The Route

At the weekend, I bought the maps to help me plan and navigate the walk. They are illustrated here, from Stratford on the left, through the Cotswolds, Oxford, Chilterns hills and finally London on the right. It's quite a hefty bunch of maps, which got me thinking about the amount of kit I'll need to carry on this journey. I'm already thinking about mailing pre-paid envelopes to the B&B's that I plan to stay at on the route so that I can mail back used maps... hmmm.... maybe I can simply mail back dirty laundry too so that my pack gets lighter the further I go? Wouldn't want to open those jiffy envelopes a week later!

Training for the walk is going well. Three weeks after starting to run again, I have shaved off seven minutes from my original time. I took a GPS with me during my lunchtime run today and recorded the details so that I can see improvements (anyone who works with me will audibly groan that I use metrics in my personal life too!) The stats were grim, but a hell of a lot better than three weeks ago. The GPS told me that my regular run is 1.26 miles long and I ran it today in 13 mins 27 seconds, which is an average of about 5 miles per hour. My fastest speed was 13 miles per hour, which I must confess probably coincided with running past the long queue of female university students waiting for returned tickets to see King Lear outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Needless to say, I probably kept the pace until I turned the thankfully close corner.

Finally, I'm a little closer to my sponsorship target thanks to very first donation coming from Christy in California and, of course, thanks dad! There's a link now on this page to the "just giving" web site -- it's easy for anyone to donate from anywhere in the world.......