Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Challenge Walking...
Pic 1; Southwell Race Course Pic 2; The River Trent when we left it...As part of my training ‘regime’ (and I use that word very loosely!) I love organised challenge walks… basically these are events organised by groups of people, usually for charity. You are given a route description and are required to check in at a number of check points along the way, where you are also hopefully fed and watered, plus given a meal at the finish along with a certificate showing your time.
They usually seem to be 26 miles, I guess this is because it’s the marathon distance, some mad fools do run them. I love doing these there’s a great atmosphere and you usually end up chatting to somebody.
The Long Distance Walkers Association (LDWA) have a website plus members get a copy of their mag ‘Strider’ three times a year, all events are listed here. At the moment I think it costs about £15 per year to join, which isn‘t bad as there are often event discounts for members.
Anyway, I’ll describe the latest one I did, on 21st October; The Dave Lewis Memorial Challenge…
The route description said that this was ‘26 miles approximately’ so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I got up at 6.30, forced some Shreddies down (carbs) and drove to the small village of Kelham, near Newark. We had been directed to park at Kelham Hall, a restored Victorian building, where there were toilets (thank God!!)
The walk actually started from the ‘Kelham Fox’ public house, or to be more precise, in the car park. The organisers had thoughtfully put out maps, but for some reason had decided to not mark the route on them, so they weren’t much actually much use. I saw Simon, who I’d finished the Ponton Plod with a couple of weeks ago; he was talking to a girl who was panicking about her ability to finish (and who took off like a rocket after we started, never to be seen by us again!!)
As we were waiting for the off (26 milers on one side, sensible 10 milers to the other) I couldn’t help notice that the (skinny, fit looking) girl standing next to me had a- gasp!- Marathon des Sables badge on her rucksack! I would have hero- worshipped her but never got the chance as she left me for dust!
We were given words of encouragement by David Lewis’s widow; he was apparently a keen runner who had tragically drowned, so the walk was set up in his memory, monies raised going towards the Air Ambulance.
Once we had set off, Simon informed me that when he did the walk last year the rest of the field raced ahead and he couldn’t keep up with them; as he does a challenge walk every weekend (!) they must have been pretty fast. He came in last in 9 hours, which demoralised him. Well, the same folk must have been doing it this year as we were rapidly eating their dust, except for two blokes behind us. I walked the whole day with Simon, and found out that he has not only undertaken a LDWA 100 (100 mile walkies in 48 hours! One day maybe…) but he has walked the Coast to Coast- on his own! I was kind of quizzing him for tips, definitely gonna do the C2C one day...
We got to the first checkpoint fairly quickly, then there was a fairly long stretch along the River Trent to the second checkpoint at Friskerton. Each checkpoint had biscuits and home made cakes on offer, but alas no coffee and sandwich stops. After the third checkpoint we left the river and made our way through fields, it was a flat route and quite muddy, reminded me of the Belvoir Challenge!
At one point we walked past Southwell Race Course and could actually see Lincoln in the distance. Sometime in the afternoon I started to develop a headache, which unfortunately seemed to get gradually worse, and like a fool I’d forgotten my painkillers. Uh-oh, not good!
I carried on quite strongly though, but the last few miles felt endless. I just kind of concentrated on keeping going, and don’t think I dropped my pace too much. I thought it may be caffeine withdrawal- I’d not had a coffee since I left home! At last we dropped onto the road leading back to Kelham and the Fox, there were medals instead of certificates for this event but think our time was 8 hours 50 mins- Simon said it beat his last year’s time by 10 minutes so I couldn’t have been too slow!
I dragged him into the Fox for a quick caffeine boost, but it wasn’t doing much good- by the time I got in the car to drive home I was feeling so rough, in fact it just got worse and worse and several times I didn’t think I was going to make it home, I even had pins and needles in my hands and arms. I was forced to stop in a lay-by twice to throw up, by this time the rain threatened for earlier had well and truly hit with a vengeance so I ended up soaked and shivering.
Home never felt so good- funnily enough it started to go, whatever it was, and after a bath I felt relatively ok, just tired… a mystery! What was that about then? Well, it could have been due to the fact that I ate biscuits and cake all day and nothing else, there wasn’t a meal at the finish… so think I’ll take stuff with me in future just in case, like a banana or Power Bar. There again… could’ve just been a bug?!
Hmm... why can't I make the pics go where I want them... they are supposed to be at the bottom! Ah, never mind.
