Trailwalker 2011 - first big training walk
I'll be participating in the 100km hike in July this year in aid of Oxfam/The Gurkhas. To make sure I don't die after the first stage, some practice walks were arranged - and last Friday I walked stage 7 and 8. I also finally got to play with a gadget I'd been wanting to test for a while: The Garmin GPSmap 60CSx.
I was walking with four of my work colleagues; Bradley, Khan, Seb, and Simon. We got to Shoreham-by-Sea just after 15:00 and after a short taxi ride we were at the start point.
We kitted up; Bradley broke out his walking tights and I switched on the GPS.
We set off at a steady pace but it was just minutes before we came to our first hill... which was much more impressive than this photo seems to show!
(left to right: Khan, Seb, Bradley, Me, Simon)
After the first hill (in which we climbed about 200m or over 650ft) I was ready to give up... but I struggled on. The scenery was beautiful, the sun was peeping through the clouds which stopped it getting too cold or too warm, and thankfully there was no rain.
We managed to lose the trail just the once (I had yet to load any maps on my GPS and the maps we had with us were not detailed enough) but over all it was good first go!
I've grabbed some data from the gadget and that's all under the next cut.
Stage7 route:
Stage7 elevation graph:
Look at that first hill! It kills me just looking at it!
Stage8 route:
You can see where we wandered off the trail just before we got to the A23... but we managed to get back without to much peril to life or limb.
Stage8 elevation graph:
After we finally reached the end of stage 8 we had about a mile walk to the nearest station: Hassocks, which for some reason we all found funny at the time... but I am sure that was due to insanity creeping in.
Total stats from start to station:
I was walking with four of my work colleagues; Bradley, Khan, Seb, and Simon. We got to Shoreham-by-Sea just after 15:00 and after a short taxi ride we were at the start point.
We kitted up; Bradley broke out his walking tights and I switched on the GPS.
We set off at a steady pace but it was just minutes before we came to our first hill... which was much more impressive than this photo seems to show!
(left to right: Khan, Seb, Bradley, Me, Simon)
After the first hill (in which we climbed about 200m or over 650ft) I was ready to give up... but I struggled on. The scenery was beautiful, the sun was peeping through the clouds which stopped it getting too cold or too warm, and thankfully there was no rain.
We managed to lose the trail just the once (I had yet to load any maps on my GPS and the maps we had with us were not detailed enough) but over all it was good first go!
I've grabbed some data from the gadget and that's all under the next cut.
Stage7 route:
Stage7 elevation graph:
Look at that first hill! It kills me just looking at it!
Stage8 route:
You can see where we wandered off the trail just before we got to the A23... but we managed to get back without to much peril to life or limb.
Stage8 elevation graph:
After we finally reached the end of stage 8 we had about a mile walk to the nearest station: Hassocks, which for some reason we all found funny at the time... but I am sure that was due to insanity creeping in.
Total stats from start to station: