Phoenix Fire Foundation

TRAINING FOR COAST TO COAST

(Before and beyond!)

Tuesday 29th December 2009

So we’ve been back now for a little over four months. After almost two years of living and breathing then eventually doing the Coast to Coast walk, I feel like maybe letting any fitness that built up slip away so quickly wasn’t a great idea. Yet, here we are about to go into 2010, with 2009 and 2008, our walk dominated years behind us and I genuinely think a four mile walk would now tax me, let alone four hundred! Nevermind, we did it, we very much hope we helped out cause, the Mercury Phoenix Trust and we have every intention of carrying on to other things, other years. Coast to Coast will always be special to me, how little we knew, how quickly we learned, just how much we missed home but mostly, that despite how underprepared and inexperienced we were, we did it. As our first big project it was extra special. While the details of this one will never fade from memory, as we’re going in to a New Year, I hope for many more to come.

Way to go team! LeJog 2011?

-Siobhán

Saturday 18th July 2009

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!! Right…well…we’re off tomorrow then, Monday we start walking! Holy hell. Well, wish us luck, and if you do stop by please, please, if you can help out our brilliant cause, MPT, please do so on our donate page. Even the smallest contribution helps. =)

See you at the other end then!

- Siobhán

Monday 16th June 2009

Here we are practically on the brink of our epic journey and I feel thouroughly liberated. The training has been going well though the next month is crucial if we are to complete the walk with little or no upsets. All the equipment has been bought, the route is mapped out on a day to day schedule and we are all in great physical condition. Donations have been coming in steadiily - a huge thank you to you all! We are now half way towards our target of five thousand pounds with plenty more prospective sponsors on the horizon. We are organising a car boot sale for the next couple of weeks to raise a little extra money and the birmingham papers have yet to be informed of our venture, there is plenty of scope for raising the funds. I am genuinely looking forward to setting off!! Daunting as it may be.

- Danielle

Wednesday 12th May 09

As the walk gets closer it’s becoming harder to remember the most important, physical, aspect; TRAIN! Of course it’s difficult, time wise, Michael is about to sit his AS Level Exams, Danielle and Dan both have end of year exams coming up and deadlines to meet, while I’m busy preparing for starting University, and finishing organising for the walk, finding the time for frequent long walks is not easy. I don’t envy the others, I’m time-stressed as it is without needing to worry about academia at the same time. Time seems to have run up very quickly, it feels like yesterday this was all just an idea, a vague notion in a distant future we imagined wouldn’t arrive any time soon. It has done. Excitement is building, we’re all raring to go, but two solid months of as much training as we can possibly handle and a whole lot more arrangements stand between us and Holyhead! But we’re getting there. We’ll get it done.

-Siobhán

Wednesday 1st April

No April Fools just a quick update on where we are with regard to both training and planning. The training is ongoing though struggling currently due to a sheer lack of time! The planning of the walk itself is pretty much complete we just have to contact campsites and create a day to day itinery. We have received our sponsorship money from Wilkinson so we will be buying all our equipment in the next couple of weeks and then planning our first weekend walk to test everything out. We had a successful weekend in Brean Sands at the Queen Convention where we managed to raise 700 pound to put towards the total money raised. So far we have raised almost 1500 pounds, still a way off our target of 5000!! We are getting there though, still plenty of time to go!

- Danielle

Saturday 21st February 2009

Wales really is beautiful. I have muscle pains still lingering, but the twenty five miles of walking from Bangor to Llanberis, to Pen Y Pass, back to Llanberis again while difficult, were kinda outweighed by the gorgeousness of the surroundings. And even moreso possibly, the sense of achievement once we’d made it. It feels like a positive sign. The will to succeed drives us onwards. =)

-Siobhán

Thursday 5th February

So the snow has been somewhat of an issue recently, we like to use the mountains for our training but as you can imagine, Llanberis looks like the alps at the moment. Not that I am complaining, it’s beautiful just nigh on innaccessible. Instead we have been swimming and town walking to get used to normal roads, it’s nowhere near as interesting but it does the job! After the two climbers died on Snowdon at the weekend I have had to rethink my whole stance on the mountain, I have been looking at it as though it’s just a casual walk up a gentle hill, I have never realised quite how dangerous it is up there. For now we are sticking to ground level walking, at least until the snow clears off completely. We have our first over night walk planned for Feb 18th. We are walking from Bangor to Pen Y Pass which is 13-14 miles, then the following day we are walking at least half the way up Snowdon, depending on the snow, and then back to Bangor. It will be a good chance for us to really test out our boots and get used to planning routes and map reading. We will film the whole thing and put the video up on here so you can see exactly how we find it, naturally we will have plenty of pictures as well!

- Danielle

Friday 23rd January

Walked up Snowdon today and it was absolutely stunning, we did the intermediate path which is a bit more challenging than Llanberis Pass, last time we did it it was glorious sunshine, today the place had a dramatic, dangerous feel which was rather beautiful. The mountain itself was coated in a lovely thick layer of snow which is certainly not for the faint hearted, one slip and you would find yourself in the bottom of a ravine, still we took it steady and  made our way as far as we could up before the clouds and snow made it physically impossible. It took about four hours, a good ten miles at least, you also have to take into account the fact that the incline is fairly steep the whole way up so it was definitely great training for us.  We took two friends out with us Hannah and Gwilym and they both had a great time, them being there made it feel less like a chore and more like an enjoyable day out, which is was! The boots are still serving us well and my legs feel like they could still walk another hundred miles, a positive day indeed!

We took some pictures, here are a couple, more to come soon.

- Danielle & Dan

Thursday 22nd January

In the summer I sprained my ankle and I thought it had pretty much healed up apart from the occasional twinge, today it’s really sore. I have a feeling it might be the positioning of my foot when I’m swimming, I might have to cut swimming out of my training all together which is annoying as its great exercise and I actually enjoy it. Still, tonight I have a physio appointment to find out exactly what the damage is and how i should fix it, hopefully she won’t tell me if I do any more exercise my foot will fall off. That wouldn’t be good. Tomorrow myself and Dan are taking a friend out walking with us, may as well force a few more people into getting fit while we are at it! We are going to plan a route, at least 15miles and stick to it, perhaps round Betws y coed for a change. More soon.

- Danielle

Wednesday 21st January 2009

We’ve been walking 7/8 miles a day to get used to the daily walking routine. Normally it takes a little over two hours, but we’ve been speeding up and made a new record today, 8miles in an hour and a half.  It caused a muscle burn that made it feel more worthwhile fitness wise than normal too. We have a weekend walk planned that’s around 15miles, so that should be a nice challenge!

- Siobhan & Michael

Monday 19th January

So the training continues, I am feeling the pains in my muscles now which is a good sign, shows i’m actually doing something worthwhile! We found a lovely valley to walk in on Saturday, the terrain was much more hilly and the boots are still perfectly comfortable which is good. I’ve been testing them out on every surface, I even dipped my foot in the lake to test out just how waterproof they are and no water got in! Awesome! The weather here is making things much more difficult, it was snowing heavily today so I opted to use the gym facilities instead, suddenly wearing trainers and jogging bottoms after practically living in my waterproofs and boots was odd indeed!

- Danielle

Friday 16th January 2009

I am finding my new walking boots really comfortable, I was expecting them to need some breaking in but no, they are lovely to wear, hopefully I won’t wear them out completely before July. Living in North Wales does make walking miles every day much easier, yesterday Dan and I went for a three hour lake walk in Llanberis to test out our new gear. For some reason I decided against wearing my waterproof trousers, as you can imagine the rain was horrendous, Dan was ever so smug in his perfectly dry waterproofs, I got drenched. Note to self - always bring them, nomatter how the day starts off. Today we decided swimming would be good for us, handily we live right next to a well equipt gym and pool so off we went. I forgot how much fun swimming is, we did about 50 lengths each, a great workout! Tomorrow, back to the walking!

- Danielle