LEJoG 2017 - Filling in the blanks

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager, I learned how to use a map and compass. I was intending to do a Duke of Edinburgh bronze award and went on a course to learn how to navigate. I have no idea why it never went any further than that and I never ended up using those navigation skills in anger. I didn't end up going on expedition and I didn't get a Duke of Edinburgh award.

That was 30ish years ago (ow. that sounds like a long time!). And with various races across unmarked trails or off my comfort zone with three various barriers to navigation I've tended to stick to races or routes that are marked in some way; either by race organisation or it's a National Trail and had those lovely acorn signs all the way along.

Now I have a Very Long Way(TM) to run later this year, on a route of my own design that is not marked in any way. I don't want to get lost. I don't want to waste time and energy on taking wrong turns or missing right turns. I need to be able to navigate and not fall apart if my technology fails. Errors add up and I've only got 6 weeks to get the job done!

So I'm off to Cumbria to take a basic navigation course; map, compass and the landmarks of the countryside. I'm hoping to learn a bit also on rough navigation without map and compass, just general geographical direction. Let's see how I do!

LEJoG 2017 - a 1,000 mile training run

[Not the actual route as all on road would be miserable.  More off road is appreciably longer!]

I've wanted to traverse the length of Britain on foot for quite some time and a couple of years ago a window of opportunity almost came up, but then I got a job again so it didn't even get to the planning stage.

Due to an extremely flexible and accommodating employer, I have the opportunity to do it this year.  Starting in May-ish, through June into early July-ish (depending on unforeseen circumstances and work schedule in May).  I've got 44 days to get to Land's End, run to John O'Groats and get home again, and that's including contingency.  It'll take a day to get to the start and a day to get home afterwards, so that's 42 days to cover something around 950-1100 miles, depending on the route I end up with, and a lot of elevation.  And carrying all my own stuff.

Of course, finding a route is the hard part.  I've already spent a day getting really frustrated with trying to get out of the South West using trails and avoiding the South West Coast Path (because it's really super hard!).   It turns out most of the roads in the area have no pedestrian facility either (thanks Streetview!).  So I now have OS Landrangers 203 and 204, up to 182 (thanks to a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer), which I will be laying out on the lounge floor to try to get a much higher level view of where the trails/off-road paths are in relation to each other and have another go.  Once I'm out of the South West, routing gets a whole lot easier with some good other National Trails in Offa's Dyke, the Pennine Way etc.

It's all an elaborate training run for Deadwater at the end of July though!  And an excuse to blog a bit more in the planning and the running of it, and take a bajillion photos.