Ah, what a day. It was possibly the last time that Ferris, Ben and I will be walking together before the main event, so we thought we’d challenge ourselves by doing a night walk and also ramping up the distance quite considerably.
The plan was to go from Petersfield station, meet the Trailwalker route after about 6km and follow through checkpoints 1 to 7, then break off down the hill to Hassocks train station. That would have come to 80km, so we started at 12:30 with the aim of reaching the station for the 06:30 train to London. Alas, it was not to be…
Ben’s ankle had been troubling him after the last week’s walk, so it was a bit of a concern. By about 15km it was an issue, so at CP2 he stopped off to apply a bit of deep heat. It helped, but not enough. Before CP3 he had to change into his trainers, and we realised we had to abort at Amberley station, just past CP4. After that point we wouldn’t have come to another station until Hassocks, at least 9 hours later.
So. Petersfield to Amberley via CP1-4. Beautiful sunshine, our first trip to the Downs for the year and an important lesson about the value of support teams. Not only can they help to reduce the carry-weight by rationing out food, water and kit as needed, they can provide the invaluable service of recovering those who can’t continue. Lesson learnt, we’ll get back on with arranging our support team.
For reference for future walks, our stage times were as follows:
| From | To | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Petersfield rail | CP1 | 2h05m |
| CP1 | CP2 | 1h58m |
| CP2 | CP3 | 1h50m |
| CP3 | CP4 | 2h16m |
Route: Petersfield to Amberley
Walkers: Ben, Ferris, Sam
Date: 20/05/09
Distance: 39km/24 miles (approx.)
Time: 9h 10m
Average speed: 4.2kph/2.6mph
Tags: Training