Team Trek hit the South Downs & North Downs!

10 weeks to go until the Trailwalker challenge, and from here on in we will really have to start racking up the training miles. We felt buoyed up and motivated from Oxfam's Preparation session on Saturday, and hit the trail afterwards for Stage 1 (9.6km from Petersfield to Harting Down). The weather was perfect, nice and dry after heavy showers early morning. It was a fairly sheltered stretch of trail alongside woodland and farmland rather than being open and exposed like later stretches of the South Downs Way.

We completed Stage 1 in about 1h55m, if we do the whole route at that speed then we would have Trailwalker wrapped up in 20hrs... Don't think we could sustain that for another 90km while coping with the more difficult terrains and the steeper ascents and the night walking that will await us further along the trail though! We think our target will be about 24hrs, and will be pretty chuffed to achieve that. Yesterday we learned that about 80% of people who enter will successfully complete the walk, so that is our main goal!

We would have loved to have walked Stage 2 too... but we would have missed the last public bus of the day that passes through the small town nearest to Checkpoint 2!

On Sunday, all 4 Team TrekAmerica walkers headed to Box Hill. The rain held off and our circular walk took in some tremendous views of the North Downs and allowed us to experience quite a few steep climbs! Another 9km or so under our belts. Here we are in training....

Stage 1 QECP to Harting Down:

 

Team walk on North Downs - Box Hill: