After completing my round this week - did I mention this? I was asked what my top tips were. Rather than reply individually I thought I would put a few thoughts here and allow all those more experienced than me to add to my list.
Can I suggest that we give tips under these 3 headings - either suggest your own or argue with mine.
Training tips
Planning/admin tips
- Keep a diary or blog that you can look back on so you don't kid yourself about how much you have been doing and if you don't get round you can look back and try to see where it went wrong.
- If you get sick of the route train on another route, there are plenty of ~12 hour challenge routes out there which provide great motivation and training.
- Do plenty training on the route, plenty of 8+hour days.
- Link up 2 or 3 legs prior to your round, it will give you a lot of confidence if you feel ok after 3 legs.
- Try to support someone on L4 & L5 prior to your round, you learn a lot from watching someone suffer!
- Have a different bag of food/drink/kit for each leg to avoid faffing at the changes.
- Make sure that all your support crew have each others numbers so you they can contact each other if plans change.
- Don't send your team a huge email detailing every aspect of the day because they won't read it, just send them the schedule and where/when you want them.
On the day tips
- Have a friend meet you half way through a leg - it gives you something to look forward to.
- Don't think more than one hill ahead, getting to Bowfell and thinking about another 12 hours might just finish you off!
- Don't stop for 15 minutes at each road because you might need that time later, just get going again when you are sorted.
- Don't set off if the weather is bad, a failed attempt in bad weather will knock you out for at least a month and might knock your motivation for longer. Nobody will mind if you cancel and it is worth doing the planning again if it means you get good weather.
