Yew Clothing » outdoors

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).

Run with your ipod?

jt_wong — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:46:55 +0000

Lots of us go running with headphones and music. I sometimes do when I run on my own. The right music can really motivate you, put you in the right mood and distract you from the hard work – making your workout that much better and enjoyable. Music can effectively reduce your perception of how hard you’re working. Some people love running to a certain beat. Haile Gebrselassie famously trains to Scatman because the tempo of the song fits with his world record pace. Maybe you just need to find the right track…

Many gym goers can’t live without music or the tv going as they crank out their time on the treadmill or bike. It’s easy to understand that since you’re not going anywhere – you really do want something to distract you.

However, there is a flip side. My running club has a specific policy against runners wearing headphones during club runs. Why? The gentle reason is that it’s anti-social. The serious reason is that a few years ago one of our runners was hit by a car and broke his leg – he was the only one in the group listening to music and the only one that didn’t stop as they were halfway across a road (presumably because everyone else heard or saw something, but he was distracted). Likewise, at athletics matches, you’re not supposed to wear headphones while on the track or field – you might not hear the warning horn go before the javelin starts to fly towards you…

So when I heard about this story on the radio, I figured it was worth sharing. Let’s hope that there aren’t many airplanes crashing where you go running but, it turns out, you can’t be too careful.

Charity Auction

jt_wong — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:53:23 +0000

We’ve donated some of our clothes for a charity auction run by Trail Magazine.

You can see their auction on ebay here.

All proceeds from the auction will go to Community Action Nepal to help build a much-needed rescue shelter at 4750m in the remote Himalayan valley of Gokyo. This will help to save the lives of trekking porters when they are caught out in bad weather. www.canepal.org.uk

There’s 7 days left!

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.