Night walking

After the 31 miler over the Jubilee weekend the whole team took a break from walking for a week, then last weekend the four of us went out as two groups of two - John & Tony went out and did a shorter, faster walk, to check Tony's knee at pace ... Paul & Carl had to miss going out with the other two (as Harvey made them go to the pub to watch England) so also did a shorter, faster walk, to check out Paul's knee!

In both cases we all covered QE CP to CP1 and back at around 2.7mph pace which was good.  Paul's knee suffered a bit and currently has (latin term) "wobblyness-collapseyness" so is going to seek medical advice.  Probably will be "saw it off and replace with a wheel" or something.  Tony & John also probably want it noted that they went over Beacon Hill on their route, us other two couldn't be arsed.

So this weekend Carl, John & Tony decided to do some "night walking".  Paul declined due to his knee.  Bev decided that the offer of "meet us at a country car park at 10pm" was a bit dodgy (can't think why!) and declined.  A couple of us have already spent 7 hours of trudging up Kilimanjaro by the light of head torches, so we knew what it was all about, but this gave us the chance to try out equipment and get a feel for walking in an environment similar to what we'll experience on the day.

Our route again was to start from QE CP, follow the track for an hour, then head back.  This meant we'd experience a few walking surfaces and also areas under trees and areas under open sky.  We think on the day we'll be around the Devil's Dyke area which has similar terrain and tree covered parts, though some of that is walking on grass too.

What an impressive bunch of walkers we must have looked - me in my luminous green cycling coat, Tony all in black with a little wooly hat and John looking like he'd mugged one of the workers on the nearby A3 and stolen their luminous work vest.

So, all in all, everything went ok.  We went at a good pace (2.7mph), the head torches worked well but we also had a hand torch which proved very useful so we will make sure we have a couple more + lots of spare batteries.  We met a group of people hanging around a car park who were "looking for bats" ... not to mention someone in a steamed up car watching a DVD!  Though they probably wondered why three people were walking with head torches.

Big thing is that even though we've walked this route many times at night it looks so different - the hills seemed easier (as you have no view of the "top" or what angle you are walking) - but at times you wondered if you were still on the correct track - in light you have many reference points.  So we're glad we've walked the parts we'll potentially be doing at night - we'll probably still need to navigate but we have a basic sense of direction.

Next up we're back to a fairly big 20 mile-ish walk .. then there's only one practise weekend left!!