Last week's training walk was hard work in the rain and at one point I couldn't walk downhill without my knee yelling at me not to do it. This time I accidentally left the house at 6am instead of 7am and despite more than 3 hours of trains and buses, got a nice early start on the trail. There was so much sunshine in the first few hours that despite lots of shady woodland early on, I even got a bit sunburnt. And fortunately only a little bit of grumbling from my knee, on the last downhill stretch 5 minutes from the end.
During Stage 3, I passed every runner in the South Downs marathon (going in the opposite direction). I like to say hello to everyone I meet on the trail, so there were a lot of 'hello's, 'good morning's and 'well done everybody!'s going on!
During Stage 4, I also saw two teams of Gurkhas training for Trailwalker. They slowed down enough for me to tell them I was training for the same event, pausing only to say "see you in July" before running off into the distance!
* Stage 3: 8.3km ... 1h45m
* Stage 4: 9.3km ... 1h55m
* Stage 5: 12.5km ... 2h30m
* Total 30.5km ... 6h10m
Jennifer x
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| Looking back towards the start of the route |
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| through National Trust Slindon Estate |
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| At Bignor Hill |
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| The Gurkha teams run off into the distance! |
