Training Diary
My training for New Zealand and my charity challenge in April is hotting up a bit now. I'm past the early and rather boring stages of weekly 2hr walks and into the 'proper' training walks which are worth going out into the countryside for now. I was a bit lurgified a couple of weeks ago so couldn't do that much but I was able to get out into the hills last sunday for a proper go - and I've discovered this brilliant website where you can plot your walk to show it to other people.
So I thought - why not blog my training walks (the big ones at the weekend, anyway), so that I can share them with other people and look back on them later?
I went with Elaine, who was the perfect walking companion - not too fast, not too slow, with a good flow of wittering to keep my mind occupied. The walk itself (out of the argus walks website although we did it clockwise, which was backwards to the suggested route and in my mind, much better), was beautiful, although some parts were muddy. The weather was gorgeous with full sunshine for most of the walk - I was glad I'd taken my sunglasses. It took us just under four hours altogether, although the buses and lunch took another hour and a half.
We stopped for lunch about 3 hours in, at the Half Moon in Plumpton which turned out to be a good solid pub serving good, solid pub grub. I had a jacket potato with beans and cheese which was cooked in the oven and very tasty indeed. Elaine had a bacon baguette which she said was scrummy. It was relatively busy but not overfull and we got our food pretty quickly.
We failed to see any wildlife although I saw a lot of buds on the trees, daffodils in Plumpton College gardens and a bumblebee sleepily waking up. We heard a lot of birdsong which Elaine identified but sounded like general-purpose-birdy-stuff to me. I'm not great at birds.
All in all I felt great after the walk and only slightly tired - could have happily gone on for at least another hour if I'd stopped for 10mins rest. Something of a relief after having been ill, especially knowing that 8 hour walks are coming within the next 2 months of training!
So I thought - why not blog my training walks (the big ones at the weekend, anyway), so that I can share them with other people and look back on them later?
I went with Elaine, who was the perfect walking companion - not too fast, not too slow, with a good flow of wittering to keep my mind occupied. The walk itself (out of the argus walks website although we did it clockwise, which was backwards to the suggested route and in my mind, much better), was beautiful, although some parts were muddy. The weather was gorgeous with full sunshine for most of the walk - I was glad I'd taken my sunglasses. It took us just under four hours altogether, although the buses and lunch took another hour and a half.
We stopped for lunch about 3 hours in, at the Half Moon in Plumpton which turned out to be a good solid pub serving good, solid pub grub. I had a jacket potato with beans and cheese which was cooked in the oven and very tasty indeed. Elaine had a bacon baguette which she said was scrummy. It was relatively busy but not overfull and we got our food pretty quickly.
We failed to see any wildlife although I saw a lot of buds on the trees, daffodils in Plumpton College gardens and a bumblebee sleepily waking up. We heard a lot of birdsong which Elaine identified but sounded like general-purpose-birdy-stuff to me. I'm not great at birds.
All in all I felt great after the walk and only slightly tired - could have happily gone on for at least another hour if I'd stopped for 10mins rest. Something of a relief after having been ill, especially knowing that 8 hour walks are coming within the next 2 months of training!