🐾 The Long Walk Home 2019

As most of you know the decision to have to pull out of the 2018 Coast to Coast challenge was a tough call for me, and not something I’d ever done before.  Needless to say if I hadn’t, I may not be here trying it again! So I’ve decided to tackle this again… minus the heart attack (which was just prior to the walk unbeknown to me) and major quadruple heart bypass surgery, which was rather inconsiderate of my body, it’s timing was pants!

So about the challenge. The idea is a simple one… to walk home!  However the start point is 192 miles away on the West coast of England, at St Bees in Cumbria.  The end point will be on the East coast at Robin Hoods Bay.  In between is the rugged Lake District, the picturesque Yorkshire Dales and the raw North Yorkshire Moors.  The route will follow Wainwright’s walk from coast to coast, his schedule for this is 12 days to 15 days. I plan to do this over 14 days which equates to an average of 13.71 miles per day.  This will reduce the expected mileage per day and also reduce time walked each day, not only for me but for Jess too.  This will also allow more rest at the end of each day ready for the next.  I have to take in to account and factor in her needs and ability too, she will be just shy of her 7^th birthday so she should still be in good shape.

I’m not one for giving up so easy and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.  I don’t want to live with the regret of not trying again. I know I can do it, and I believe Jess will also still be able to do it.  I can take the lessons learnt from the last attempt and apply them to this year’s challenge.  As first planned we were going to have support for this walk, then unfortunatly that support was no longer available. So then I thought about Sherpa services to transfer what equipment we could between over night stops to lighten the load, looking in to this and for a few reasons we have decided not to go with this option either.

We're going to stash a cache of supplies at every other overnight stop. My biker dude is going to drop off and pick these up for us. So on route we can top up without the need to carry everything for the whole challenge every day. At most we'll have a 2 day supply, which will be replenished. So when we get to these places the idea is so kit will already be there for us. We will look at stripping back equiment only to what we really need, to save on weight.

This is still not going to make this event easy, but it's called a challenge for a reason and we're prepared to have a crack at it.

Are we mad, brave or just daft... we'll soon find out!

Just have to find a rucksack to fit Jess now!

Between now and June I will be getting out as often as possible with Jess for training sessions.  This will be to build up our stamina and fitness levels in readiness for the main event.

The challenge is planned for June 2019, we will travel to the start point on Friday 7th June.  Day one will commence on Saturday 8th June from St Bees and the challenge is planned to finish on day 14 (Friday 21st June) at Robin Hood’s Bay.  June was chosen specifically to make maximum use of daylight, so there is a bit of logic applied to this mad idea!

So why am I doing this?.. because it’s out there and it’s been on my bucket list for a while.  Plus the fact it eluded me last time and… “To not try, is to fail”.  In the process I aim to raise as much money as I can for the Border Terrier Welfare, a charity special to me and so many other BT owners and friends.  As with everything I do, all expenses for this challenge will be at my cost and all donations (plus gift aid) will go to the Border Terrier Welfare charity.  In light of what happened last time and with the huge support both me and Jess received, we still managed to double our £3,000 target and in total raise and amazing £6,182.38 for BTW.  I’d like to think this time we could pass that.  Anything you can give is 100% more than nothing, and it all adds up.

For people wanting to follow live progress, I will be taking my tracker again which I’ve used on so many other motorcycle challenges. Although this time the pace will be a little slower and not stopping until we hit the North Sea!

Thank you for taking the time to read this 👍

Paul & Jess 🐾

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