So last Saturday we held our first group training hike on the Trailwalker route proper: starting at Checkpoint 5 near Washington along to Checkpoint 8 (next to the Jack and Jill Windmills).

This is the section we'll be covering overnight on July 14th/15th, so besides becoming familiar with the general terrain of the route, covering this section was also useful in becoming familiar with the lay-of-the-land so we have more clue where to put our feet when we're walking by torch-light!

We'd hoped to be walking by 8AM, however due to a slight mis-navigation to the start by one of the other team-members (he was supposed to drive to the end and give John and Colin a lift back to the start, weren't you Phill!) but we eventually started walking around 9:30AM.

We reached Checkpoint 6 30 minutes ahead of the published 24-hour-pace, although we could have easily passed it without knowing (see the photo on the left: it's just an empty field 51 weeks of the year!).

At the start of May John and Colin, cycled the entire route, and despite having only covered the path on this one previous occasion, it was amazing how familiar the route was; it definitely helped make those hills seem a little shorter. It was also quite apparent that cycling (or at times trying to cycle) up those hills was a lot harder than just walking up them, although the downhill stetches weren't as much fun on foot!

We had a short lunch-stop on Edburton Hill and then continued over to Devils Dyke, resisting the urge to stop at The Devils Dyke Inn, this might have been a good move if the reviews at beerintheevening.com are anything to go by (and they usually are!).

Maybe it was the previous knowledge of the route, but it didn't seem much longer before we saw sight of the windmills just beyond Pyecombe. The Trailwalker route teases a little on the approach to Checkpoint 8, but we reached the Jack and Jill car park at 3:05PM. This was around 30 minutes longer than training walk #1 which was around 3 miles shorter and infinitely flatter!

We're clearly going in the right direction walking-wise; probably time to start working on that fundraising total!

We're off again on another training hike tomorrow. We're tackling the section of the route we expect to be covering overnight on July 14th, between Checkpoint 5 near Washington and Checkpoint 8 (next to the Jack and Jill Windmills). Incidentally, there's no moonlight on the evening of July 14th so head-torches will be the order of the night!

The distance is around 16 miles, not much more than on the previous training hike, but we'll be on the actual Trailwalker route which, from our previous experience, is somewhat more bumpy than the Test Valley. The highest ascent tomorrow will be right at the start where we climb to 238M. There's another big climb on Stage 7, up to 217M on Devils Dyke, although there is actually a Public House aloft the top; no, honestly there is, take a look at grid-ref TQ249112!

On the downside, we all live a fair distance from the route, so it's going to be an early start in order to be walking anywhere near to 8AM. At least it looks like it's not going to rain!

Look out for an update early next week!

At the end of April two members of Team Niagara took time off to perform a recce (recon) of the entire South Downs Way route, but on bikes rather than on foot...

We started around 9AM Sunday morning having been dropped off by my other half in little village called Chilcomb across the motorway from Winchester. I'd included a photo at this point, but the camera seemed to have issues focusing!

We'd ridden less than a quater mile before we encountered the first hill of the trip, which took us up onto the route proper; that's one of the problems with the South Downs Way, it's a Downland based landscape, specifically an "area of open chalk hills", so there's a lot of slow climbs followed by fast decents!

We met up with one of John's friends close to Petersfield, where we stopped for lunch at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park cafe (very reasonably priced food BTW). QECP is the start venue for the Trailwalker, from what we can tell the starting line is at the foot of a rather long hill, but we won't tell the others! If you ever find yourself in QECP with a mountain bike be sure to take a ride up to the top of Buster Hill, it's a great view from the top but the two minute 30mph ride back down to the bottom is what it's all about!

Before leaving QECP I did a bit of luggage rearrangement (my Topeak handlebar bag was too heavy, coming down Buster Hill, it was scuffing on the front tyre when my suspension was fully compressed - great motorbike type sound, like when you used to tape card to your bike spokes as a kid!).

We continued in sunshine for the rest of the afternoon, much better than the forecast, onto our first overnight stop at the Blue Bell Inn, Cocking (that's the name of the village!), West Sussex, around 20km into the Trailwalker route and close to Check Point #2. Our stats for day one were:

• Start: 9AM
• Distance: 33.4 miles
• Riding Time: 4h55m
• Ave Speed: 6.8mph! Atrocious, but so was the terrain!
• Stop: 5PM

Started Day Two, looked to be another scorcher - so much for the forcast rain, and up a main road hill to get back onto the 'Way, don't mind hills but not with heavy traffic. It was good to get off the road, especially for the relatively level ground of Heyshott and Graffon Downs edging into Charlton Forrest towards Trailwalker Check Point #3 (around 28km into Trailwalker).

We had a rather long stop to try to fix my gears (John likes a challenge, when dropping into the lowest front cog, they would either not change down, the chain would jam or the chain would come right off). We then had a not so short stop to attend to a puncture on Johns rear wheel. Amazingly this was the only puncture either of us picked up, depsite nearly all the terrain being plentiful of jagged flint; to that end, Johns tyre had only picked up a thorn.

These delays impacted us quite a bit, we held until 20 miles before stopping for a very quick lunch break at around 3PM. Then it was a long slog up the summit of Devils Dyke; this was tedious, due to the cross winds (on your right: the English Channel; on your left:low lying land for around 30 miles; in the middle: you, open to all the elements, which even on a hot sunny day, isn't too much fun).

This took us past Trailwalker Check Point #5 (68km) and onto our second overnight stop at the Jack and Jill Inn, Clayton. BTW, their website looks off-kilter compared to their bricks'n'mortar site. Our stats for Day Two were no better:

• Start: 9AM
• Distance: 34.38 miles
• Ave Speed: 6.4mph! Getting slower!
• Stop: 7PM

The pub couldn't/woudln't serve breakfast before 8:30AM so we left at 12 hours after we'd arrived at 7AM to start Day Three, still no sign of anything but lots of unbroken sunshine (days of endless sunny weather, takes me back to my days living in the Bay Area!).

Another long climb up a long main road to get back up to the trail, and along the picturesque Jack and Jill windmills, and the site of Trailwalker Check Point #8 (75km). Then onto Ditchling Beacon, with excellent views of passenger jets stacked up waiting to land at Gatwick Airport.

We had a narrow miss shortly after crossing the A27(T) at Housedean Farm, we just missed having breakfast at a mobile cafe, unfortunately it was across the wrong side of the carriage-way by the time we noticed it; crossing 4 lanes of rush hour traffic was less tempting than a Fried Egg and Bacon Bun!

If we'd been doing the Trailwalker route, the next climb would have been our last around Check Point #9 (90km), but we weren't so it was onwards onto Eastbourne. Finally we got to visit a quaint little village today: Alfriston Old Post Office does very tasty handmade sandwiches, and reasonably priced too! To be honest anything would probably have been tasty by this point.

Of course Alfriston is in a valley, so after lunch we had another climb over Windover Hill down to Jevington (via a detour as a landowner had erected an illegal notice stating that the SDW didn't cross his land - but it does!) and then up out of Jevington towards Willingdon Hill.

You know how with most hills, every time you turn a blind bend or reach a blind summit, you see another climb? Well I liked Willingdon Hill, cause as I reached the blind bend, I saw John stood by the Trig Point and Eastbourne laid out behind him; IT'S ALL DOWN HILL FROM HERE!

Final Day Stats:

• Start: 7AM
• Distance: 32.5 miles
• Ave Speed: didn't note, but it must have improved!
• Stop: 4PM

After reaching Eastbourne station, thanks to the locals who gave us directions, we caught the train to Brighton. We had a quick celebratory drink on the seafront and then another train back home. Our total distance was 101.3 miles.

In one word: PUNISHING!

More photos at flickr, or see how we got on here:

Last Wednesday most of our teams were able to take the day off work and headed down/up/across towards the Test Valley for the first of our Training Walks.

After a slight delay arranging cars at either end of the route, we left St Mary Bourne only 20 minutes behind schedule at 10:20. We did better than the GPS (which had some issues before we'd even got a sweat on) so we weren't able to keep tabs on exactly how far we covered, but according to the maps it should have been around 13 miles. Despite the route being way-marked, there were a few times when we weren't quite sure which unmarked track to follow!

We were accompanied on the day by Baxter, the lovable lab. He kept us all on track, although he's not used to such long walks, in fact his longest walk up until this point was about a quarter of a mile. He kept going 'til the end (luckily) even though he had no idea where we were going or how long it would take (he wasn't alone on that one!).

The weather turn out nice (again!) and we got to see some great North Hampshire country-side along the way. We arrived in Stockbridge spot on 5 hours for a well earned drink! All in all, better even than a day at our office!

See how we got on right here:

(rear, L-to-R): Colin, JohnS, Jarod, Phil
(front, L-to-R): Stuart, Craig, Brian, Spencer, JohnTz, Andy

For our inaugural attempt at this ultra marathon, we've two Sun Microsystems teams entering from our Guillemont Park campus comprising of engineers of various specialties and vintages along with someone from finance (which is always useful!):

• Team Niagara Fallouts:Colin, Jarod, JohnS and Phil
• Team Solaris: Andy, Brian, Craig and JohnTz

We also need reserve walkers, Spencer has already dropped out through injury (ouch!) to be replaced by Brain (thank-you!). Stuart is waiting in the wings and coming along with us on our training walks, just on the off-chance!

Talking of training walks, we'll be out on a section of the Test Valley Way tomorrow, hope the weather holds!

This July we're taking part in Trailwalker UK, a 100km (60 mile) hike for teams of four from Petersfield in Hampshire to Brighton Race Course in Sussex, following part of the South Downs Way.

Walking at around 3mph it would take 24 hours, so allowing time for eating and blister bursting there'll be no time for sleeping!

But it's more than just walking though, the distance is equal to two and a half marathons, the ascent is equal to that of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK.

If that wasn't enough of a challenge - we're fund raising too!

All the money goes to support the work of Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust - we've pledged to raise £4000.

Over the coming weeks and months we'll be using this blog to introduce our teams, keep you updated with how our training walks, event-day preparation and fund raising!