An accidental trek

Dan's solo training #2, Sunday 23rd Jan:

Somehow a planned nice countryside loop, starting from our front door and taking in a decent pub or two, ended up being a 15-mile hardcore training hike that took around five and a half hours. And the pub was closed. It felt like a very long way and it's still only around a quarter of the Trailwalker distance.

The good news is that no long-term injuries were sustained, and we didn't have to call out the St Bernards. We even managed to resist the siren call of the two Gurkha restaurants on the way back through Winchester. On balance, promising. Although, seriously guys, 66 miles?!

Truly Grim

Dan's 1st solo training outing: The Grim

It had seemed like such a good idea when I signed up for it...

'The Grim', which I took part in on the 16th January, involves running 8 miles through an army 4x4 course, splashing through mud and water-filled canyons and crawling under cargo nets. What better way to spend a weekend?

It was stupid and painful, but I was entertained by some of the crazy fancy dress (I was well beaten by the guy in a full suit, who managed to be both fast and stylish, unlike me!).

Probably not the most relevant preparation for our mammoth TrailWalk, but at least it showed me how unfit I am. Now for the serious miles!

A walk in the Lee Valley

Just back from nearly five hours of walking in the Lee Valley. Kept snugly warm with about 25 layers, big duffel coat, thick scarf and my bright red leather gloves - important to make an effort, I think.

This is my third weekend walk in as many weekends - building up the time each walk, as I managed to get tendonitis in my right Achilles heel just before Christmas when out walking with Chris. So far, so good!

The last two walks were also lovely - only one in the pouring rain - so have been very lucky with the weather.

Towards Hour 5 this afternoon, I started to have *minor* concerns about The Big Walk in July - it's a long, long way... We will need all the support we can get!

Our First Donation: Just £2,800 to go!

Thank you to Geoff and Cherry Till for their wonderfully generous donation of £200 to get our fundraising started! Giving at that level they'll get invited to our post-walk thank you dinner and, as a small gesture of how important they are to us, on the big day we'll be scrawling their names over various members of the team. Thank you!

Our First Training Walk: Richmond Park

The team did our first (relatively leisurely) training walk today for Trailwalker 2011 - the terrifying event we've signed up for in July to raise money for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

We decided to take Trailwalker's advice to start training for the event early and slowly so, with six months to go before the event itself, the team met for the first time for a three hour stroll through Richmond Park. The trains were down so getting to the park on our bikes from various parts of London made it a more energetic day than planned for many of the team.

We finished the walk getting a late lunch in the pub (which I hope will be a recurrent theme of our training) and discussing our training and fundraising plan for the next six months. All very exciting!