Training Walk: Pennard to (nearly) Horton and back again
I am writing this post somewhat late. The walk itself was on Monday, and it is now Sunday. There have been lots of excuses, a reasonable number of hours spent at work, and a lot more walking since then, so I'm behind in my log already and it's only post number five. This cannot happen on The Walk itself!
On Monday, fresh off seven straight days of work, I got up late and then remembered I was going to do a seven-and-a-half hour walk and had no food in the house, and a twenty minute drive to the start of the walk. A marvellous beginning, of course. As a result, with sunset at half five, I set off on my proposed seven-and-a-half-hours of walking at 10am. Leaving me precisely the correct number of hours of full daylight, assuming no stops or rests and an average pace of 3mph with a pack of 6kg(ish). This obviously made the whole thing rather more anxiety-ridden than I'd like.
Nonetheless I set off along the cliffs - noting it was rather windy, with a rather steep drop into the ocean on the leeward side, naturally - following the Wales Coast Path with every intention of making it the whole way to Horton and back, a total trip of around 19 miles. All went well initially, and then at about a mile in the path disappeared amongst all the other many paths on the clifftop, descended rapidly to a very sandy soft patch and then climbed up a really quite steep slope again. This was a recurring theme until about mile 6. I got a little fed up of climbing up steep slopes on sand - one step forward, half a step sliding back. This was brightened a little by a herd of Welsh ponies.
Then, finally, I left the dunes, climbed a very steep slope in some woodland, and emerged onto a glorious stretch of flat, firm grass alongside beautiful towering cliffs - pleasingly above me, and therefore not requiring that I climb anything. I made it almost to Horton when a part of the Coast Path had rather dramatically fallen into the sea and the detour got me to 9.5 miles - so, fearing a walk in the dark on my own, I did an about turn and headed back. From this point on my GPS decided to only record my location when I unlocked my phone screen, and thus ruined my walk tracking and cut two miles off my total for the day.
I steamed back along the exact same path, stumbled upon a slightly batty guy who let me feed his last two carrots in the bag to another couple of Welsh ponies and wished me luck for The Walk, and arrived back at my car after sunset but still with enough light I was surprised the car turned its headlights on. Driving to the supermarket to buy dinner was a less-than-enjoyable experience, however!
Blister count: 2 - one small one on each little toe, which were much more uncomfortable in my pumps than in my boots
Boot cost per mile: £2.57
Blood: not today!
Tears: still no!
On Monday, fresh off seven straight days of work, I got up late and then remembered I was going to do a seven-and-a-half hour walk and had no food in the house, and a twenty minute drive to the start of the walk. A marvellous beginning, of course. As a result, with sunset at half five, I set off on my proposed seven-and-a-half-hours of walking at 10am. Leaving me precisely the correct number of hours of full daylight, assuming no stops or rests and an average pace of 3mph with a pack of 6kg(ish). This obviously made the whole thing rather more anxiety-ridden than I'd like.
Nonetheless I set off along the cliffs - noting it was rather windy, with a rather steep drop into the ocean on the leeward side, naturally - following the Wales Coast Path with every intention of making it the whole way to Horton and back, a total trip of around 19 miles. All went well initially, and then at about a mile in the path disappeared amongst all the other many paths on the clifftop, descended rapidly to a very sandy soft patch and then climbed up a really quite steep slope again. This was a recurring theme until about mile 6. I got a little fed up of climbing up steep slopes on sand - one step forward, half a step sliding back. This was brightened a little by a herd of Welsh ponies.
Then, finally, I left the dunes, climbed a very steep slope in some woodland, and emerged onto a glorious stretch of flat, firm grass alongside beautiful towering cliffs - pleasingly above me, and therefore not requiring that I climb anything. I made it almost to Horton when a part of the Coast Path had rather dramatically fallen into the sea and the detour got me to 9.5 miles - so, fearing a walk in the dark on my own, I did an about turn and headed back. From this point on my GPS decided to only record my location when I unlocked my phone screen, and thus ruined my walk tracking and cut two miles off my total for the day.
I steamed back along the exact same path, stumbled upon a slightly batty guy who let me feed his last two carrots in the bag to another couple of Welsh ponies and wished me luck for The Walk, and arrived back at my car after sunset but still with enough light I was surprised the car turned its headlights on. Driving to the supermarket to buy dinner was a less-than-enjoyable experience, however!
Blister count: 2 - one small one on each little toe, which were much more uncomfortable in my pumps than in my boots
Boot cost per mile: £2.57
Blood: not today!
Tears: still no!
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