Afoot in two dales

50.8 miles walk in 15 hours 25 minutes ~ DONE

East Devon Way (in a day)

41 miles and our longest training walk for the upcoming Afoot in two dales LDWA event. We just need to claim our certificates now 

Lakeland weekend

Stef and I spent the weekend in the North Lakes. On Saturday we had a steady run round the Morecambe Bay and Bowland LDWA Derwent Water Amble challenge event with our friend Phil Jones from Calder Valley (he took the photo above) and on Sunday we met Helen and Martyn for a run over to Wasdale from Honister, followed by a recce of leg 4 of the Bob Graham. Weather, company and refreshments were great all weekend (Dog and Gun, Casa Bella and the Old Keswickian were all visited) and it was great to be back in Lakeland for the first time this year 

A streaky snowy Hebden

It was the Hebden LDWA yesterday and after some good work by organisers Alan Greenwood and Carole Engels the event went ahead in spite of some snow and ice on the course. It was a cracking day out as ever but I found some of the slippery descents a bit hard work in Mudclaws. Huge tracts of the route being frozen solid helped and I finished with dry feet, almost certainly for the first time in five starts. The traditional pie and peas went down well afterwards,as did home-made apple crumble and custard! There were many people there we know and we had a good hour or so after finishing catching-up with the latest gossip

We were going for a Hebden-Splash double this weekend but the Stanbury Splash course has had to be shortened due to ice so we're going over to Bowland again later instead. My next job is either getting Stef out of bed or tackling a sink full of washing up from having pals round for dinner last night. I also need to resist having some of the left-over tiramisu for breakfast, which is not proving easy

I almost forgot, but yesterday was day 50 of our 'streak'. I'm amazed I've kept going (it was Stef's idea and she was much more determined from the start than me) but we've chugged on again this week with a few three and a half milers round the village and the usual Wednesday club-run from the Lion 

Short Hebden walk

Saturday's short (c15ml) Hebden walk was great fun. We had a saunter round at 'social pace' and finished in good spirits in around 5hrs 45mins. Stef did better than we expected (I think!) and Peter got some good time on his feet in preparation for his Fellsman debut in April. Food at the checkpoints was outstanding (as ever) and I managed a 'full house' of sandwiches at the infamous CP3 (cheese and pickle, potted beef, tuna/mayo and beef dripping) along with stollen too.  It's not surprising how popular this event is with the long-distance walking and fell and trail running crowd!