Only A Penitent Ken May Pass...

Some of you may be old enough to remember the last "Good" Indiana Jones film, from way back in 1989. In the climactic scenes of that film, our hero Dr. Jones, had to pass three strange and deadly tests before he could nab the Holy Grail. The grail for the Spa2Summit boys is, strangely, the summit of Pen-y-Fan. But before we reach it, we must undergo three strange and deadly tests, or training walks as we also call them. If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know that I had blister problems on our last walk which meant I was unable to finish the final stretch with the team, and had to sit in the pub nursing a whisky...

This has caused me a few problems (the blisters, not the whisky). Hurty blisters took a week to calm down. What footwear am I going to wear? Will my feet last the distance in June? Etc., etc... To put some of these worries to bed I thought it best if I undertake the 9 miles I missed, which is what I was intending to do today. Unfortunately, for various reasons, that wasn't what happened but I still went out and did 15k, out of Cheltenham towards Leckhampton Hill, across Daisybank and Sandy Lane to Seven Springs then out toward Kilkenny, turning off toward Wistley Hill and then down through Charlton Kings to home. And guess what? No blisters! No pain of any sort in fact. I feel a little bit more in tune with the whole S2S thing again, having had my confidence knocked a few weeks ago.

I also wanted to try a couple of things out on the walk today. Firstly, the GPS unit which has very kindly been loaned to us by Garmin through Nicki at Cotswold - Brecon. I have been using Mapmyrun.com to plot our route on. I thoroughly recommend it, it's a really good tool. You can plot your route on a Google Earth style map, with the roads overlaid, but also there is a terrain map option which is really handy for plotting your way around steep ups or downs. Another excellent feature is the option of exporting your route data as a Garmin friendly GPX file. I struggled at first to get this data on to the Etrex unit, but thanks to the magic of Google found easygps which is a free program which made it, you guessed, easy. Once the route is on the unit it was very easy to follow it, and get an accurate of time, distance, speed and so forth. Very nice!

Related to that is the other thing I wanted to try out and that is averaging 4kmh. As a team, we have maintained a pretty high average speed on our previous walks. By slowing down and averaging 4kmh, we can preserve our energies but still have time for refueling stops and have a few hours as a contingency. So using the gps I tried to monitor my speed and bring it down to 4kmh. How hard is that? I'd watch the Average Speed section on the display, it would hover round about 4-5kmh, I'd put the unit away and then... I averaged 5.7. It's hard to walk slowly, I think you get a destination in mind and you just put your head down and go for it. It's something I think we really need to get dialled for the big one, tortoise and hare springs to mind!

A Special Mention

Very quickly I'd like to add a quick post thanking my dad for his spontaneous and, well, shameless promotion of Spa2Summit. Without being asked he's been distributing leaflets and telling anyone he meets of our cause. This includes an unplanned presentation to members of his local 41 Club. I don't know what he said but it resulted in a very generous donation which we are grateful for.

Thanks dad and thanks to 41 Club! Their website is here. My dad doesn't yet have a website.

Time for a confession...

I've been told that I need to come clean and explain what happened after the last walk, if only just to make people realise how hard this is (basically so you'll give more money!).
It seems that I didn't drink enough during the last training walk and having only had 5 litres during the 13.5 hours we were walking for, got badly dehydrated. I still finished the walk but started feeling sick on the drive back. I had to get Jonty to stop so i could be sick, and at that point I passed out.
Grant and Jont brought me round and forced me to drink something but I really didn't know what was going on. We got going again but 20 minutes later the same thing happened again. At least one of these times I landed face first on the road (my face doesn't need any help to look bad) and with my tongue between my teeth which cut my tongue quite badly.
The boys got me home and after a good night's kip I didn't feel too bad in the morning but this episode really highlighted to me the level of this undertaking.

Top Billing for Spa 2 Summit!

Cotswold Outdoor have a website called We Get Outdoors, where they feature stories about activities they are sponsoring, stuff their stores are up to and so on. Well, guess who's got top billing at the moment? No, guess again. No again, third time lucky? That's right, it's us!
Go here to see more.

Shiny Things

This week, some goodies came through the post. Firstly, my S2S Summit-Cotswold Brecon fleece, which I'm really chuffed with for two reasons. One, it's a really nice piece of kit and two, I had to get a size smaller than I thought I needed!


The next day, this showed up. It's a Garmin Etrex Vista HCX GPS unit, and has been loaned to Team S2S through Cotswold Outdoor - Brecon by the very nice people at Garmin. This will be a really useful tool, as not only will it tell us where we are and where we are going but it will also enable us to have a very accurate idea of our speed and average speed on the walk. That is going to be vital to our successful completion of the challenge, tortoise and hare stylee! More updates once I've had time to play...


Big thanks again to Cotswold Brecon and Garmin, your fantastic support is appreciated by all the Spa2Summiteers!

Sole Train #2

It's been almost a week since Spa2Summit's second training walk and the confidence that we'll complete 70 miles is flooding back. I have to admit that after this 35 mile training walk I was doubting whether we'd be able to do another 35 straight after.

As with the first training walk reaching the end was not necessarily the main goal. Familiarizing ourselves with the route, becoming accustomed with our gear, finding a suitable pace and noting any potential blister areas were of more importance. In these areas the day was a success.

Since the first walk I had acquired new footwear, socks, walking poles and pack (among a few other things).

1. Footwear: The new shoes (The North Face Hedgehog GTX XCR) were a revelation! On the first walk with chunky walking boots I had blisters within a mere six miles; on this second walk I had mild hotspots just forming by the time we reached 35 miles! It can't be ignored that their success is also due to some fantastic socks and lashings of Compeed plasters applied to my feet before and throughout the walk.
2. Walking Poles: I've never been a fan of walking poles but thought I'd give them a go and, once you get used to them, they make a difference. I went without them for most of the walk but introduced them with about fifteen miles to go when I began feeling my energy levels dropping.
3. Pack: One fault I have while walking is that I tend to ration my water intake. This is a big mistake so I bought a Camelbak Mule, a backpack that holds a resevoir of water that runs through a tube to your front so that you can hydrate yourself at any time without having to hunt around for your bottle or flask. At the points where we met up with Jonty I had a big bottle of Lucozade Sport waiting to provide me with the needed salt and its isotonic goodness. Hydration on this walk was not a problem. I did get some back pain in the final stages but this can probably be sorted by tweaking the position and tightness of the pack on my back.
4. Food: With a constant supply of Science In Sport bars and gels, Mars Bars, bananas, Wine Gums and Dextro Energy tablets, as well as sandwiches for lunch, food was not a problem either, although towards the end of the walk the effort of actually eating something saw me cut down my intake - something I'll have to keep an eye on.

All in all, problems encountered from the first walk were eliminated in this one. There is still a great deal of fine-tuning to be done between now and 19th June, most of it being psychological. In the last six days I feel confident that most of that has been done and the enthusiasm to take on the full seventy is fast returning!

. . . . . .

In this age of efficient and quick travel the Earth has become smaller. This is great because, generally, one is never more than a few days from anywhere. As with all progress, though, something has to be lost. With the advances of modern travel, western man has forgotten distance in relation to walking. For example, when telling people that we plan to walk 70 miles non-stop we encounter either one of two responses: awe on one hand and polite indifference on the other. Those who display a sort of awe (this is my ego's favourite type of response!) are ones who you can tell are, or have been, walkers; those who display indifference are arguably ones who have embraced modern transport options and think of 70 miles as an hour's journey on a clear motorway. Before Spa2Summit came into existence I suppose I too struggled with understanding just how far 70 miles is on foot, even though I've always lived an active life and done regular large walks and hikes. This is the first time, however, that I've had a specific distance to aim for rather than say, a ridge, peak, hostel, pub or whatever. What I'm trying to say is this task is difficult. It will take its toll on the five of us taking part. So please continue to donate, not just to help the nurses and hard-working staff of Macmillan but also to give us a boost when we struggle, knowing that we have your enthusiastic support!

New Video Uploaded

Hello everyone! Spa2Summit has uploaded some footage from the training walk of Saturday 25th April. Take a look at www.youtube.com/spa2summit. Thanks!

Into The Even Wester!

I'll take over from Ken's last post now as I, Chris, Ollie and Grant continued on from the Skirrad Inn. It was already late in the day with the light failing from the cloud cover building overhead and the sun close to hitting the horizon and we were feeling the demoralization that comes from losing a team member (although fair play to Ken, he put his shoes back on over his burst blisters which must have been agony and he was gutted to not finish with us). The enormity of our task was really hitting us.

But that having been said we now dug into mental reserves when physical ones were lacking and plowed on, keeping the good pace that we'd been hitting all day, comfortably over 3 mph. We walked round the north of the Sugar Loaf, skirted past Llanbedr and south of Pen Cerrig-Calch, then started the long, long descent to Crickhowell. Having seen nothing more built up than a farm for a while, it was strange to be walking through a town and got a few strange looks coming into town with head torches and walking poles. Arriving at the Bridge End pub was a wonderful feeling, especially to find Ken fortifying himself in the bar.

I guess that more lessons were learned, the need for good preparation and training hammered home and we're safe in the knowledge that we've done half the distance. I'm aching today as I'm sure we all are, but fired up that we can do this.

Please keep supporting us and please keep donating.

Into The West...

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you'll know that yesterday the Spa2Summit team set out on their second training walk. Following on from our walk in February, this would start in Mitcheldean and finish 35 miles and ?? hours later in Crickhowell. This would be a real test of our training, kit, nutrition, hydration and mental stamina. "How did it go, how did it go?" I hear you cry! Read on!

After a week of glorious weather it was fantastic to wake up to thick grey clouds and rain. Fortunately, after convening at Pete's and driving out to Mitcheldean, the rain gradually eased off to very light drizzle. We set off, after no small amount of faffing about, to climb out of town. As we turned off the road and in to the woods we could see the sky brightening and within minutes were walking in sunshine. Awesome. Once we climbed to the high point here, we were treated to stunning views north which gave us a real lift. A slight navigational faux-pas lost us a few minutes in the woods above Hope Mansell but we were soon back on track. Before long we were descending to the Wye Valley, which looked particularly lovely, and then striding towards Kerne Bridge, Goodrich and our first meeting with Jonty, who was piloting our support vehicle. A brief stop and scoff, and we were back on our way.
Our second leg took us out through Marstow, Llangrove and towards Welsh Newton before swinging north to cross the River Monnow at Skenfrith. Again we were treated to quiet lanes and stunning views. In fact just after what will be kilometre 55 in June we could look west and see, between Skirrid and Sugarloaf, our ultimate destination, Pen Y Fan. It was a long way away! Just after this we descended to the Monnow, having had to make a rapid dash across someone's drive to pick up the footpath (sorry!). What a beautiful little river the Monnow is. A few steps further on and we catch sight of Jonty, relaxing in the sun by Skenfrith Castle. We decided to join him!
At this point, about 26km in, we were all starting to feel it, but nowhere near as bad as our February 20 miler. More scoff, change of socks, blister plastering of feet, topping up of Camelbaks and we were off again.
This next leg was the longest of the day, getting on for 10 miles, and unfortunately the weather took a little turn for the worse. The wind picked up and ridiculously dark clouds loomed ahead of us. At this point the banter stopped, ipods went in, heads went down and we just got on with it. Out past Bont we picked up the Offa's Dyke Path, which did see a brief spurt of running up a very steep hill (what is it with us and running up hills..?) More stunning views followed as we descended towards Llanvihangel Crucorney. Seriously, walking down seems to be way worse than walking up...
Jonty had set up base in the carpark of the Skirrid Inn where our final stop took place. Just 9 miles seperated the team from it's goal. Deep breath and onwards.

At this point I would like to make observations about the kit we were using. Having the right gear makes such a massive difference. Thanks to Nicki at Cotswold Brecon and her contacts at SIS we were well stocked with energy gels, go bars and PSP22 drink, and this had a really big effect. Keeping properly hydrated, and replacing lost electrolytes, has an immeasurable impact! No shakiness or cramps, brilliant. Our S2S Berghaus base layers were excellent and I thoroughly recommend Helly Hansen boxers, comfy, oh yeah! Following discussion with one of Nicki's colleagues I used a Lowe Alpine bumbag as an auxillary carrying device, filled with flapjacks, Jamaica Ginger Cake, wine gums, jelly babies, dried fruit and mini Cheddars. It's so easy to keep eating when everything is so conveniently to hand. However, here comes the less good bit. After our walk in February we all decided that lighter footwear would be a wise purchase. We needed something that could handle off-road walking but that wouldn't weigh us down on the road. Most of us then bought TNF Hedgehogs. Whilst I felt really comfortable in these in the shop and on shorter walks, they have wrought terrible things on my poor feet. Having put on a couple of pre-emptive blister pads on the back of my heels, I had to put a couple on the balls of my feet at Skenfrith. Even then I could feel all was not well. When I peeled my socks off at the Skirrid Inn I was greeted with the sight of a burst blister on the outside of my left heel and what appeared to be an orange wine gum stuck to the outside of my right big toe. And blisters under my blister pads... I hasten to add that this in no way is meant to detract from these shoes, as I say most of the team were using them and getting on very well with them. They're obviously just not for me! I sat feeling very despondent, just trying to slip my shoes back on caused me much pain, and I could see no way that I would make the last 9 miles. So, sadly, I had to drop out at this point. Gutted...
So I'll have to leave one of the other guys to describe the final leg. Jonty and I went and sat in the pub for an hour then set out to overtake them. Fair play, hanging as they may have been, the guys had really put some distance on. With a quick enquiry as to any requirements they had, we pressed on to Crickhowell. Another killer descent in to the town, but maybe an hour and half after we'd left them, they arrived. 35 miles in 13.5 hours! Brilliant! That pace would see us on the top on PyF in 27 hours which means we can wind the speed back and have some longer rests.

THANK YOUs
Big thanks to Jonty for ferrying all our gear around for the day, it makes such a difference being able to go light but still know that you have plenty of food, drink and gear available.
Bev for driving to Crickhowell at 10pm to pick up weary walkers.
Nicki at Cotswold for sorting us out with quality kit and feed.
All our supporters and sponsors.
Thank You!

Love Blog update 2!

Well, we've just had a late lunch in the shadow of the Skenfrith Castle, the everyone is in good spirits. Olly is suffering slightly with a injury that he picked up at football last night, but is pushing on, only the tough survive this one!

I've just driven ahead about 3 miles to get a signal, and upload this blog. Sorry about the continued lack of photo's, but struggling to get a signal long enough to upload them.

Keep thinking of us, and that sponsorship money rolling in! ;)

Support Team

Blogging LIVE!

Hi there Spa2Summit fans! Sponsored yet? - just checking! ;)

So here I am live, 11:47am on a Sunny Saturday Morning, 25th April, sat in my car by the side of the A40, just south of Ross. I've just met the team for the first stop. Unfortunately I was a wee bit late, getting lost and driving down single tract roads with foot-high grass growing down the middle didn't help!

Anyway the team are in fine shape, all looking sprightly and dapper in they're Spa2summit base layers and fleece's which Cotswold Brecon so kindly supplied for us all.

I have now about 3 hours to kill before our next rendezvous (what is the french for rendezvous?) so going to do a bit more driving around, try to get to our next stop before the guys, get some video taken and some pictures and try to include them on the next blog!

See you all in a few hours! We'll be blogging live from Wales!

Spa2summit - Support Crew / Gadget Wrangler

The Spa2Summit 'Plodcast'

As you should know by now, the Spa2Summit team are heading out into the world this weekend for our second training walk. Since our first walk we have all got new kit, whether it's stuff we've bought or had kindly donated. That's the main point of the training walk, to experiment with kit and learn our personal limitations, success is less important.

At this moment, however, I feel very excited and confident. I'm extremely happy about my health and fitness with training having gone exceptionally well. As the weather has been steadily improving the amount of time at the gym has decreased and the time spent out in the open air has increased. Also, I'm saving money on petrol as I choose to now run to a lot of my destinations. All this, along with a much-improved diet, result in an enormous sense of well-being. My only worry now is whether I'll stick to this routine when the June 19th walk is over, I certainly hope so. We may need a second project!

What I really wanted to talk about today was The Spa2Summit Plodcast. How many episodes we make we don't know but we thought we'd attempt our first tomorrow on our training walk. This is where we need your help. If you have any questions about Spa2Summit or anything(!) please email them to chris@spa2summit.org along with the name of who you wish to attempt to answer them. Also, any messages of encouragement are most welcome and we'll try to include them on the plodcast. Thank you so much! Keep donating!

Nervous Tingle!

This Saturday sees the second Team S2S training walk and I'm getting a bit tingly in anticipation. If you're a keen follower of this blog, you'll remember that we did 20 miles back in February. Well, we're upping the ante this week with a 34 miler between Mitcheldean and Crickhowell. This is pretty much half the distance of the challenge proper so will be a really good test for us. We've been training hard and we're superbly kitted out, thanks to Cotswold Brecon. Will it be enough? When push comes to shove, will we have enough in the tank, physically and mentally, to nail this walk? Tune in on Sunday to find out!

Spa2Summit Facebook News

Social networking sites are like online Marmite, you either love them or hate them. At the time of writing the current 'site du jour' is Twitter. The members of Spa2Summit, however, have selected Facebook as our chosen social presence. The benefit of having a Facebook profile is that you, our fantastic supporters and sponsors, can have a voice and tell us what's on your mind!

Not only can you use our page to post comments and words of encouragement but also to join in with discussions and debates. Already there are discussions underway on topics as diverse as:

• "The Best Way Of Getting Down Pen-Y-Fan When All Our Muscles Have Seized Up"
• "Music For Walking To..."
• "Spa2Summit Top Trumps."

I'm sure you'd agree there are some important matters that need to be discussed!

We'd love to hear what you have to say so please pay a visit to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spa2Summit/74013792848?ref=ts or search for Spa2Summit in Facebook's search box.

Let's get chatting!

Science In Sport Goodies

As the reality of what we are attempting starts to hit home, we are endeavouring to get every bit of advantage we can. Some of us have started rubbing our feet with surgical spirit to harden the skin to slow/stop blisters forming. We are scrutinising our kit to ensure it is as light and useful as possible. One area that will make a big difference to our performance on the day is proper nutrition and hydration. When we did our 20 miler back in February, a number of us tried Science in Sports products and got on with them really well. They make a range of energy gels, bars and electrolyte drinks that, in combination, help to keep your body supplied with energy during exercise.

So in light of this we thought it would be good to get more! When we went over to Cotswold Outdoor in Brecon for our shopping spree, we had a chat with Nicki about getting hold of some. She said "Leave it with me" and two weeks later, voila:
Awesome job! We really appreciate this donation to our challenge and once again a big thank you goes to Nicki and Cotswold Brecon, but especially in this instance to Science in Sport. Thank you!

What a difference some training makes!

It can sometimes be hard to notice the increase in fitness that comes from regular training. The progress you make comes in incremental stages, and you just end up not realising what you have achieved. This was brought home to me on Saturday. I went mountain biking with Chris A up on Leckhampton Hill. We cycled up from town, up Bath Road and then Leckhampton Road toward the Dasiybank car park. If you know Cheltenham you know that this road gets steeper and steeper. When you get up to the junction with Old Bath Road it can very often become a grind in the lowest gear you've got, particularly if your bike is geared for descent and not ascent, as mine is.

However, on Saturday not only did I stay in the middle ring, I put the hammer down and positively whizzed (relatively) up to Daisybank. On arrival I felt fine and then proceeded to spend a very pleasant couple of hours blasting round the hill. Next day, no pain! I think this training gubbins is bearing fruit!

A Momentous Day!

We've just broken £1000!
£857.75 plus the £142.44 in reclaimed Gift Aid gives us £1000.19 raised so far!
To all our supporters a massive THANK YOU from Team Spa2Summit.

They say that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day...

... and that is especially true if it's a Charity Breakfast hosted by the Legal Department of Gloucestershire County Council! Spa2Summiteer Grant works in this department, and after he spoke to his colleagues about what we were planning for June, we were invited to a Charity Breakfast. Pete and I would have the opportunity to talk about Macmillan and about the S2S Challenge whilst enjoying coffee and croissants. It seemed like a win-win situation!

The day rolled round and we arrived at Quayside House with banners, posters, leaflets, badges, pens, collection boxes, Cotswold Outdoor catalogues, cameras, Jonty and 10 minutes worth of blurb to pitch to our willing audience. Grant ushered us up to Nigel Roberts' office where we were to set up. Once we were set, it was nice to have a chat with Nigel, Sue his PA and their enthusiastic assistants. Within short order people began arriving until both offices were pretty full and Grant introduced us, and Pete took the floor. A brief discussion about Macmillan and what they do was followed by more personal comments about the specific help received by Pete's family last year. I followed up with a quick overview of S2S, what we've done and what we want to do. Hopefully(?) Jonty will be posting the vid of these momentous speeches on YouTube. When that happens we'll let you know.

Once we were out of the way, the serious business of eating breakfast could be undertaken, and while that was going on we took the opportunity to spread the S2S message! Then we had a particularly nice finale; through various means (including a donation for a Spa2Summit leaflet signed by Mr. J. Hewlett!), the breakfast had raised, and get this, £232.75! We were absolutely blown away! Thank you, thank you, thank you, you generous GCC People!

A special "Thank you" has to go out to Nigel Roberts, Sue Jones and all those who very kindly donated food and prizes for the breakfast, and also to Catherine North of Macmillan who came to give us moral support! And let's not forget Mr G. Adlard!

Not wanting to steal others thunder....

Looks like I'm the first to get to my computer after a great Morning. I feel a little guilty doing this as I really didn't do alot towards this morning, apart from turning up. The real stars of this morning were Grant for organising the event, Pete and Ken for speaking, Catherine from Macmillan, and the team at where we were invited for breakfast.

As to who they were, where we went, and why we went (oh and how much we raised) well I'll leave that to one of the other guys to say, but we had a fantastic morning, left feeling a foot higher, and were genuinely moved by the donations and interested people showed in our little project.

Now just off to find out about uploading some videos to youtube, hiring a big people carrier (anyone?), getting 1/3 tonne of water for the walk, and seeing if we can embed this blog on our site, one less URL might be easier to navigate! ;) Click here to feel better for the day, http://www.justgiving.com/spa2summit, promise!

Kids in a Candy Shop!

Team Spa2Summit had a night out in Brecon yesterday. As part of the very kind support that Cotswold Outdoor Brecon have given us, we had the opportunity to have the store to ourselves whilst shopping for vital supplies. I think our biggest worry was "will our credit cards take the strain?" Let's find out...

One of the things that our walk in February brought home to us was the need for lightweight footwear, so that was the first port of call, and it appears that TNF Hedgehogs are the team shoe of choice.

Nicki going above and beyond the call of duty!But I've only got 2 feet!

Of course you're going to need socks as well, and maybe trekking poles, and possibly camelbaks, and wicking baselayers, and waterproofs, and ... well, you get the idea. Jonty, our gadget wrangler, seemed simply to stock up on things that he could use to make fire... Not only did we have the store to ourselves whilst loading up, when we came to pay we were given very generous discounts which made the whole thing even more pleasant. Grant was determined to win the "Biggest Bill" competition (money bill, not duck bill...) yet was pipped at the till by.... actually best the winner stay nameless, I think!

Plastic Meltdown

Laden with Cotswold Outdoor carrier bags we stumbled out in to the streets of Brecon, weary but smiling. Nicki joined us in the pub, where she then proceeded to dispense invaluable information regarding contacts, possible supporters and which pubs not to go in to in Brecon. Very useful!

Many Thanks, Cotswold Outdoor Brecon and enjoy your Stella!