My microblogging has kind of taken over from my blogging recently. In fact, now that my blog automatically updates my Twitter account, probably most people will find out that I’ve blogged because I’ve microblogged about having blogged.
The upshot of all this microblogging is that occasionally I’ll say something in 140 characters that it might be wiser to say in, say, 410, and it seems appropriate that to an undertaking as lengthy as Trailwalker I devote a slightly lengthier spiel.
The 140 character bit:
This July, I and my friends will be walking 100km (62 miles) in under 30 hours in aid of Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.
The lengthier bit: what we’ve been up to so far.
Our team consists of three ‘Fammers - Julia, Dan and Kinders - and somebody Julia met on Facebook when we were desperately hunting for a fourth person dedicated or peculiar enough to take on the challenge: Sarah. We’ve named our team Nightcrawlers on the basis that
- we wanted a name that was epic and sinister, and
- by nightfall we’ll probably be lucky if we are crawling.
We haven’t had a single team practice yet. In fact, I’m the only Nightcrawler to have met all three team members. Last weekend Sarah and I, along with her other half and my big sister, went on a 16-mile walk. We started at the end of the trail and made our way to the beginning - realising quickly that the reason the beginning is at the beginning and the end is at the end is that, otherwise, the entire walk is uphill. However, we’ve all been practicing away - alone or in groups of two or three, on trails, in gyms, on saddles and in pools - and I think we’re all feeling confident about the big day. That 16 mile uphill walk took us 5.5 hours (including 30 minutes in a tearoom for a discussion on the pronunciation of “scone”) - which means that even if we relax our pace we may be able to finish the event in under 25 hours. And we can save time by talking about scones on the way.
Sarah’s partner Neil works on the Trailwalker project team - so he knows the route and is full of handy advice. This, coupled with the other three of us working in Oxfam House, where we’re a few steps away from the Trailwalker team and can go and pester them at our leisure, gives us quite an advantage.
My housemate Craig and two other friends from Oxfam, MC and Jenny, will be Trailwalking too. We keep talking about a joint team practice but, so far, it hasn’t happened. We also keep talking about competition, sabotage and betrayal, so maybe it’s for the best that we keep our distance. A fortnight ago they held a cake sale and tried to persuade me to sample a chocolate behemoth that HR nicknamed “The Monster“, but I wasn’t fooled: I noticed they didn’t eat any themselves.
My groovy socks (and hairy legs)
Finally, a word of advice for other Trailwalkers: buy socks. Expensive socks. Lots of them. Last weekend I spent £10 on a pair of walking socks, and I’m not sure if my feet weren’t actually in a better condition at the end of the walk than when we began. I’ve ordered another three pairs (as I’m reliably informed that changing your socks is just about the most important way to look after yourself during Trailwalker).
So now you’re caught up on the adventures of the Nightcrawlers so far. I promise to be better at blogging our progress to avoid another monumental infodump like this one - and of course I’ll continue to microblog updates too. You can also stay informed using RSS or subscribe to an email update. And finally - there was nowhere else this post could possibly lead - if you haven’t already, please throw a few pounds our way. (Take a look at my Trailwalker page to see what Oxfam might do with £1,000.)
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