In order to fully answer the question, "Why in hell would you want to walk half the length of the country..?????", I think it's quite pertinent to examine a personal history of fascination and admiration for explorers and endurance athletes. No I haven't run any marathons recently, but I did walk a couple with 'Swine Flu' a fortnight ago. Which was fun until I started drowning in my own fluids. And why haven't I run any Marathons..? I've spent a lot of time training for rugby over the years and I don't deal very well with jogging on tarmac and concrete. Sprinting on it, no problem (although these days it's quite a brief affair!), but jogging, in a word -No! My brother's done a few and he seems to enjoy it but as nature intended, we're slightly different fish and what seems to suit him doesn't work for me and vice-versa... for example he drinks red wine and I drink white. Makes it easy if we go to a bar too... er... lol.
Would you remember back to the mid 80's..? Just before I started studying for my 'O' levels there was a cricketer who's now a broadcaster, by the name of Ian Botham, who walked from John O' Groats to Lands End in around 30 days, back in '85 I think. Aside form the fact that he raised a squillion pounds for Leukemia charities I was in awe of that achievement. I'd been previously fascinated by the efforts and achievements of Scott, Amundsen and the simply unstoppable Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who I'd seen on Blue Peter talking about the first polar circumnavigation of the earth... that's all the way around the planet, via the geographic north and south poles, FYI. And among other extraordinary things, he recently chopped the frostbitten tips of left hand fingers off with a Black & Decker. I was going to say 'Wow!', but now I don't think I can find the words to illustrate my admiration for the old warhorse, hoofless, double bypassed or otherwise.
So. The seeds of possibility had been sown in my fertile little mind a long time ago. Over the incidental years between then and now I've cycled 150 miles for fun, walked a marathon (I got caught in London after the last train had left and decided walking back was a good idea. It wasn't actually that bad an idea after 6 hours walking)When I was at university they held the Olympics in Athens, in the home of the ancient games. Being at a bit of a loose end during the summer I kinda thought it might be a good idea to raise some money for charity and the Olympics seemed to be a good angle to aim for, in a literal sense... Thus I spent the next month looking at self propelled ways to take me from Cambridge, England to Athens, Greece. After a lot of deliberation I kinda settled on cycling about 100 or so miles a day, but the real dilemmas were going to be logistical, rather than physiological. How was I going to raise enough money to even get on the road, how much food would I have to carry, what about medical supplies, what kind of insurance is going to cover me on this kind of journey outside of the U.K., what spares will I need for the bike, what spec would the bike have to have, what gearing ratios, frame size etc. etc. etc... There are so many things to consider when planning an adventure such as this, many of which don't enter your head until it's nearly time to go! Eventually the sums made sense and it would cost about £6000 just to get on the road. That's before raising any pennies for a good cause. After discussing the trip with the Student's Union we concluded that there probably wasn't enough time left to raise the capital needed to get on the road, even by approaching some of the very cash rich companies based in or around the city. And it was shame that the ride never took place - although maybe there's an opportunity to do something similar in the future I thought...
Sitting at home watching T.V. isn't supposed to be an inspirational experience, but since then I've chosen to sit and watch Ben Fogle and James Cracknell row across the Atlantic, Steve Blackshall exploring the unknown interior of Papua New Guinea, Eddie Izzard completing John O Groats to Lands End via three capital cities, having not trained or run any distance before and yet more Ben and James as one hit the Marathon des Sables and both (+1) raced to the South Pole. Furthermore, pretty much every one of my university peers went off travelling or more importantly living in or near jungles while I was stuck working my nuts to the grindstone living in London. I don't think I moved there for the right reasons, although I didn't have any reason to do anything else, so no regrets. Anyway, this kinda culminated in me having an overwhelming urge to get pout and do some endurance exploring of my own. Yoda might say 'Itchy feet you have... a challenge I foresee...'. Yes Yoda, you don't need an PhJed to work that one out but I'm sure it helped.
And that brings us neatly to October 2010. Idly searching the internet I came across a late 19th century archive article from the New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60A10FC345C15738DDDA10894D1405B8884F0D3). It gave a brief account of a man and his collie dog, who walked from Edinburgh to London in eight days. Eight days! Before roads existed!!! O.K., not before roads existed, but they weren't what they are now; all tarmaced, signposted and relatively level... Now, I do love a challenge but seeing as I can't make my body strong enough to play Rugby the way I want to, (hard and fast until the 80th minute), any more I've been looking for something to occupy my time, thoughts and keep me relatively fit. And this would fulfil those requirements AND help me achieve one of those long distance exploring type goals. Sweet. SO armed with that simple piece of information I started researching the journey - what routes could you take, are there many footpaths along the way, can you go directly or do you have to go around the coast, how many old style pubs with guest rooms are there... the results of equipment and nutritional research are in one of my earlier blogs as is the final route - but importantly I worked out that it wasn't only possible, I could probably do it in less than a week! As long as I bought plenty of plasters and socks...
While doing my research I came across an article about Janet Street Porter. She'd also walked from Edinburgh to London a few years ago when she was president of the Rambler's Association. The route she'd taken was from the Observatory on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park, London. This struck a chord as I'd lived not far from the Observatory in Greenwich over the previous three years or so and the park was one of my favourite places. Furthermore I'd also stumbled across an aticle from March 2010 where she'd concocted an ill advised attack on people with depression which she largely climbed down from not too long afterwards. Slightly incensed at her flippant remarks I concluded that if she could do it then I could do it better!. Getting back to Greenwich Park, I'd watched the start of the London Marathon a couple of years earlier and despite my aversion to jogging, got a little itch to do some distance fundraising while watching 30,000 or so people jogging past and raising a huge amount of good money in the process. My imagination was beginning to peak, inspiration was about to go critical and the more serious work of planning would be made all the more easy because of it. Then the epiphany struck, the penny dropped and my moment of true inspiration arrived. Time to Change.
It was only very recently that I'd learnt to understand my own psychological demons and this was partly due to advice I'd found through the 'Time to Change', website. And I'd also experienced discrimination from two separate public employers on the grounds of a breakdown that I suffered some years ago and depression and anxiety I;ve since lived with. This presented me with justification, it was like the 'Bat Light' beaming across Gotham City calling me to fight the good fight. Although I'm probably more Del Boy as Batman than the DC hero himself... But from that moment the only obstacles were logistical - well within reach financially - and time. The possibility that I could fall deathly ill undertaking the task itself never entered my mind for a second, being still relatively fit and especially having not had a real cold or flu for years and years...
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