Date: Sun 23rd March
Distance: Various
Location: Ware, Waterford, Stapleford, Bengeo
Conditions: Muddy, Snowy, Generally flat with few undulations..
Weather: Snow, Sleet, Cold.
Participants: Gee, Wol, Family Wol
A walk in the snow for the Wol family turned into a pretty decent training walk. At 9:15am, we braved the weather to get some fresh air and snowball action. After getting nicely wrapped up in warm waterproof gear, we headed out to walk the Ware loop (about 4.5 miles).
The pace of the walk was somewhat affected by the kids ability to be easily (and understandedly) distracted by the "heavy" snowfall, wanting to pelt each other with snow and create "snow angels" by lying on their backs in the snow and waving their arms and legs about - a real test of how warm and waterproof their clothing was...
About half way round it was decided that the rest of the family would scoot off back home, and in the interest of maintaining some training effort, I would continue to walk a bit further. A quick call to Gee provided me a walking companion for the remainder of my walk, and provide Gee with the springboard to an even greater acheievement...
After a delayed rendezvous with Gee (washing machine issues, allegedly), we headed off to complete the usual Hertford, Waterford, Bulls Mill, Bengeo walk, but with a few variations. Firstly we sidetracked at Waterford to head up through Goldings past the posh flats and down past Waterford church. Then before the turn up the hill near Bulls Mill, we headed off to Stapleford to see if Vorn had returned early from his camping trip - nice weather, eh Vorn ;)
After returning from Stapleford and a very brief snack stop (I'd fortunately kept hold of the ruck-sack containing the snacks and tea and hot-chocolate flasks from the earlier family trip, much to Gee's delight), we continued on the usual route back through Bengeo and Hertford, where my walk ended, 14.4 miles under the belt.
As Gee had missed out on the earlier section (Ware and back), he carried on to complete this. I'm not sure if Gee was maybe a little euphoric from his hot-chocolate hit, but he did this at the expense of missing the Grand Slam footy. But it didn't stop there - after emptying the ballast in his bladder and polishing off a death-stick, he then walked off to NRA to carry-out his cat-sitting duties. This clocked up a total of nearly 18 miles for Gee - nice one. In recognition of this effort, Paula awarded Gee the first "Walker of the Week" badge - something I'm sure he'll treasure for a very long time...
Given the extent of our achievements and the conditions in which they were realised, we're going for a few sherbets tonight with Lurch. The walk to the pub could be a bit of a challenge...
Carl.
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