Training Walk III (51km Cholesbury loop) .... I'm Just Going Outside I May Be Some Time

Today we're out to break through the 50% distance barrier. The idea is to harden up the feet and get a warm and fuzzy feeling from another milestone reached. There's nothing warm and fuzzy about the air temperature though as we park up opposite the windmill in Cholesbury just before 7. Like the dog with the black and white stripy jacket at Walthamstow, Pete and Matt push the pace along straight out of the traps and the stumpier half of the team trot along behind like the dog with the black and white coat from the Dulux advert. The torrential rain over the previous days has taken its toll and the "shoe team" are cursing while the "boot team" splash smugly though the mud. This is the walk where it becomes clear that a variety of footwear and socks is essential. Shares in Bridgedale rise on the news.

We skirt past the entrance to Dundridge Manor, one of many places on the walks that has a longer commute from the front door to the gate than most people need to get to work. Despite the faux medieval entrance we aren't run off the land by Guy of Gisbourne, but someone in a Range Rover gives us a funny look.

Just after Durham Farm, the road is flooded with cartoon ducks swimming on it, but we have an alternative path that takes us to the A413 Wendover Road. Lots of cyclists are out, but not many cars, so we can scuttle safely across. Cockshoots Wood is basically a muddy swimming pool with trees and after some circumspect paddling we come out at the wrong place and it takes a bit of compass work and Matt's GPS to get us back on track. There's a discussion about which side of a hedge we should be on and common sense wins out over the map and we avoid having to retrace our steps. The team is starting to lose faith in the mapreader and a bloody rebellion is fomented. The chance sighting of a hare distracts the revolutionaries and the coup is avoided.

We fight our way through yet another field of rape, getting lungfuls of Eau de Sprout and a generous coating of yellow dust and arrive by the shabby tradesman's entrance to Hampden House. He's been a great big silly old Hampden and lost all his money in the South Sea Bubble. His great great granddaughter lost her heart to a Starship Trooper, but that's another story.


The footpath out of the estate flirts with Grim's Ditch, bits of which we seem to come across on virtually every walk.
Ask the Expert #6 : What was Grim's Ditch for and who was Grim
- There are lots of Grim's Ditches in southern England, probably constructed in the Iron Age. They aren't deep enough to have much of a military purpose. Grim is another name for the Saxon god Woden.
A lot of the time we chat about films and stuff to pass the time. Pete and Derek both recommend Dog Soldiers with Sean Pertwee.
Ask the Expert #7 : Is Sean Pertwee related to Jon (3rd Doctor) or Bill (I'll get you Mainwaring)?
- Sean Pertwee is the son of Ingeborg and Jon Pertwee. Jon and Bill are distant cousins, but he's only 6 steps from Kevin Bacon.

Nice monument. Shame about the casualties.

More fields of rapeseed, more mud and some unfriendly horsey types take the gloss off what is otherwise a pleasant walk through some lovely countryside. The Chiltern Way turns into the Icknield Way which becomes the Ridgeway. It would have ended up being Howard's Way, but due to poor planning on his part, the Red Lion at Whiteleaf isn't open, so we plod shabbily across a golf course in a desperate search for refreshment. The Plough at Lower Cadsden looks a reasonable replacement and the Olde Trip hits the spot, but it's clear that grubby walkers are not their favoured clientele. It's no surprise that the Camerons get a warmer welcome to The Plough a few weeks later. So warm that they decide to leave daughter Nancy behind. Rumour has it that she followed the Trail Of Bread to Chequers. She didn't make it to Coombe Hill though. The monument here commemorates the fallen from the Second Boer War. From here we can see exactly where HS2 will spoil the view of the Buckinghamshire gentry. I can feel my heart bleeding.

The cadence is starting to get a bit ragged now and even "the one about the buffalo and Prince Phillip's  underpants" isn't funny. By the time we get to the inaccurately named Painsend Farm, the pain is really starting to kick in and Derek is clearly not in a good way. We create our own little Antarctic vignette; Derek is the heroic long-suffering Oates, Howard is the evil inflexible Scott and The Full Moon at Cholesbury is the outside of the tent. Derek trudges the 3 miles to The Full Moon on his own. Stretching the analogy too far, Matt is Shackleton but on a different expedition, Pete is a tenacious husky (even though he's taken something for his throat) and the No. 4 bus from Chesham is the team of ponies that failed to get Scott home from the pole, but gets Derek back to Wycombe. It's clear now that we should all have bailed out, but instead of listening to his inner Shackleton ("Better a live donkey than a dead lion"), Howard listened to his inner Scott ("Weighin' in at nineteen stone. You're a whole lotta woman. A whole lotta woman. Whole lotta Rosie"). We realise too late that we should have agreed how to handle situations like this in advance. It's difficult to pick up the morale after that, although the sheer unadulterated unpleasantness of the Lucozade gel sachets lighten the mood for a bit.

We reach the Pole. Pete does some dancing. Matt humours him. Amundsen has already been and gone.

By the time we reach the Cow Roast Inn we're gasping for a drink and the bar staff here are much more welcoming to sweaty walkers. We sensibly if reluctantly go for long soft drinks rather than the Woodforde's Wherry and we're back on the road all too soon. We cross the canal and loop around the bottom end of Northchurch Common and hit the outskirts of Berkhamsted. Pete's blisters are now giving him major problems, and we're all shuffling along like Chelsea pensioners, or someone tackled by Chelsea pensioner "Chopper" Harris. We have a "pop" stop at the Tesco Metro before tackling the Col de Berkhamsted.

In sight of the finish, Howard puts the last half mile extra loop to the vote and almost becomes Caesar to Matt's Cassius and Pete's (great smell of) Brutus, so head straight to the pub instead. Rarely has an average pint tasted so good and we reflect on a day of mixed fortunes. It's taken twelve hours to complete thirty-two miles, but we were virtually stationary by the end and we lost Derek and some team spirit in the process.

Teacher's report : A good effort, but must do better, C+