Practice walk - Charnwood Peaks, Leicester

So yesterday myself and Beccy went to Leicestershire to climb some hills - admittedly a lot smaller than the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, but much bigger then anything available in the Fens.

The first hill was in Bradgate Park, Newton Linford. At what initially appears to be the top is a war memorial - The Prince Albert's Own Leicestershire Yeomanry Regiment. Probably not the most respectful thing to do, but here's a picture of Beccy and the monument.

From the monument there is a short downhill walk to a walled copse which hides the true summit of the hill. After a short climb back up we got the summit. At the summit is a building called "Old John Tower, again modeled by Beccy.

From there we proceeded down hill, initially in the totally wrong direction, to the bottom of the hill.

After a short rest we did some road walking, then across the greens of a golf course, some more road, a track and finally a long uphill track to the top of Beacon Hill (248m / 814ft).

We headed downhill, over the countryside, rather than the road at the other side of the hill. One short part was quite steep and needed careful descent, but apart from that it was easy going.

 (Does not look steep here, but it seemed it coming down!)

We continues on the route, but due to low battery and rain I only took one more photo. We walked through Wetton Wood, a nice little wood that runs alongside the M1, As you can see in the photo we were very close to the road. The sound pollution spoiled what should have been a nice tranquil woods.

The route should have been 15 miles long. We got lost a couple of times and had to double back, but when Endomondo (tracker app) told us we were at 15 miles, we still had another 6 or 7 miles left. Due to this we took a few shortcuts from the route we were following. Not really sure how far we walked as Endomondo stopped at one point, but pretty sure we did well over 15 miles (probably nearer 20!)

We plan to go back again in a couple of weeks and do the 'prescribed' route.

Here is the recorded route (a 3-4 mile section missing due to app crashing)

47 Days and counting...

...and today is nearly over.

So in less than 7 weeks me and +Beccy Fairbank  are doing the Yorkshire 3 Peaks. Yikes!

Preparation, preparation, preparation!

So back in November we decided that on my birthday this year we were going to climb the Yorkshire 3 peaks. Now at the time it seemed like a lifetime away (one of my first posts was titled "222 days to go") but now it is getting close. Very close. Too close.

We have been building fitness and stamina by jogging 3 times a week and walking every couple of weeks through the winter months. I've had several 'injuries' on the way - see previous blogs - but keep bouncing back. However at the moment I have not done a good jog for nearly 2 weeks - lots of aches and pains preventing this. And after an 8 mile walk on flat ground yesterday, my knee is giving me great pain today.

Part of me wants to go back to November and start again, knowing what I do now about doing too much exercise, not having the right trainers, warming up / cooling down etc. But its too late. We're here and the day is approaching rapidly.

My current plan is to try jogging again this week with the goal of reaching 5k a couple of weeks before we go (I was up to around 4.5k just before Easter, but it has been nearly 3 weeks since I've run anything more than about 2k)

Plan B, if jogging is still hurting too much in a week, is to give up!

Not the whole thing, just the jogging. But I really think the stamina of running 5k on the flat will help us getting up those 3 peaks.

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Bye for now

M