A short day today, after a day off in Stratford-upon-Avon yesterday. Today’s journey was only 22 miles – primarily because of the dearth of hotels (or anything really) for the few miles west of where I’m staying. So I’m in Bromsgrove/Catshill/Upper Marlbrook tonight – take your pick.
The astute reader may have noticed before today that my finishing times had been moving backwards, despite starting off at the same time (5am) every morning. This has been due to 4 reasons:
- Walking further – the day 3 and day 4 walks were much longer than days 1 and 2.
- Using more footpaths – as well as finding the correct route, fighting through undergrowth (or even grass) takes much longer than walking clear tarmac.
- Getting slower – although only towards the end of the longest walks, and that seems not unreasonable when you’ve been walking for > 8 hours.
- Taking longer rests (although finding benches to sit on in Worcestershire has been a challenge).
When it become clear walking footpaths is slower than tarmac, I re-evaluted my subsequent walks, including today’s, to focus more on (quiet) roads. That meant that even including rests, today’s 22 miles was completed in 7 hours and 15 minutes, or am average speed of greater than 3 mph.
I’ve now also rerouted days 6, 7 and 8, with them coming in at:
– Day 6 – 25.3 miles (Catshill to Bridgnorth)
– Day 7 – 22.74 miles (Bridgnorth to Shrewsbury)
– Day 8 – 28.66 miles (Shrewsbury to home)
Day 7 looks like it’ll be the wettest including thunderstorms from 3pm, so I’m happy that it’ll also be the shortest.
Stats:
- Sleep last night: 5hr 47min
- Miles covered: 22/125 (today/total)
- Miles to go: 77 (new estimate)
- Steps: 48,221/265,416 (today/total)
- Calories: 3,678
- Walking speed (kph): 2.4-6.4
- Arrival at hotel: 12:15ish (except I couldn’t check in til 3)
Route:
- Stratford-upon-Avon
- Great Alne
- Studley
- Redditch
- Tardebigge (sounds like it should be in Belgium)
- Bromsgrove
- Catshill
