Trailwalker - the full story

It's the morning after the day before, and as promised, the full story of our experience of Trailwalker.

We arrived in the Travelodge in Basingstoke on Friday night, having decided not to camp at the start and choose a real bed instead. As it happened this was a good call, given that it rained hard on Friday night, but at the time a motel behind a Harvester on a ring road commercial estate didn't feel like the most salubrious place in the world.

We headed down to the start in Petersfield that evening, registered with the Trailwalker team and enjoyed a quick barbie cooked by the Gurkha support crews. Then back to Basingstoke for a last pint and fitful sleep.

We woke at 4.30am on Saturday morning, packed our bags and headed down to the Start. It was a grey morning, but people were excited and chatty as they waited for the start. At 6am we were off on the first stage, an average run of 10k.

Trailwalker is organised into 11 stages. The first four are on average 10k, typically with a climb at the start, a long flat bit, and then a descent, and we gobbled them up pretty well. Our first support crew (well, crew is a big word for one brother, Phil, but he did a great job) kept us fed on scotch eggs and brunch bars, and we were feeling fine and dandy. But then came a 13k stage, only three k longer than the average, and for the first time we felt genuinely tired. We got it back together on the next two stages. But then, night fell.

The first genuinely unpleasant experience was at twilight high on the Downs. We were walking down a farm track, and suddenly there were gigantic bees anywhere. They were buzzing around the hedgerows, and for the best part of a kilometre they were buzzing us, too. No-one was stung, but when you're tired and strung out the feeling of gigantic bees crashing into your face and head is genuinely alarming.

As night came on, it became harder to walk on the chalky trail without stumbling over rocks, and when we finished this stage, at the top of Devil's Dyke, we were very tired. In front of us was the longest stage of the trail, 13.8 k, and it was very dark. iPods were donned for the first time, two on and two off, in an attempt to keep spirits up, and it worked pretty well for a time. Comms in the team broke down for a while, as some of us decided to get a cracking speed on to get the stage over with, while other thought a more circumspect approach might be wise. But we careered through the stage, down off the downs and through a really unpleasant bit where the trail was narrow and, in the darkness, even with head torches on, it was virtually impossible to keep secure footing. It seemed to take forever, that stage, and a new low point was reached. We were exhausted, and at the end we walked through a silent village to the 9th checkpoint, the last one where we would see our support team.

This, for me, is where I nearly lost it. I sat down and suddently felt unbelievably ill and faint. I almost passed out, but my brother John took over and got me sitting up straight, breathing slowly through the nose and out of the mouth, and after a few minutes I started to recover. We got ready for the final push: two stages, two climbs, 5 k for the first, 6.4 k for the second.

The worst thing about the Trailwalker is the way it pushes you and pushes you, until you think you can be pushed no more, and nowhere is this worse than in the final two stages. At the start of the first, penultimate, stage, there is a brutal 220m climb, then down through green fields to the 10th and final checkpoint. And, with 750 m to go before the checkpoint, what do you know? Thunder, lightning, rain, the whole thing. And I had left my waterproofs in the car, in my rucksack which I'd taken off to avoid the weight.

So we made it to the final checkpoint, soaked and cold and unbelievably tired. I borrowed a bin liner from a Gurkha, turned it into a sort-of rain vest, and then we started off, in the rain, on the final stage to the finish. 6.8 k to go.

A long, slow shallow climb, in the rain. The summit. Then 2-3 k of a muddy, rocky, awful track. Then the first site of the Brighton race track, the finish. But we're not done yet - we have to walk around the bloody thing to get to the finish. Then 750 metres along the final straight of the track, into the finish. Handshakes, clapping, medals. Done. And done.

I can't say this is something I would ever do again. It was hard, almost impossibly hard, ridiculously hard. My main emotion at the end was a kind of low-burn irritated anger at how hard it actually was. I felt idiotic for trying it without enough training, and as a 40-year old I can say I now understand, probably for the first time, that I now know how old I am.

But in a few days those feelings will fade. I started to feel proud of myself when I spoke to my wife, who seemed genuinely proud of what I'd done and who formed our support crew for the middle part of the walk, and when Alick's girlfriend Caroline, who supported us at the end when we were at our lowest ebb, sent an email last night to say how we'd done something amazing and how proud we should be of ourselves. This morning, after some judicious stretching, I maybe don't feel as bad I thought I would, and slowly, surely the memory of the horrors of Saturday/Sunday night are beginning to fade. I'm sure in a month's time I'll be thinking about doing it again next year. I won't, no question. But I bet I'll be thinking about it.

It's all over

It's over. I'm sitting on my sofa with my body in pieces and my feet in shreds. This weekend was, without doubt, the hardest thing I've ever done physically and mentally. More later this week when bodies have recovered.

But - I'll say it again - it's over.

The world's worst weather.

There's one story that's not been told. A story about a May day when Alick, Tristan and Annie ventured onto the South Downs, ill-equipped and totally unaware of the adventure they were about to experience.

A story about the day Alick uttered the infamous words "haven't we been lucky with the weather".

I still find it hard to talk about that day, hence why this post is now out of synch and weeks after the event.

It was all going so well. Pockets full of cold sausages and peanut butter sandwiches and hearts full of glee, our intrepid heroes set off ignoring the severe weather warnings and gathering storm clouds.

All was fine until Alick ignored the prime directive of outdoor pursuits and dared - nay double dared - the gods and sure enough, the heavens opened.

Two hours later, cold, wet and tired we walked off those hills and into the warm, comforting arms of Alick's local Harvester pub. A finer, more modern and welcoming hostelry one would struggle to find, it's sole deficiency being the lack of Harveys on tap.

The End.

Not a bad view

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Originally uploaded by lloydshep.

Not a bad view, eh? This previous Saturday and Sunday we did the preliminary to the Big One, walking two Trailwalker stages on Saturday and another two on Sunday - 40 kilometres all in all. We started in Petersfield, spend the night in a bizarre little b&b in Midhurst run by a woman from Bombay and a man from Iceland (sounds like a Men at Work song) and then walked to Amberley the next day for the train back to London.

On the way, we learned several things. Drinking the night before walking is really dumb. The BBC weather forecast is crap (heavy rain forecast, none forthcoming). The view from the top of Bignor Hill has to count as one of the best in England (south to the sea, north towards Kent). And we did 40% of the full distance in 24 hours. Not too shabby.

Two posts in one

Oh dear. We have been somewhat in remiss when it comes to posting on here. Doesn't bode well for the full event, does it? Ne'er mind, here's two ripsnorting walks to tell you about.

Three weeks ago, John, Lloyd and Al (with a couple of interlopers) yomped from Tonbridge to Sevenoaks. As both John and Lloyd grew up in Sevenoaks, this was a time to remember the good old days of teenage angst and unbearable boredom, and as we clambered up a bridle path which ran the height of River Hill, it was the angst we remembered most. But at the top of the hill we wandered into Knole Park, catching glimpses of Lloyd's alma mater Sevenoaks School (cue several mutterings from John about "public school bastards") and remembering that Sevenoaks, for all its faults (4x4s, more Tories per square inch than anywhere on earth, an incessant obsession with property prices) is actually a very beautiful place. And if you fancy a pint of Harvey's (of which more in a future post, we hope), there's no finer venue than the White Rock in Underriver.

Fast forward three weeks to, er, yesterday, and Lloyd, Tris and Al met at Victoria and yomped enthusiastically down the river, through Wandsworth, Fulham, Putney, Barnes and Kew and on down to Richmond. Highlights of this walk were wildlife, including a woodpecker, four herons sitting in a tree down by the water, and gaggles of very attractive joggers to divert a working stiff from the job in hand. And it rained at the end, an enormous tropical downpour that reminded all of us of the importance of proper clothing. Still, we made it into Richmond damp but otherwise unscathed, a walk of 15 miles or so, and finished with a pint and a decent chilli con carne in The Old Ship in Richmond (having already stopped for a sneaky snifter at The Ship in Barnes - uncanny).

No Harveys on this trip, though. Boo!

South Downs Way, Bank Holiday Monday

Dower House 068
Originally uploaded by lloydshep.

So the first full-on full-team Four Bellies experience happened this past Bank Holiday Monday. We did 23kms along the South Downs Way from Amberley down into Shoreham-on-Sea. We were joined by two interlopers - Lloyd's son Jack, and John's wife Jan.

The sun shone, the views were spectacular, and the beer in Shoreham was exquisite. We set off from Amberley at 10.30am and got to Shoreham at 3.30 - so, just under a quarter of the full Trailwalker distance in five hours. Not a bad pace, but we've got an awfully long way to go.

John brought egg pittas and sausages. In his pockets. Disgusting.

A Walk of Two Halves

Tristan and I met up for the first time, along with a friend of his Annie, to attempt 2 walks, both starting from Groombridge on the Kent/Sussex Border, across the top of the Weald.

The idea was to do a 9.5 mile loop out through some villages, Hartfield and Withyam, back to Groombridge and then another 8 miler to Eridge Station and back - with the option of some short cuts if we needed them.

We did the first walk, the full distance, in about 3 hours - but as we reached the end, Tristan upped the pace a notch and I thought, I'm sure, I could hear the sound of his lips smacking together. He was ready for half time and put a real stride on up the hill towards the nearest pub.

So what was going to be a walk of two halves became a lunch of two pints You see, there's really little point walking in such a beautiful area without sampling the fruits of the land - and this area is famous for its hops, so it really didn't seem right to leave without having a pint of a Sussex ale and one Kentish variety, the nut brown nectar washing down a roast beef dinner....

In the end, we didn't make it out for the second half, but it was because, right, we'd ran out of time. It was 2.45 by then, and there was no time to fit in another loop. And I won't hear it any other way.

An essential part of training is not just the walking, its about working out what your strategy is for food and liquid. At this point, regular beer stops cannot actually be discounted.

Next Monday, the four bellies get together for the first time - meeting at Amberly, for a section of the South Downs Way to Brighton. It proves to be an auspicious occasion.