Mad Dogs and English Women.....

Sunday 27th May 2012....the stage is set for our longest walk to date, 40km (25 miles) along The Wirral Way.  This is a linear path stretching from Hooton to West Kirby; very flat and picked on purpose to enable us to walk there and back to get in the mileage.
The day dawned bright and clear, the end of a long week of gorgeous weather and we were up for the challenge, despite the car temperature gauge already reading 20 degrees!

Hayley, Donna & Jane in the background - ready to go!

Along for the ride was Keith, my hubby (a member of our support crew) and also our work colleague, Linda, who had joined us recently on the Snailwalker event and seemed keen on another walk with us (mad fool).

So, with 3 pairs of legs on show, rucksacks bulging with copious amounts of liquid refreshment and sunglasses in place, we set off.

Our pace was steady and we were soon making good progress towards our designated lunch stop at Thurstaston.  The temperature was obviously rising and we were glad of some welcome shade along the way as we passed through this small wooded ravine.  As official photographer, I rarely get onto these pictures, so just to prove I was there, here is a pic of hubby & I.

As the clock ticked towards midday, the going got tougher, especially as one particular section of this pathway just seemed never ending.  Linda had left us by now, deciding that she had set our pace and now we needed to carry on by ourselves.  Thanks Linda for keeping us company for the first 4-5 miles.

Jane decided that the motivation we needed to carry on was to tell us that the cafe at Thurstaston was "just a bit further on".....great, we thought, nearly time for a short rest.  We should have known better than to listen to her....it was about another hour before we reached this point.  Lesson One - don't believe her during Trailwalker when she says we are nearly there.

A welcome bit of shade eating lunch

Ouch, Donna's poor feet!

Lunch, toilet stop and feet airing complete, we set off again for the final push to West Kirby....only about another 3 miles.....before we would have to turn round and head all the way back!  There were lots of people around at Thurstaston and we had just put this down to it being a particularly lovely day, however, we were soon to learn that we were heading straight into hundreds of other walkers taking part in a 16 mile charity walk in aid of a local hospital and we were most definitely swimming against the tide!  It felt like a walking slalom and we were very glad to reach the outskirts of West Kirby and glorious views over the Dee Estuary....

At this point we rashly decided to push on into the town in search of an ice cream....this idea was soon binned when we realised we were just adding miles to what would be an extremely long day, so we did an about turn and started the long trudge back.  At least this time we were with the flow of charity walkers still heading for the finish....and we were able to take advantage of a drinks stop set up for them along the path!  I'm sure we were all individually noting the weariness amongst them after their 16 mile trek and wondering how on earth we will look to everyone after 62 miles....eeek!

The journey back to the cars seemed long.  The temperature was now in the high 20's and feet were suffering.....

These two (unlucky) walkers subsequently both lost little toe nails!!

 

Finally, we made it back to our start point, 7 and half hours, 40 km, 25 miles, several blisters, 2 outbreaks of heat rash, 1 split heel and more than a few swear words later.

Plenty of lessons learnt from this training walk and one team prayer for the actual event in July..... rain showers and sunny spells please.  Mad Dogs and English women do not cope well in the midday sun.
Thanks for reading.