Oxfam Trailtrekker 2009 - Joel's Story II

A slog which seemed like forever took us to the top of Fountains Fell where we could come face to face again with Pen-y-ghent. One of the many Marshalls out on route took the piccy for us before James got his boots back on and we carried on.

Still feeling pretty good at this point - if a little hot.


And so to the bottom of Pen-y-Ghent where we chatted to a guy walking the Pennine Way in stages. That might be him scrambling up the first section with his wife.

Eventually we got to Horton where the pain for me really started although from an unexpected source. Ian from support crew two was preparing a couple of teas for us when I went to sit down on the seats attached to the table. I might have been slightly heavy sitting down but the net result was a broken table and chairs and I got a scolded back and arm - very painful.

As we approached Cam Woods the group were all starting to feel the walk. The blisters hadn't yet got to me but as the sun went down it felt like this was the time of day when everything would change.

As we plodded on between waterstop 3 and Beckermonds (waterstop 4) the pace slowed quite dramatically. Ady was struggling with blisters as was James (he thought) and Rich was feeling the knee. I felt my first twinge (in my left knee) and severe tightness (in my right calf) and it was downhill from there.

This was perhaps the most difficult part of the course to date as the road to Beckermonds and then the route onto Buckden seemed to take forever.

At Buckden I got a fantastic massage which loosened the hamstrings and calf a little bit giving a bit of rest to the knee. It was then off towards Consitone.

We really suffered on the night section between Buckden and Kettlewell and were passed by many teams.

Oxfam Trailtrekker 2009 - Joel's Story I

We did it!!!!

In late 2008 myself, Ady, James and Rich decided to tackle the Oxfam 100km challenge. This post (and the next few) is my story of the final days - the challenge itself.

Saturday morning saw an early rise to get breakfast on the table. In actual fact this was a normal morning as the kids were up as usual at 5.30. The breakfast was a bit special (even if it doesn't look appetising from the picture).



After loads of checks and re-checks of the remaining bits of kit it was off to the start line where we posed for a pre-challenge photo.

Support crew number one gave some last minute advice to Ady as the start approached. It seemed even at this point that some people were finding out for the first time we were a) walking 60-odd miles and b) climbing over pen-y-ghent!

We made it to Malham in reasonable time and enjoyed a well earned rest before the toughest single part of the course.

Having left Malham it was (relatively) quickly to the top of the Cove where Ady and Rich were in good spirits.

For the Malham-Horton Section I'd swapped my trainers for walking boots and at this point I felt fine. No pain in either knee and feeling pretty fit.

This is it.....Follow us some more

Registration is done, tags firmly fixed on the wrist. There is no escape.

If you have little else to do for 30 hours from 8am Saturday morning (30th) why not follow our progress (or lack of).

I think you can click the link and search for the team or individuals in the team.

http://siera.sportident.co.uk/trailtrekker/results.php?course=Long

This time in two days it'll all be over :-)

Nuun

Tried some of the Nuun that james bought today. Tasted quite nice! Like flat weak coke. Just under 36hrs to go!

Topping up the miles

To help provide some feedback to my 'physio', Alastair (shameless plug 'cos he's very very good - http://www.bowentherapyclinic.net/) I went for a walk round my usual 'Embsay Crag circular' to give a good test of ascent and descent. Last time I did this I was on the phone to my GP as I came past work on the way home - I'd been suffering since 3/4 of the way up the crag. This time around I hoped to get round pain free although I expected some reaction. The success of the treatment was summed up when I managed to land a triple salko off the last stile on the route with no pain. Okay so maybe I exaggerate the triple salko bit but I felt fine all the way without a hint of trouble.
To boot I also found what I believe to be a rabbit skull (I have a fascination with animal skulls although I contest this fascination is not to a weird extent i.e. I leave the skull where I found it!),

and I think I witnessed a couple of butterflies mating (I confess I tried to (gently) separate them naively thinking they’d ‘got tangled up’ but they weren’t prepared to dis-entangle!). I’ll let you make up your own mind which section of the Karma Sutra this is from.

The final countdown

Well, here we are. Only one week to go. We've been on something of a journey but one which is far removed from the one we expected. Setbacks have prevented us walking as a team very often which is a little disappointing so walking on the day is going to be a bit of a learning experience.

Have a look at the little animation sent to us by Oxfam. Quite funny.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/fundraise/trailtrekker/trailway_code.html?ito=3058&itc=0

Also, massive thanks to all those that have sponsored us so far or supported us in other ways. We really are grateful and thanks to you were are going to cruise past our target. For those that haven't sponsored us yet don't let that put you off. Dig deep so we can break the £2,500 barrier.

No Sleep 'til Skipton (almost!)

Friday evening saw the Q-Team (or at least half of it) embark on the final big training walk - the intention was to walk 36 miles from Horton to Skipton.

The team comprised just Ady and me, since Rich was in Birmingham and Joel was in Suffolk. Nick Cave accompanied us in his capacity as the support crew for the evening.


We set off in high spirits from Horton-in-Ribblesdale at 7:45pm


The team reach Beckermonds in reasonably good time and spent five minutes refueling and enjoying the full moon.


Support Crew were freezing...

Shortly afterwards we met another Trailtrekker team, doing the same route but going much faster!

We moved on down Langstrothdale to Buckden and then Kettlewell at about 4am. The route out of Kettlewell proved quite tricky to find and Ady and I went wrong several times trying to stay on the Dales Way!

During the slow ascent up onto the Crags, it became apparent that my knee, which had been troubling me since the Lake District walk the previous weekend, was going to start getting very uncomfortable. I had naively thought that I'd just bashed it whilst going over Striding Edge. The unthinkable soon became openly discussed as we talked about abandoning the walk at Conistone (after only 20 miles). We were attacked by some rather angry looking birds as we crossed over the tops of the Crags by Conistone which caused some light-heartedness, but it also became apparent that I had got quite bad blisters once again.

I probably could have made Skipton (it would have been touch-and-go!) but we agreed that it would be folly so close to the big day.


We finally abandoned the walk at Kilnsey 6:30am

I have since bought a very cheap knee-strap from e-bay (this one) which seems to be helping quite a bit. This, my lighter rucksack and appropriate painkillers should give me a fighting chance...

Just to be on the safe side, I'll be leaving the final training preparataions to the rest of the team :-)