LEJoG 2017 - a 1,000 mile training run

[Not the actual route as all on road would be miserable.  More off road is appreciably longer!]

I've wanted to traverse the length of Britain on foot for quite some time and a couple of years ago a window of opportunity almost came up, but then I got a job again so it didn't even get to the planning stage.

Due to an extremely flexible and accommodating employer, I have the opportunity to do it this year.  Starting in May-ish, through June into early July-ish (depending on unforeseen circumstances and work schedule in May).  I've got 44 days to get to Land's End, run to John O'Groats and get home again, and that's including contingency.  It'll take a day to get to the start and a day to get home afterwards, so that's 42 days to cover something around 950-1100 miles, depending on the route I end up with, and a lot of elevation.  And carrying all my own stuff.

Of course, finding a route is the hard part.  I've already spent a day getting really frustrated with trying to get out of the South West using trails and avoiding the South West Coast Path (because it's really super hard!).   It turns out most of the roads in the area have no pedestrian facility either (thanks Streetview!).  So I now have OS Landrangers 203 and 204, up to 182 (thanks to a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer), which I will be laying out on the lounge floor to try to get a much higher level view of where the trails/off-road paths are in relation to each other and have another go.  Once I'm out of the South West, routing gets a whole lot easier with some good other National Trails in Offa's Dyke, the Pennine Way etc.

It's all an elaborate training run for Deadwater at the end of July though!  And an excuse to blog a bit more in the planning and the running of it, and take a bajillion photos.