Peter and I used to run the registration desk at Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA events for many years. We agreed that we were both above average, but Peter retired from it a few years ago and I was stuck with Richard. So, it was marvellous to relive the good old times at this event!
There’s Simon being thanked for all his risk assessments on the 100 (he’s the smug one in the background with the flash of green on his backpack). I interviewed him a few years ago for my series of ‘walking the 100’ posts. And don’t worry, he won’t mind me calling him smug 🙂
There’s Jane (in white) and Sue (in orange), both being congratulated for their help in organising the 100 event. They’ve both been very brave.
Jayne is heading the catering for both events and so she is one of two people who has already completed the event as she did it on the Easter weekend. Here she is being presented her completion certificate by Katie and also her certificate for finishing 20 events.
And as she has helped to organise the 100, so she was thanked for all of her work.
Katie has set the bulk of the entrants off, videos to come….
And ready to go…..
Here’s the food for the 52 people who are on the route, all very exciting. It feels like a lot of food and drink, but always best to have too much….
Thanks to Jayne for all her planning with the food for the event.
At Ipswich railway station waiting for the transport logistics team, also known as Richard’s car, to turn up. I was going to walk to McDonald’s to get breakfast but I genuinely forgot that this isn’t Poland and the breakfasts here are sub-optimal, so I needed another plan. And the £1 for a pastry offered by O2 Priorities has worked out nicely, here’s my chicken bake fresh from the oven. It’ll still likely be hot in about half an hour when Richard appears. Having some time here meant that I could request a chicken bake from the oven, but it’s currently hotter than the centre of the sun.
The main event kicks off at 09:00, so it’s all happening now. I might even provide some walking commentary at some point.
The sun is shining and I’m at Norwich railway station nice and early for a train to Ipswich so that I can help at the Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA 100’s event for the marshals that is being held on the first Bank Holiday of May 2025. The main event will be held on the second Bank Holiday of May 2025 and it’s a great opportunity to test things out for the main event. This is the event which I thought that it would be a marvellous idea to hold back in the days when I was chair of Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA back in 2021 and then I’ve promptly done very little in terms of actually organising the thing. I’ll be merrily posting this weekend about the event including riveting commentary on the LDWA, Richard’s skill at managing the desk at HQ and the media unit which I have an involvement with since I’m once again the national comms officer of the LDWA.
I do have a page about the LDWA 100 and I’ll be spending some time today fixing all the broken image links so the pages there magically all work again.
For anyone interested in tracking the entrants this weekend then go here.
[I originally posted this in May 2021, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]
This is the story of my completing the LDWA 100, something which I didn’t actually always think I’d be able to do. Unlike the previous training walks, I’m going to tell this story in a different way, which is just my feelings about each section of the walk. I usually take hundreds of photos during walks, but when walking 100 miles there are different priorities. My friend Nathan also walked with me for the first 60 miles, but these are my experiences rather than his. These posts are more introspective than usual and there will be an index to these ten ‘stories’ on this page.
We arrived at Ness Point, the country’s most easterly point, ready to start walking at 06:00. We’d had a breakfast at McDonald’s in Lowestoft and the weather looked moderate and warm. My friend Liam was there to see us off on an adventure that had dominated my thoughts for the previous week, and been looming on my mind for much longer.
I could say that I was full of excitement and awe about what was to come, but, in many ways I didn’t want to do this walk. I’m not actually one of the LDWA’s finest walkers, I don’t go out every week on long walks and stride through challenge events without issues. As Simon Hodgin noted to me after the walk, I usually complain my way around most of the challenge events I’ve taken part in. If I’m telling the truth, I’d have rather spent the weekend in the pub going through their dark beer selection or meandering through a city centre in Poland or similar, in the hunt for the best history, cakes and coffee. That’s what I’d naturally be doing, not walking for what could be up to 48 hours.
I did question at this point who I was doing this walk for. It wasn’t for Nathan (it was more the other way round), it wasn’t because I needed to prove anything and it wasn’t as a result of some bet. I dwelled on this question for some time and so why was I doing the 100?
Actually, not for fun, but maybe because this was a way of testing myself in something that I thought I could perhaps do. Other walkers will say how they can overcome huge mental obstacles and physical pain to complete events like this. I’m not one of those, I’m inherently a little lazy and have for years rejected the idea of completing the 100. But, life brings opportunities, and this seemed a challenge which was doable, and if I could complete this, then I could finish other adventures too that I thought might be beyond my reach.
Walking in itself is not a love of mine, I nearly never go for a walk on my own (other than to get from A to B since I don’t drive). Many people walk to escape life, but I’m quite happy with mine and if pushed I’d have to admit that most of the things I love the most are in cities. But seeing pubs, history and meeting different people has brought me into the walking world, and the LDWA is a marvellous community. And there is certainly something about going on walks in the company of interesting people, seeing nature, coastlines, forests and even hills that can all prove to be addictive.
I think that means that unlike many other 100 entrants, I started this walk as a way of pushing outside of my comfort zone to take on a challenge and see what I could learn from that. Whether that was deciding I’d do every 100 (never likely), or just ticking it off and embarking on a new challenge (I haven’t finished drinking in every Good Beer Guide pub yet……) was maybe my real motive for this walk.
There’s something about dawn and the sun rising which the body seems to positively respond to, the start of a new day and the opportunity to begin afresh. Lowestoft in the morning was still, quiet and at ease. I told myself that in 48 hours it’d be over and I’d have a memory that would stay with me, although I was still fearing the whole event. But there was gentle pressure on me to finish, from friends and members of the LDWA, who were all willing me on in a supportive way. If I was doing this walk on my own and no-one knew about it, I’d have no pressure and wouldn’t have got beyond about two miles though, I was conscious of that.
So, there was an element of “but yet here we are” to the reality of my questioning the logic of what I was doing. On that basis, it was time to start walking.
The first ten miles of the walk took us from Lowestoft to Great Yarmouth, via Hopton and Gorleston. Our pace was quick and I was confident that I was doing all I could in terms of being fully prepared. I paid more attention to the weather than I usually ever bother to, perhaps looking for evidence that things would go wrong, but the morning remained warm. We saw Liam in the support car a couple of times during this stretch of path, before meeting up with him again in Great Yarmouth where he was filming us going into Greggs.
There’s not much I can really write about this ten-mile stretch between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. Plenty about the history and pubs, but not much about my feelings about the walk. The end was nowhere in sight, so the priority was just ploughing on to see what happened. I remained confident, but unsure.
[I originally posted this in May 2021, but have reposted it in May 2025 to fix the broken image links]
After a year of planning, lots of training walks and thinking about this whole crazy idea, this was the weekend of the LDWA 100. I’m going to, of course, write much more about this over the next few days, but I’m pleased (and a little proud) to say that I completed it.
Thanks to Richard and Liam for being the support team who were present for the entire weekend. Thanks also to Kathleen, Brian, Paul, Chelle, Rob and Jayne for walking sections of the route, they were all great company. And to Leon for his support at the end, and Dylan for his commentary during the drone section.
I’m pleased to report that I didn’t have any injuries or pain, and am now (the following morning) back to normal, so that’s a swift recovery I’m grateful for. I’ve spoken to lots of people who provided support and advice, and their tips were crucial in getting me through. Thanks also to the very many people who were tracking my route and sending messages of support, there were so many that I might have missed thanking people individually, but those kind words were much appreciated.
And biggest thanks to Nathan for his involvement in the whole project. He completed 60 miles of the route, an incredible achievement for someone who hadn’t walked any longer distances until a year ago. Nathan’s humour, complaining and determination were essential in getting me through to 60 miles.
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