LDWA 100 – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
LDWA 100 in 2021 – What a Lovely Idea
OK, some background first.
So, that’s me. Rugged, determined, brave, courageous and understated. I spent ages finding a suitable photo that wasn’t taken in a pub or a pub beer garden. This one is from the Isle of Skye. I can’t use the ones of me after challenge events, as I look bloody exhausted. Although, to be fair, I look fair done in before I’ve started the challenge events.
That’s Nathan. That photo will do.
Anyway, we’ve had a marvellous idea, which is even better than our GeoGuessr trips (there’s no denying just how carefully we plan everything). OK, we forgot head torches there. And suitable footwear. But, otherwise all was well. Other than we got told off by some landowner and got stuck in mud. That route was around 250 metres.
But, inspired by how we manfully tackled that 250 metres, we are moving onto the next logical step of walking 100 miles. In one go. I can’t really imagine what could possibly go wrong.
I have an impeccable walking record of completing around 20 challenge events, including one fifty-mile event organised by the Essex & Herts group. It would have been more, but I found out that if you volunteer with the LDWA to print the certificates, then you’re placed near the kitchens at the start/end point of the challenge walk. And because the LDWA community is so friendly and helpful, they rarely complain when I pop in to get food. Actually, I’ve sort of been banned from the kitchen in case food stocks are threatened, but there’s no shortage to the sustenance offered.
Anyway, I got distracted there thinking about food. So, as I mentioned, I’ve completed a fifty mile event, and I remember how inspired I felt at the end of that. “I’m never doing that again” were the words I actually uttered, but I think I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the food anyway. Which reminds me of the doughnuts on the Smuggler’s Trod and the BBQ on the Birmingham Canal Canter. The LDWA do food and drink very well.
Nathan hasn’t done any of this, but he works on the principle that if I can do it, so can he. This is the problem with the youth of today.
So, before I drift off the subject matter again, this will be the story in text and video of the practice walks, the qualifying events (yeah, neither of us have done qualification events yet, so that’s another challenge) and the march towards the big day in May 2021. The location of the LDWA 100 walk in 2021 is Wales, postponed from 2020 when sadly the virus thing ruined plans.
The aim is for us, if there’s space on the event (and I’m hoping it’s full, since my attempts to get banned from the event by threatening to eat all the food have already been refused), to complete the Marshals’ Walk for the 2021 100 so that we can both then spend the actual event marshalling and drinking craft beer from Tiny Rebel whilst shouting encouragement at Simon Hodgin as he faffs along the route.
One interesting video was made by Jamie Hearing, which gives some background to the people on the walk. They’ve blocked embedding, but it can be seen at https://vimeo.com/402157343.
The video below was produced by David Morgan, the current national chair of the LDWA, and is from the 2019 Hadrian’s Wall event. He’s one of those inspirational figures who strides up mountains faster than I go when marching along on the travelators at airports. Positive and motivational, his videos capture the wonderful landscapes of the countryside and the characters of the LDWA. Well, just so no-one expects too much from the videos I’ll be crafting this year, I won’t be distracted by that, my videos will feature food and complaining. And probably a video of some bloody sheep that is in the path that stops Nathan and me from progressing along the route.
Final thing, for anyone who wonders why there’s a dog lying down in the main photo of this blog post, it’s Simon’s dog as he thinks that what I’ll look like at the end of the 100. Well, at the first checkpoint more likely….
