Just a 60km walk

jt_wong — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:27:21 +0000

We recently did a charity walk in the South Downs for the Child Welfare Scheme, a Nepal charity that we like. You can find out more about them on our People Yew Like page (http://www.yewclothing.com/community/people-yew-like). As it was ‘just a walk’ (and incidentally, the event was called ‘Just Walk‘) we didn’t really prepare that well. There was a training walk of about 30km (all pretty flat) so we thought that it would be moderately challenging. Jun had previously done a 50 mile walk and was confident that 60 km wouldn’t be that difficult in comparison (he may have forgotten to add the aging factor in, since his 50 mile walk was done in 1995). All those ultramarathon runners out there may laugh at a 60k walk, but it really was a long way. And a bit hilly too.

For pictures from the walk, go to our Gallery page – http://www.yewclothing.com/downloads/gallery/

We started at about 8.30 in the morning from Goodwood race course: all smiles and full of tea and bacon rolls. For the next few hours there were quite a lot of people around. We didn’t really head off that quickly, but just tried to keep an even pace up. The weather was awesome, so we were feeling pretty good. And after finding some gorgeous woods full of bluebelled carpets, we were liking our nature walk.

Then came Arundel Castle – which is rather nice, but also at the top of a hill – and we were definitely starting to feel the legs. Knee problems, groin strains and puffy ankles were starting to niggle at Team Yew, but there was a tea break at the top of another hill, at which point the sun disappeared and the wind picked up – giving us a rather cold and gloomy rest by this turret:

Fortunately, down the other side it was all sunshine and lush again. Oh, and then another hill as well.

The amazing thing about this tour of the South Downs was that we got to see so many things. We had woodland, rivers, chalk cliffs, castles, lots of hills, muddy marshland (apparently of great significance – but we didn’t stop to read the sign). By the time we set off from our dinner stop, we were ready to finish and have it all done with. We’d picked up a lone straggler from another group and walked the remaining miles with her in tow. There was a slight dip in morale when we realised that some of the distance markers near the finish were slightly out (making us think we had less to go than we did) and also the fact that they shoved a big hill right before the finish at Goodwood. Fortunately, a few pear drops solved that.

By the time we got to the finish at 9pm, the sun was dipping down. We were rewarded with shortbread at the finish (though a beer would have gone down quite well).

Lakeland without the kitchenware

jt_wong — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:57:27 +0000

When we set up Yew, we decided that this was supposed to be outdoor clothing for real people. That meant no pictures of inverted snowboarders, climbers at the top of Everest or mountain bikers sailing through the air. Our website pics are supposed to be things that anyone could realistically do. It’s our: “Everyday Adventure/Adventure Every Day” thinking. I hope someone else hasn’t already thought of that one.

So, here’s a picture from over the May Bank Holiday in the Lake District. We climbed up Haystacks and then on to Seat, where I’m pictured. Sitting down. I thought, I should really put a picture up , but didn’t want anyone to think that this was a ‘top of the mountain’ pic. It’s a decent walk up (we did 7 hours worth, but you don’t need to go that far) and the views are priceless. You don’t have to be a professional athlete to do it, but you do have to get off that sofa and put your boots on. Some of our clothing wouldn’t hurt either.

Yew Clothing » hiking

Just a 60km walk

Lakeland without the kitchenware