It’s been a week or so since my last post, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and some vague planning.
Here’s where I’m at:
When
September 2021. Unsure of start date, but potentially Monday 6th or shortly after. Early planning suggests some of the river crossings may stop before the end of September.
Tent
I’ve bought a tent, mat and pillow. I know in a previous post I was all over the bivvy idea – and to be fair I haven’t completely dismissed it – but 20+ days on the SWCP is going to end up with some rain and from what I read a bivvy in the rain is not fun.
I went for the Alpkit Soloist. It has decent reviews, doesn’t break the bank and weights in at 1.2kg but can be made lighter if you don’t take the inside (down to about 800g).
I’ve honestly no idea whether losing 400g is going to be important or not. My experience to date is in ultras where I’m maybe carrying a maximum of about 5-6kg for up to 36 hours, but trying to move fairly fast. This SWCP adventure is going to be primarily about walking, with a bit of running thrown in, so I’m going to need to try lots of ideas out.
It turns up tomorrow (as I write this), so I’ll have a play.
Opening Times / Ferries
There are some factors to consider when picking a date.
I live fairly close to Lulworth and know that the ranges between Lulworth and Kimmeridge are only open at weekends in September. It turns out the mid September (18/19) and early October (2/3) weekends are also closed, meaning I need to target the ranges on the weekend of 25/26th. Or alternatively, take the boring and longer road route round… but I’m going to try and plan a schedule that takes me through the ranges on that weekend. If – optimistically – I move faster, then I’ll have to take the road route.
There’s about 108 billion ferry crossings on the route too (maybe a teeeny exaggeration, but I was surprised at just how many!) And a lot seem to be a bloke called Dave with a rowing boat, who sometimes can’t run the service as he’s got a doctor’s appointment.
As someone who likes to plan everything, this makes me slightly nervous. But then one of the main points of this whole adventure is to try and lose planning of the minutiae and be more flexible in my approach – to be prepared for variety of things that could happen and deal with them when they do.
I’ve started looking at ferry service cut-off dates, routes around the ferries etc. I’ll bung a load more details on here when I get things sorted.
Training
If nothing else, the thought of doing this in 6 months (actually, more like 5-and-a-bit months) has given me a kick up the arse with regards to training.
I mostly run, generally averaging around 40-50 miles per week, but over the least year with Covid and a lack of motivation (events keep getting cancelled!) it’s definitely sporadic and at the lower end.
But the last two weeks I’ve kicked things up – 60 miles the week before last, and 50 miles running, 13 miles fast walking (13:00 mile pace roughly) last week. And I’m planning to get up towards 70 as a run/walk total this week.
It’s tiring ramping things up, but I’m enjoying it. Running lays the base – I try to keep the pace low for most (80%) of it, but do a bit of faster work to stretch out and for injury prevention. And I want to build up the walking as it uses muscles differently and can be pretty hard work!
I’m also starting to stick in a bit of strength and conditioning. I’m rubbish at doing that, but with the goal of 20+ days of walking it’s incentivising me – I’ve got a few aches and pains that could become real issues over that sort of time, so need to work on getting more flexible (or… just flexible at all would do!) and a bit stronger in areas other than just my legs.
That’ll do for now. Cheerio.