Walking from north London to mid-Wales

Updated: a day ago

I’ve been commuting semi-weekly between my home in mid-Wales and my employer’s office in Enfield, north London for about 14 years. I’ve often wondered, while stranded at Euston station because the West Coast Mainline has been closed, or stuck in infernal traffic jams on the M1 and M6, whether I could walk it. Not that I plan to do that every week (nor perhaps more than once) but could I do it, if push came to shove. I was planning to try it in 2020, but the various COVID-related restrictions (not to mention a massively disruptive acquisition of my employer) put paid to that. Now it’s 2021, it’s time to give it a go.

My training has consisted of walking in the vicinty of my home, not far from the pictureque Lake Vyrnwy, and amongst the southern peaks of the Berwyn mountains, during the end-2020 and early-2021 COVID-19 lockdowns. I walked my first marathon up to, around, and back from the Lake between Christmas 2020 and New Year 2021, and have continued to put the miles in since then.

Fast forward to June 2021 I’m now finally putting my money where my mouth is, starting the walk from the picturesque Travelodge Enfield in the early morning of Saturday 26th June. The plan is that I get home by the end of Sunday 4th July, having taken one day off in the middle, walking the 200 miles across 8 days.

This blog will document my progress. As well as containing details about the route, challenges I face and overcome, and any interesting incidents, I expect it to include food. That’s really the reason for all of the walking. Rucking 25 miles a day for over a week, with 20lbs on my back and a bodyweight of 190lbs to shift means I can eat around 5,000 calories a day without any concerns about putting on weight. Awesome.

Here’s the route I ended up taking: