Tag: the way

This is the second part of my account of my solo trip of the Cotswold Way a couple of months ago. In the last article I discussed the patchwork quilt of events and ambitions that led to walking it. Well worth a read if you have nothing better to do with your day. In this instalment I will be talking about the preparation stage in the weeks and days (and hours) leading up to it.

Firstly though, I need to cover an important aspect of the walk. I mentioned at the end of the last article about how I was going to let it change me, and how I almost felt it was going to be a personal pilgrimage in a way, like the Camino (which has been on my mind for four years – nearly the same time as the Cotswold Way). It’s an often overused cliché, usually found in tourist tat shops on fridge magnets, but for me the whole thing was about the journey, not the destination. I wasn’t hoping to find God or anything like that, I was just hoping to find something either within me or along the way in the experiences I would go through. I had also decided the smartphone, which I’m convinced is making me more stupid, was to remain switched off in my bag, only to be used in the evenings for my I’m-not-dead call home.

I thought I would replace the habitual phone-checking during the day by taking a book of poetry with me in the hope of learning some new poems and becoming more cultured. Laughable if you know me. My idea of culture is as bad as Del Boy’s French. There are many villages around where I live where the village telephone boxes have been converted into second-hand book libraries. In the two weeks leading up to the off, I visited a few but didn’t find much beyond Mills and Boon and Jeffrey Archer. Luckily, we also have a plethora of charity shops, one of which has a huge basement full of books and vinyl and I emerged with a book of the collected works of John Masefield. Ten years ago in a converted headmaster’s house somewhere in Cheshire, I found a Masefield book and loved it. Luckily, huge excerpts of this same work were in my new-found book.

Another masterstroke was to take my small wind-up radio. It proved to be great company at night and prevented the temptation to peek at the phone. As it transpired, the radio was an inspired choice, especially after the first and second days. I suppose it’s age or maybe that I was looking for company, but I chose radio stations with no music, just chatter. Make of that what you will.

Planning the walk was really enjoyable. I always revel in the planning of things, taking bits apart and putting them all back together again, and examining scenarios and what-ifs. When I was planning the Cotswold Way ultra run in 2019, I bought a really good guide book that covered the route from both directions and, to my map-loving delight, a separate booklet containing the complete route in Ordnance Survey 1:25000 scale. Be still, my weird, cartographic-obsessed, slightly black heart. I used this book along with a GPS route-planning app to split the 102 miles into four days, each finishing at reasonable points where I would be able to feasibly set up my wild camp. This equated to roughly a marathon every day. Well, two were slightly less, two were more. It became apparent that the early stages were the toughest as they contained the most elevation. From 50-odd miles in, it got a little friendlier.

In terms of kit, I had to carry everything I needed, but only the essentials. Three days before I left, I got all that i needed out and it covered the kitchen table and the chairs as well as a good chunk of the floor. It all had to fit in my 66-litre backpack. It didn’t. So I had to drop some bits. It still didn’t. So I had to get ruthless. I had planned to take my digital SLR camera so I could take photos without using my phone. In the interests of weight and space, out it went. It was for the best though, as walking in excess of 25 miles a day, there was an aspect of speed at play, so stopping every few minutes to take photos as well as carrying the bloody thing around my neck, would have made each day seem like forever. Also by the wayside fell some campsite luxuries like a pillow, flip flops, and an inflatable sleeping mat. It just meant I would have to improvise for the pillow and make sure I set myself up.on soft grass. In terms of shelter, I opted to take my basha (tarp) and a sleeping bag, with ground sheet. My one man tent would have been light enough, but would have taken up lots of room in the backpack. Another casualty in the not-so-ruthless first stage of cutting kit back was the poles that I use to support the basha. I would just have to lassoo it between two trees and go with it.

I aimed to carry all of my food for the four days, and as much water as I could at any one time. Food was mainly boil in the bag meals so I could use the same water multiple times in case finding it became difficult. As this was the end of June, I was sure to get some hot days so would need to prioritise hydration. As it worked out, cemeteries became my best friend for their water taps.

Footwear-wise, I went with my lightweight leather (but not waterproof) military boots. I don’t have walking boots any more and find these more than suitable. My other military boots are Gore-tex but are heavy, and cumbersome after a while. I had two sets of clothes and planned to operate a dry kit-wet kit routine of it poured it down, as well as taking spares. The spares took up too much room, so had to go, leaving me with just one spare of everything. I contemplated dropping this, but it wouldn’t have been worth the gamble – I had to change clothes after day two. Some things, I have learned, are essential.

All in, the bag weighed in the low twenties (kgs), and in theory, it would get lighter and lighter as the days went by.

So there it was. All packed and ready to roll. Would the six Ps come back and haunt me? PPP=PPP. Piss Poor Preparation = Piss Poor Performance. I sincerely hoped not.

The Cotswold Way. 102 miles of a beautiful, scenic national trail from Chipping Campden in the North Cotswolds all the way down to Bath, following the Cotswolds’ western escarpment. Also known as my nemesis. My obsession, some might say. Definitely one of my purposes.

This is the first post about walking the Cotswold Way, but ties in nicely with my previous posts about Alignment and, well, just search for Cotswolds in the search function and you’ll see how often it creeps up.

As a way (a Cotswold Way) of introduction, not too many years ago as part of a chain reaction of events, inspiration and ambition, I decided to attempt the Cotswold Way Century, an organised ultra marathon along, yes, you guessed it, the Cotswold Way. I successfully recorded my first ever DNF through, once again, a chain reaction of life events, bad preparation and injury, and it’s badgered me ever since. Once the post-event dust settled, I began to dream of attempting it again. A little global pandemic stepped in the way and knocked everything sideways but I always kept it there, knowing it was unfinished business.

When I failed to finish, I nearly made it half way, having to be eliminated by a cut-off at 1am. The path itself was unfamiliar to me after about 40 miles really, so I was in uncharted territory, in the dark, and injured. That place where I folded became a huge mental barrier in my mind. Physically, the town was in a dip, so a hill needed to be climbed to get out and as it was pitch black at the time it only emphasised the unknown out there. I had to set about breaking down the size of it in my mind.

I’ve done this before. Between my second and third attempts of the Fan Dance, I made specific trips to the Brecon Beacons with the purpose of walking bits of the route, revisiting points that were difficult, and just having a normal day out in the mountains. On my first two attempts, the scale of the task and the mountains themselves was intimidating. The whole thing was suffering. When I went back for the third attempt, everything felt less intimidating and much more familiar. I had smoothed off the sharp edges and made it feel like it was my back garden instead of feeling hundreds of miles from home. It worked, and I was able to concentrate on the simple things like putting one foot in front of the other.

I am not sure exactly where the idea came from. I have a habit of having a brief spark of an idea and just deciding to do it (which becomes the purpose) and then afterwards,  working out how to get there (alignment). It was probably on a walk where I decided I was going to walk the entire Cotswold Way, completely alone and unsupported, and to do it in a widely unrecommended four days. For me, the challenge wasn’t going to be physical. I already suspected I had the fitness to do it, and I visualised myself doing it and completing it. I was going to make it more of a mental test. Four days completely alone, trying to minimise phone use and have an organic experience and see where my mind and thoughts went. Would I be lonely? Would I miss family? Would I miss creature comforts and technology?

It was going to be my own miniature Camino de Santiago. And I was going to allow it to change me. And it did.