Sole Train

As has already been said, Saturday 21st February 2009 saw the Spa2Summit team attempt the first twenty miles of our chosen route. It took seven hours & seven minutes and we averaged 2.8 miles per hour, which is around the pace we were hoping for.

The training day achieved everything we had hoped it would - answering many questions we already had  and raising some we hadn't.

Here are a few things I drew from the experience. Firstly, the mix of characters in the team is a massive bonus, conversation flowed continually and morale was never short of excellent. Secondly, I was impressed with everyone's fitness. There were clear differences of pace when we started but after a short while we were pretty much in sync. In fact, the longer the trek went on the quicker and stronger everyone became. The mix of terrain along the first twenty miles was also encouraging - a potentially boring stretch of concrete jungle would be replaced by lovely soft grass for a while, and energy-sapping bogland would precede the foot-pleasing luxury of a country lane. This went a long way to helping us comfortably reach our goal. In fact, the hardest part of the walk seemed to be the final two miles, not because it was the final two miles but because it was a long undulating road of apparent nothingness. This may have been the reason why we spontaneously began to run it, which brings me onto my final positive point: when this group is faced with difficulty, instead of shying away from it we attack it, as if personally offended it could treat us that way. How often this attitude will be needed we will have to wait and see.

Even the one major negative turned out to be a positive. Blisters. How is this a positive? Because it's a negative we can control. We learned firsthand at the weekend that prevention is better than cure, and strapping up vulnerable areas beforehand and selecting the right footwear for our individual needs is paramount. For me that means lacing pillows to each foot.

A final note: I'd like to give special mention to Jonty, the Hero Of The Day. Jonty, as you probably know, is our support guy. He's volunteered himself to be our Jonty-On-The-Spot, driving our excess gear around and keeping us well organised. This means he won't be walking with us on the day. Yet here he was powering along with us, getting a feel for what we'd be going through. I think it's called "going above and beyond the call of duty," and is an inspiring characteristic to have in the team. Thanks Jonty!