continue improving our front garden.

My only stop was in Marlay Park to rest for a short while and pay 3 euro for a 99. I had been dreaming about a swim and arranged to be collected from the road. They brought me to Sandycove where the sea water was terrifyingly and painfully cold but so refreshing. I was sore and stiff after walking 29 km but the recovery period was probably shortened by the immersion.

HOW ABOUT SPONSORING £58 FOR 29 KM

Djouce

A lovely 23 km return walk from Curtlestown Wood to the summit of Djouce (rhymes with mouse) along a part of the Wicklow Way. The view from Crone Wood down over the Powerscourt Waterfall always surprises. I heard and saw lots of chiff chaffs, wheatears and ravens. The sky larks and meadow pipits display flights caught my attention just because I realised how far they travel in the wind. The purple colours of the heathers and foxgloves were striking against the ground greens.

Seeing the bumble bees on the purple foxgloves set me wondering. Are their compound (arrayed, external) eyes more suited to seeing short wavelength (ultra) violets in the opposite way that the kestrel's single large eye is adapted to seeing the longer (infra) red colour of heat in the grass. If the last thing to pass through the mind of the bee as it hits your windscreen is its tail, could we protect the bees by making our windscreens purple? Should we slow or indeed stop for bees as seismic boats stop for whales? Or as they try to limit industrial noise or disturbance a week before the start of deer hunting in the US - are nervous deer tougher to kill?

There was almost no one out in the Wicklow Mountain National Park - it was mine, all mine and the views were fabulous. The only downside were the vile horseflies that savaged me alongside the Glencree River.

Thank you Swiss Steve!

Golf in Reverse

A relatively quick walk reversing our usual direction. A cloudy, humid day with no shadowed contrasts. A school outing armed with cameras held by kids that you can't include in a photograph even accidentally - yet they can snap themselves? Flower baskets in full colour adorning the fence along the tow path. People messing about in boats - painting, opening locks, having lunch, on the phone and even one gardening on the narrowboat roof. Runners. Cyclists. Walkers like Bashful and me. Flogged.

Is it wrong to floccinaucinihilipilificate soccer?

WalkMeter summary:

GoogleMaps: http://j.mp/avx2y1
Distance: 9.02 km
Average: 10:19 /km (or 17 hours for 100 km)
Calories: 532 (if you weigh as little as I do!)


SPONSOR £18? 9 KM

By way of Little Britain

Lots to hear today. "Hello? I got your number on Google?" she said with confidence as crossed the road oblivious to the bicycles. "When you said you wuz goin on oliday I thought you wuz goin sumwhere nice." said one hi-viz jacket lying under a tree among several others. "Nah, just Itly mate!" replied the guy with his head pillowed on an empty water bottle. "Thanks mate" said the policeman hurrying down the tow-path on his bicycle.

It was a beautiful day on which to walk beside the Frays River through Frays Park and on to Fassnidge Park and then all the way down to Packet Boat Marina. Across on the Slough Spur of the Grand Union Canal and back up along the London Loop through Little Britain and beside the River Colne.

Just over 10 km and then up 5 stories in 32 seconds. OK, I admit that was a bit extreme but I'm beginning to enjoy the odd celebration my new found fitness.

WANTED: SPONSOR FOR 10 KM

Uxbridge Lunch Walk

A lunchtime stroll with Bashful and M, we noticed more butterflies than we'd seen before and how parched the golf course had become in just ten days. We saw several types of golfer; Brown Retired, Lunchtime Skimmers and several groups of Greater Well-fed Bankers, judging by the Bentleys and Ferraris in the car park. A kayaker lunching by his camp fire, an interesting counterpoint.

This 9 km walk took me through the psychologically significant 500 km barrier just after I learned FatBoy's diet had propelled us through the £4000 participation requirement. A BIG thank you to everyone who is sponsoring us. I was further comforted to learn that I would only need ten big macs to provide all the calories needed for the 60 mile Trailwalker (yes, that's just one big mac for every 10 km and without the extra salt and fat that fries add!). Of course, a cold big mac induces the gag reflex so I was eating a different lunch as I walked today - a few bananas, a trail bar and a couple of boxed drinks.

I saw a big shroom and discovered the mycologue as I was trying to identify it? Any ideas anyone?

Here are the walking stats with 150 km to go before the big day. I aimed at 650 km knowing I would struggle to find time for the extra 30 hours walking to match the Oxfam recommendation.

SPONSORS WELCOME: £18

No heffalumps?

A lap of the Dublin Zoo much changed since my last visit. A much fuller canopy and cover, the animals seem happier and more accessible. Despite being in a group too old to look for heffalumps, we had a very nice excursion that delighted a younger Grumpy than will walk the Trailwaker with me (in just twenty days).

Elephant, lion, rhino and giraffe always entertain. Fruits bats, tarantula and Burmese pythons evoked their usual paraesthetic skin crawl. The sated Sumatran and Amur tigers, the restive timber wolves and the scene stealing meerkats in the restaurant were the highlights for me.

A mere 4.5 km among the swan, mallard and tufted duck feeeding millieu.

WANTED: SPONSOR FOR 4.5 KM

Three Walks

First, there was the unusual 250 m Heathrow T1 indoor event. Walking from gate 84 to 72 and back and back and back and back and back and back and back, about as boring a 2 km indoor walk as reading this description of it. I was finally stopped by the arrival of my plane and the closing of the security doors that prevent incoming and outgoing passenger exchanges. Sill allowed in the Gold Circle, I enjoyed a cup of green tea and some fizzy water after my 'workout'.

Then the Congo came into my day. All because the Dalkey Blue Bus from the airport (keep up, we're off the plane) was another 30 minutes so I hopped on the immediate Ballsbridge bus with WIFI. We got stopped behind a Congolese refugee demonstration. I think it was to highlight the consequences of war; the missing, the raped and the child soldiers but there were too few people and posters to be sure. I abandoned the bus and the nearby camouflaged Congolese security guards and walked 2 km to Holles Street where I was rescued and delivered home.

And finally, a delay in PM plans opened up the possibility of a two hour walk. Having felt poorly all week, I had dropped enough training that I grasped this chance with open arms. I decided to stay close to home and simply walked down and up to sea level a few times. I enjoyed seeing tots of trees and flowering plants that represent personal achievements in their gardens but add to a regional arboreal and botanical marvel. I picked up some bluish tinged beach pebbles that look like Ailsa Craig granite, brought two hundred kilometres south by long melted Irish Sea glaciers. One geeky improvement has been the release of the new iPhone operating system iOS4 that allows multitasking for the first time - now I can use the camera, the phone, text and Walkmeter apps all at once. I dropped down to see St Augustine but as ever, he wasn't there (The Dalkey Archive). I made it back in time for a shower, a burger and a trip to see Shrek in 3D where I ate ice cream and gummy bears - why not?

14 kms plus the 2 in Heathrow and the 2 in central Dublin means another 18 km knocked off the training challenge.

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Fray's River Rail

Feeling a lot better today, I headed straight out into Friday's traffic choked streets after work. Wrong move, wrong direction. I looped back to the Frays River where I'm pretty sure I saw a Water Rail for the first time. And then doubled back up to Uxbridge Common, round the back of a cricket match and up the former Hillingdon ski slope where the nylon bristle surface still pokes out from the overgrowth. Then back to the golf course and along the London Wildlife Trust Trail, around the lake where Black Poplar cotton littered the ground. A bird hide had a pencilled list of birds that was depressing because I identified more bird species in ten minutes than were listed after six months (and no, I didn't add my comments because someone had borrowed the pencil since the last comment by A. Bird last week).

An encounter with ten path blocking horses in the trees added a small detour. Another with a group of curious heifers gave me pause for thought.

I had covered just under ten km by the time I got back to Uxbridge. One item easily overlooked - the local paths have been trimmed passable again - thank you to whoever does this.

SPONSOR 10 KM FOR £20

Lunch Time Canal Walk

Bashful and I walked out to the Buckinghamshire Golf Course and back, about 10 km. Amidst signs advertising a corporate golf tournament, there were flights of four playing in the heat oblivious to the woodpeckers and other industrious birds trying to make ends meet. We saw the aggregate conveyor being fixed - this after months of inactivity despite all the adds about how road metal would go by canal not motorway. We talked about rambling things like blisters and sunburn while the new snatch-purse (Chancellor of the Exchequer) was elsewhere announcing how he would be picking rich pockets for years to come. It's funny how you buy spinach in a bag and it's ready to use but if you buy a bagged shirt you have to wash it to remove the creases. It seems to me that the roles of Treasury and government are similarly inverted. You might say the 'elect me again' Dracula of government gets to play with the sovereign's Blood Bank.

I seem to have lost (the plot and) a walk somewhere in the blogging past but no matter. This was the 39th (or maybe 40th) training outing and brought me to a grand total of 463 km or 71% of my promise. Time is running out: just 24 days left, 167 km to walk, so you can see I have a challenge.

WANTED: SPONSOR FOR 10 KM

Tall Trees

From a bottlebrush in a Lyndhurst garden to a beefsteak fungus growing on The Knightwood Oak that survived Henry VIII hunting. Off with their heads cried the Queen of Hearts (a memory inspired by the tree's alternative name, The Queen of the Forest) and I thought the same about some of the litterers. A preserved WWII bomb crater reminds us that rambling is best done in peace time or when planes aren't littering.


Doc, Mrs Doc, S and I had walked the Tall Trees Trail and arboretum, part of the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive. Giant Redwoods and huge Douglas Fir dwarf pretty well everything else. A few more names on the trees would help but perhaps overload the school kids for whom this must be a regular outing.  

After walking six very pleasant kilometres we just had to have coffee and biscuits in The Rhinefield House Hotel. A wedding resort if you ask me but a very photogenic place to sit and sip on a glorious summer Sunday.

6 KM FOR £12?

New Forest

The (not so) New (not quite) Forest has seen action since before Guillaume le Bâtard left his calvados behind in Falaise to take up a new job overseas as William the Conqueror (1066 And All That). Our walking group had no such ambition as we set out from the car park across the moors in search of big adventures and perhaps some primordial forest. Sneezy, Doc and I had joined with C, C, S, S, S and N hoping to cover either 10 or 20 miles.

The first 11 miles was basically a loop around Burley Street, a village we never saw. We walked the disused railway for a while west towards Brown Loaf and then went north past a tumulus on Church Moor (they're easy to see on a map but I never saw any on the ground). On across Kingston Great Common where there were lots of New Forest ponies and up to Picket Post where we headed back south-east across the ford at Ridley Bottom. We had a section actually in trees in various Inclosures (sic) from Berry Wood through to Redrise Hill. We finished by passing between Shoot Wood and Spy Holms before walking up Holman's Bottom, looping back north into Cot Bottom and finally returning to the car park between Holmsley Bog and Goatspen Plain where we said goodbye to Sneezy and N, 2C and 3S until dinner.

Barceloneta Promenade

A convention in Barcelona. Such luck. A stroll from the Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB) to a reception in Barceloneta. Even more luck. There were raggedy kids playing soccer on the sand in contrast with gleaming white private yachts in Port Olimpic. The kids seemed to know more about tripping, diving and goal celebration rituals than football - maybe this is football?

I was enjoying a Magum ice-cream when two utterly naked men walked past me. Joggers, walkers, cyclists and tourists all looked after they passed, cameras capturing the safer image. It reminded me of a story from a colder place, The Forty Foot, once a nude men-only bathing place in Dublin, where my father as a child thought that being aware of pickpockets (an issue in Barcelona) meant keeping an eye out for a nasty type of fish.

Barcelona was a really nice place to arrive to. Six days later I was less enamoured. The freedom of expression in Gaudi-type architecture undermines urban planning and in conjunction with hideous Franco-era Stalinist style buildings, it feels disturbingly anarchic. Been there, done that, thank you.

A very pleasant evening stroll of 5.5 km on a balmy warm evening.

POR FAVOR! £11 FOR 5.5 KM