How far.. but you said!!!!

After each training session we seem to be full of adrenalin and endorphins as we keep having these mad conversations that go along the lines of;
"I really enjoyed that"
"wow that was brilliant"
"I know next week let's.........."
This is usually the point where we agree to double, triple our distance suggest almost running marathons across the moor. Now I remember why we ended up running, hiking, snow dodging, slipping our way across Dartmoor last week.

What a day we started at Fernworthy it looked ok a few humps of icy snow on the road and the odd pocket amongst the trees. Then as we progressed up in to the treeline and the back of the woods and out on to the moor the road dissapeared and was replaced by one to two foot of snow and ice. We had decided that this would be a training not only of our stamina and endurance but of our navigational ability. As all natural features of the ground dissapeared under a blanket of snow our view kept vanishing behind low lying mist. My one thought was this is going to be tasty!!!!
We cracked on, we had a five to six kilometre an hour pace in mind thinking this would allow us 7 to 8 hours for the run. After an hour of lung, thigh, glutes and calf burning snow hill running / hiking we where almost on track, we hit our target check points one after the other;
Fernworthy, Hartland Tor, Post Bridge, Bellever Tor, Dunnabridge, Sheberton, Whiteworks, we by passed Dry Lake Ford and ended up at Yealm Head and then Headed due east via Blatchford Bottom then the River Erme crossing the Two Moors way, then through Petre's Pits Bottom round the back of the Avon Filtration Station (I spent all day thinking this was a Firestation, confused the life out of me it did) to Shipley Bridge.

The end was glorious we managed to navigate two thirds of the way across dartmoor without actually getting lost and in the last 500 metres we couldn't find Tim our logistics man on the ground and the car park. I think we where tired and a little dehydrated. It was a fantastic turning point six weeks before we had just under fourteen miles in just over 4 hours so to add over ten miles to this total and only an adittional three hours twenty five minutes was brilliant.

Being honest we could have pushed ourselves slightly harder, to which I'm sure Darren agrees. As each week goes by my confidence grows and I know we will achieve this huge challenge which only five months ago was seemingly an impossible challenge!

I'm fundraising this week hopin to improve the financial support we have received, so Darren will be training solo but I will let you know how the fundraising goes.

Regards Bryn
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