In training: Another long walk

As part of our training for the London to Brighton 100K Trek, we have been stepping up the distance walks in preparation for the endurance challenge facing us next month.

It's all in aid of the British Heart Foundation - and this blog is about the walk, the training and the fundraising.

Walking the North Downs Way

The North Downs Way national trail has featured in a few of our training walks already and we previously reached as far as Guildford in the westerly direction. The final length of the trail is about 10 miles farther west to Farnham. This means we've done all of the North Downs Way between Guildford and Hollingbourne, with the Guildford-Farnham part still to finish in the west, and from Hollingbourne-Dover still to cover in the south east.

24 May 2015

We jumped on a train from London Waterloo to Guildford where we followed the River along the route which will be part of the actual London to Brighton Trek on the 27th June. Where this meets the North Downs Way we turned off the river path and headed in the direction of Farnham.

The first 12 miles to Farnham took us through bluebell woods (pictured above) and sandy lanes. At Farnham station we switched from the North Downs Way to a combination of local walks heading for MOD land, eventually ending in Fleet, another 14 miles further.

Danger signs and suspicious objects on MOD land near Aldershot and Farnborough.

When we got to Fleet Pond nature reserve we realised a train from Fleet back to London Waterloo was due in the next 5 minutes so we finished our 26 mile walk with a light jog, followed by a more serious run when we spotted the train was on the other platform and we needed to run over the footbridge to get to it!

Today's walk has almost very nearly coincided with part of the route we walked on our first charity walk adventure from London to Devon, where we followed the Three Castles Path for 3 of the days. We are planning a future walk to join up the end of this walk from Fleet, heading to Winchfield and the Basingstoke canal. But that's for another time!

Here are a few more photos from this walk:

23 mile circular walk in West Sussex

We are in training for a mammoth charity walk for the British Heart Foundation - the LONDON to BRIGHTON TREK 2015. It is 100 km to be completed within 30 hours, walking through the day and night.

We're doing plenty of long walks at the moment to train for this large undertaking!

Here is one to share with you.

If you enjoy walking, this walk is a stunning route through the West Sussex countryside. We did it in May, when the bluebells were out. The walk crosses the appropriately-named Bluebell Railway (a preserved steam railway) a couple of times.

It's a circular walk so it can be started anywhere and you could shorten it if 23 miles is to your taste (if you're not in training for a trek!). We started in the village of West Hoathly, which is not far from the M23 Crawley/Gatwick.

Setting off from West Hoathly, we walked clockwise towards East Grinstead, then followed a straight trailway to Forest Row, before heading south and west to Horsted Keynes, then back round to the start point at West Hoathly.

For the walkers out there, click the map below to view the track we created using Viewranger (a GPS tracking app).

Get in contact if you'd like further information about this incredible walk. It's thoroughly recommended.

Below are some photos from the walk to entice you to go and do it!

Training begins for 2015 challenge

Hello blog readers!

A couple of weeks ago we got back out walking again and began our training for this year's charity walk challenge. 

We've gradually been doing day-long sections of the North Downs Way in Kent and Surrey. 

This time the section was an 18 mile walk in the snow, wind and rain from Betchworth to Guildford, another section of the North Downs Way.  Soon we will have connected up from Strood in the East with Farnham (and beyond, to join the route of our 2013 London to Devon walk).

Betchworth to Guildford - Track map and stats | Click to see it on a map.

It's all in preparation for a big challenge of a walk later in the year. More about that soon!

Here are some photos from the walk:

Snow topped trees on the North Downs Way

Boots!

Approaching Guildford

Hillside swamp trail

The North Downs Way

Otford to Oxted

We took the train to Otford in Kent and strolled into a little shop to pick up some supplies.  We should have known by the shopkeeper's tone when she said "I can see you haven't been across the fields yet" that we were about to let ourselves in for a very waterlogged walk.

There were some pretty good hills involved in this training walk, although most of the time was spent trying not to slide back down.

The rain held off and the sun came out. The breath taking scenery from on top of the Downs made all the efforts well worthwhile.

At times walking 15 miles felt more like 50 - partly to do with some missing North Downs Way signage and partly to do with the squelchy underfoot conditions.

We'll have to revisit the North Downs Way in the summer and complete some more of this great trail.  For more info about the North Downs Way see www.nationaltrail.co.uk/northdowns

Why this walk?

Will and Alex are embarking on a 250-mile walk from London to Devon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and RMH Bristol.  Find out why

Can you spare a few pounds?  Sponsor at Virgin Money Giving

One week to go!

It's the final countdown to the big walk.

Thank you to everyone that has already sponsored us and all the messages on the sponsorship page.

Training update

Yesterday we pushed 20 miles in just over 5 hours, which was possibly slightly over-doing it. Feeling the after affects today!

Fortunately there will be less time pressure when we're doing the real walk, so we can spread the miles out over the full day. Good to know we can push a fast pace if we need to, though.

What weird weather, all 4 seasons in one day! At least there are a few signs that the sun might come out and stay out...

Training continues...

Just 3 weeks to go until we set off on our epic walk.

We've both bought new walking boots (hooray!).  The other day we took them out and initiated them with mud.

Richmond Park

Visiting Richmond Park for the first time is one of those "why have I never been here before" moments. It's easy to forget you're in London.  It felt more like being on Dartmoor than being in the city.

Our training walk took us from Richmond station through the town to the riverside. Climbing up the hill, we reached Richmond Park and followed a route we'd created using a new GPS route app.  Embracing the technology!

We didn''t spot any of Richmond Park's famous deer (perhaps we weren't looking in the right places). However we did see plenty of these noisy characters...

And should you want to fly model aircraft, apparently this is the place to do it... As long as you observe this board which looks like it has been there since the birth of flight.

 

What's this in aid of?

In 3 weeks time Will and Alex are embarking on a 250-mile walk from London to Devon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and RMH Bristol.  Find out why

Can you spare a few pounds?  Sponsor at Virgin Money Giving

Green chain walk

We have been exploring the Green (and in some places brown and muddy) Green Chain walk around south London.

Green Chain Walk

Friday's walk took us from Brixton to Eltham via Crystal Palace and Elmstead Woods.

We met quite an array of different wildlife on this walk, including ducks and dinosaurs, as you can see!

This was quite a hilly route and was good preparation for the hilly stretches of the walk.

We like company on our walks so feel free to join us for part of a training walk one day. Contact us for details.

More like ice skating! An update...

Hello!

Here is the latest news from training and preparations for the walk.

We're gathering more and more support in the form of sponsorship (uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/walktotnes) and also "donations-in-kind" (all the super people who are offering to help us raise money and awareness).  See the ways you can help for info and ideas about how you can get involved besides sponsoring the walk. This extra support is really vital and we really appreciate all offers of support, no matter how small you think it might be.

A suspected broken toe

Bad news. Alex broke his toe! This has put a dampener on training this week. Let's hope it heals quickly and we can get back into our training regime soon.

Training on ice

Last week, before the broken toe incident (and not related) we went out on a very icy circuit of South-East London.

South-east London circuit

For most of this walk it felt like ice skates would have been more appropriate than walking boots and there was a bitterly cold wind. This 11-mile route took us past Severndroog Castle (see photo below) and Eltham Palace, around Lewisham and up over Blackheath.

Severndroog Castle

More news soon!  In the meantime, keep up to date with us on Twitter and Facebook

Sponsorship and training update

Snow Time!

The fluffy white stuff has slightly put the brakes on our intended walking schedule this weekend. But it could potentially snow in March so we're taking the opportunity to do a bit of "adverse weather" training.

Check out Alex's red wellies

We also made the most of the snow to do some un-subtle promotion (you can find the pic on Facebook and Twitter and share it)...

Thinking up all sorts of terrible snow-related puns, such as "there's SNOW time like now to sponsor us" as the caption for this picture...  Hmm, maybe the picture speaks for itself!

The sponsorship money has started coming in via our Virgin Money Giving page (http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/walktotnes) and we'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has already sponsored us. We'll soon be putting out some info and ideas about other ways you can help. We really appreciate anything you can donate - whether it's via sponsorhip, or helping publicise the walk, or practical help with the walk itself.

A mission to photograph the "Totnes Walk" sign

Camberwell to Hampstead

via Totnes Walk

 

Whilst researching our route for the London to Totnes walk we Googled "Totnes Walk" and it turns out it's a road in north London.

So we walked there - and took the photo that is currently the cover photo adorning our Twitter and Facebook profiles.

On-street advertising for our charity walk

Totnes Walk is just north of Hampstead Heath so we set off from Camberwell on a walk which took us up through central London to Camden, then Kentish Town and almost as far as East Finchley. See Totnes Walk on a map

We thought about starting the walk in March from Totnes Walk N2.  It's either that or we'll be starting from the centre of London (at Charing Cross, because distances to London are measured to/from there).

"Totnes Walk to Totnes - walk"

Maybe that's a bit confusing to explain!

I think we'll stick with "London to Totnes walk".

Anyway, we got our photo and had a good walk in the process. It was just a 13.5 mile stroll and we felt we could have kept going and exploring for longer but we had to cut it at Hampstead tube station to get to somewhere else by a certain time.

Camberwell to Hampstead via Totnes Walk

We might return to Hampstead and use the heath as the start or end of another walk as it's good to get a few hills involved in our training. We really need to get out of London for some proper hills like ones we'll encounter in Dorset and Devon.

The training continues....

16.7 mile South-east London circuit

Interesting circular London walk route

Camberwell - Dulwich - Peckham - Lewisham - Deptford - Surrey Quays - Bermondsey - Camberwell

In preparation for our 250-mile walk we're doing a series of training walks to get our fitness levels up.

The aim of this walk route was to pass through as many of south-east London's parks as we could find whilst walking a circuit heading anti-clockwise from our starting point in Camberwell.

With this rough plan in mind, we set off and headed through Ruskin Park.  Next, we went via East Dulwich to Peckham Rye Park. We then wove our way towards Brockley where we climbed up to Hilly Fields Park to find the Stone Circle.

Stone circle in Hilly Fields Park

From here, we dropped down to Lewisham and followed the creek up to Deptford where we joined the Thames Path, heading west.

View where Deptford Creek joins the Thames

Passing through two small parks, Sayes Court Park and Pepys Park, we reached Greenland Quay and spotted Russia Dock Woodland so we diverted from following the quayside to keep up the theme of walking through as much greenery as possible.

After Canada Water, we reached Southwark Park and followed Jamaica Road to Tower Bridge. Pit stop for lunch in the Bridge House, then south via Burgess Park back to Camberwell. The idea here was to roughly follow the route of the former Grand Surrey Canal.

The final park of the day was Myatt's Fields Park, which we skirted the edge of, back to our starting point and completing the 16.7 mile round-trip.

Our walk route

It was a very chilly January day when we completed this walk so this kept us moving at quite a pace. I would happily retrace a similar walk in Spring or Autumn and allow time for exploring the parks in more detail.

Training session route (Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs)

A circular walk with two foot tunnels

Woolwich - Greenwich - Isle of Dogs - Silvertown - Woolwich

Training route

Starting at the top of Shooters Hill Road it's a nice downhill stretch for a couple of miles through Greenwich Park and into Greenwich.

Next to the renovated Cutty Sark we found the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel.

The Cutty Sark

Walking through the tunnel, the acoustics down there are a little confusing - you can easily find yourself having a phantom conversation with someone many metres ahead or behind you as if they were standing right next to you.

On the other side of the river we headed north towards Canary Wharf and got a bit lost around some new hotel/housing developments and ended up following the main road for quite a time.

This was a fairly unscenic part of the walk, mostly following the concrete sky train structure that is the Docklands Light Railway along North Woolwich Road. When we came to Thames Barrier Park after a couple of miles the sight of greenery and the prospect of being able to walk next to the Thames drew us in. Strangely topiaried lines of hedges led us towards the view of the Thames Barrier.

Thames Barrier from Barrier Park

Unfortunately there was no way to continue alongside the river from Thames Barrier Park, so back to the main road and continue east aiming to find the Woolwich foot tunnel.

Passing the second of the Tate & Lyle factories the smell of Golden Syrup was in the air. Before we knew it we'd reached the entrance to the foot tunnel to take us back to Woolwich and to complete our circuit with the climb back to the top of Shooters Hill.

Setting up for a charity walk

This charity walk is really happening. Alex and I have come too far down the line to change our minds now.

- Training for this 250-mile epic trek has started.

- The charities have been notified and they have offered an amazing level of support - we didn't expect that!

- We know our route (more-or-less).

- Alex has bought special lycra walking shorts (so we know this is getting serious).

- And I have spent many hours creating accounts on websites and social networks in preparation for promoting the walk in the hope of raising lots of money.

Keep track of our progress and show your support by following our blog. If you're on Twitter - tweet at us (or rather, @ us). Facebook users please engage with our Facebook Page, and of course most importantly if you like what we're doing and want to support two brilliant charities, please SPONSOR US!