Walk Across England? Been There, Done That!

So, Judy and I and our friends, Kim and Larry Drexler,  made our way across the Pond and walked East to West across England from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to Bowness-On-Solway along the famous and historic Hadrian's Wall Path!  We had phenomenal weather--60s generally with plenty of sun, a nice breeze as a tailwind (which was a surprise because it typically blows west-to-east), and no rain what-so-ever for the 10 days we were there, including the 7 days of our hike.

We all had very high expectations for this truly "bucket-list" experience and I can safely say that the actual experience blew those high expectations away!

This post will be a quick summary of the experience.  First off-here is the overview of the 7-day trek and the 95 miles we covered:

Our target/plan was to average about 2mph (30-minute miles) all-in including all of our rest stops, lunches and a lot of site-seeing at the many forts and castles/turrets along the path--which we pretty much nailed!.  Here is a review of each day:

Day 1: 5/7/25: Newcastle to Heddon-on-the-Wall (15.6 miles/7:01/771 feet vertical

The first day was relatively flat (flattest of the 7 days) and principally an urban walk in Newcastle and its western suburbs.  The end of the hike featured a pretty good climb up to Heddon, where we first saw a portion of the wall.

Most of the hike was on hard, paved surfaces and we all had sore hips and feet by the end of the day.  It took us a while to find our groove and by the end of the day, we were all a bit tired (and wondering what the next day had in store for us).

The Keelman, above, is where we stayed and had our meals the first night on the trip.  We saw that our luggage transport arrangements worked like a charm (thanks Mac's!)--and they did for the whole trip.

DAY 2: 5/8/25: Heddon-on-the-Wall to Chollerford (16.7 miles/8:34/1,244 vertical)

The second day was spent out in the English countryside.  It was a glorious day, with a bit of a chill in the air, but perfect for hiking.  We had quite a bit more up and down on this day and it was our longest day, both in terms of distance and duration.  We began to see quite a bit more of the Wall as well!

One of the highlights of the trip is your interactions with the various farm animals along the way, especially the sheep, which I estimate we saw in the 10s if not 100s of thousands!  On this day I made friends with a couple of horses and made do with two less apples!

The above is the Robin Hood Inn where we stopped for a mid-morning snack!

This last picture is of the George Hotel in Chollerford where we stayed that night.   It was a delightful stay in a quaint, old but charming,  English Country Hotel!

Day 3: 5/9/25: Chollerford to Once Brewed (13.6 miles/7:45/2,166 feet vertical

Days 3-5 are the heart of the Hadrian's Wall trek as we move into the middle of the country and Northumberland National Park.  Today was an absolutely spectacular day--hiked with shorts and a light top.  Brilliant Sunshine, high 60s and a pleasant breeze were with us throughout.  We overlapped a fair amount with a gentleman couple--one in his 60s and the other who recently turned 80 years old.  Turns out he was a major player in the bike industry on the West Coast, including playing a big role at Schwinn (Pacific Cycle).

We also met some horses that seemed to be involved in some "frisky" activities.....

The terrain was breathtaking and we had numerous climbs--many fairly steep, but not especially long.  the Romans build the wall along the natural contour of the many crags that are a major feature of this area.  We passed the famed Sycamore Gap and saw the sad stump of the 150-year old Sycamore Tree that had stood there and was the most photographed tree in England.  It was also known as the Robin Hood tree.  We happened to pass there on the day the two vandals who brought it down were convicted and sentenced to jail for their crimes.  There was a TV News Guy there when we went by.

There were a couple of pretty testy climbs and our whole team did great!  Overall, it was to be our biggest vertical ascent day and a tremendous day of hiking!

Day 4: 5/10/25: Once Brewed to Gilsland (12.2 miles/7:43/1,956 feet vertical

In the morning we did not immediately head back to the trail but rather to an ancient Roman fort site called Vindolanda.  We spend about 90+ minutes there before we walked back to where we had left the trail the day before just north of Once Brewed.  This added quite a bit of vertical, distance and time to the day's hike.  This day in fact turned out to be the day with the highest average grade.

The fort was amazing.  They are in the midst of a 200-year old excavation project!  the weather and scenery were once again spectacular!

These guys were hiking the wall in roman garb for a bachelor's party!

Day 5: 5/11/25: Gilsland to Walton (8.9 miles/5:08/819 feet vertical

Our fifth day on the trail was our shortest and as a consequence we slept in a bit and enjoyed yet more great weather, company and stunning views!

Day 6: 5/12/25: Walton to Carlisle (12.2 miles/5:16/487 feet vertical)

The terrain henceforth was considerably flatter and alas, we left most of the remains of the wall behind us.  We could still see evidence of the roman ditch and the Vallum in places as well as where the romans had quarried their stone but now the hike was more of a stroll through beautiful English countryside.

At the end of the day we reached Carlisle, which is what passes for a larger city in this part of the world.  We toured the Castle there as well as the Cathedral, which was build in about 1100 AD!  A nice Italian dinner finished off another great day of exploring!

I lit a candle at the cathedral for the wife of a friend of mine, who had just passed......

Day 7: Carlisle to Bowness-on-Solway (15.9 miles/6:57/636 feet vertical)

Our last day!  Another mostly flat day as we walked near the River Eden and the Firth of Solway.  We could look across the water to our north, throughout and view Scotland.

When we finally made it, 95+ miles after starting there was an immense feeling of accomplishment, a few tears, a maybe just a touch of sadness that this great adventure was coming to a close!

Total Training volume through 15 weeks: 2025 v 2024

 Here is a comparison of my Training volume over the 1st 15 weeks of 2025 vs 2024.  the data is presented as a Trailing 4-week average to smooth things out a bit:

Swim:

I've been behind all year on the swim.  I got off to a later start this year (started in December 2023 for 2024) due to the right shoulder problems I have struggled with since October of 2024.  The fall-off from week 7-10 was when I was actively pursuing PT on it and I've finally turned the corner and have begun to grow my swim volume.  However with lots of travel on the horizon I expect to see a fall-off similar to 2024.  Net/Net come June and Open Water season, I'll have a lot of work to do on my swim if I hope to turn in decent swim race performance.

Bike: 

Similar to last year, I've been in "maintenance mode" on the bike so far.  The relative fall-off beginning in week 9 is related to learning about my 29,029 event acceptance and shifting my focus towards my run/walk.

Run/Walk:

This has been my primary early season focus and it shows!

PT/Weights:

PT/Weight time has been similar in 2025 to 24--perhaps just a bit more this year with my shoulder problems.  As we enter May I will dial this back for the summer.....

Total Training Time:

The shift to 29029 training (Run/Walk) has driven up my numbers since week 8/9 when I heard that I was accepted into the 29029 event.  I've been above 30 hours/week now for 6 consecutive weeks!

VAST 3--OK, now we're talking!

I went down to Shenandoah for my 3rd Vertical Ascent Speed Test (VAST) from the Panorama Parking Lot to the summit of Mary's Rock--This is a 3.6 mile roundtrip with 1,210 feet up and down per lap.  VAST 3 was very similar to VAST 2 in that I was on the road before 4am and hitting the climbs before 8am and that I did 5 repeats (bringing my 3-test total to 14).

However, right from the get-go I could tell I was a lot stronger.  The strength, flexibility and balance work I've invested in seems to have really paid dividends in that I was able to power up a more direct line taking big step ups as opposed to working around them.  That plus the improving cardio fitness that I would expect to see, the recent experience on that specific trail (and really learning its nuances) and switching from my hiking boots to my Hoka Speed Goats (which I've concluded will be my go-to for both Hadrian and 29,029) also contributed.

The net was a BIG step forward:

As you can see from the above, I was able to average nearly 1,700 vertical feet/hour, which was a whopping ~15% better than VAST 2 and over 19% better than the baseline I set in VAST 1!

I'm really pleased with this--no two ways about it.  This was a real confidence builder.  I expected to be faster and was hoping to go sub 48 (my prior record was 48:36) and maybe even get under 47.  Frankly I was shocked when I submitted for the first time and saw 42:28!  Hot damn!

I didn't expect to be able to hold that but in fact was able to pretty much stay on the effort for all 5 repeats over the 8:45 it took me to complete the workout.  Awesomeness!!

You can also see that my average HR was up about 5 bpm which given that I added nearly 100 calories/hour more in work output (+15%) is not really a surprise.  While, you hope to see greater output at the same Cardio stress I'm actually net/net pleased with the fact I could average 133bpm over such an extended timeframe--it means I'm able to access a higher % of my threshold power as well as increasing my power headroom!  All good.

Now whether or not this is good enough is still not knowable and really won't be known until game time on 8/1 but a 15% jump in ascent speed means if I'm still not yet strong enough, at least I'm closer!  

16 weeks to go as of this morning!  Onwards and Upwards!

ps--I also did two more days of training and in total put in 42.6 miles of hiking/climbing over 18:40 with about 22,000 total vertical (11,00 each way)

VAST #2 and the week that was.....

The big event of this week was a second trip down to Shenandoah National Park in this training block.  Monday morning I was up at 3:30 and rolling with my Java at 3:50am.  I was at the trail head by 7:50am down in the Panorama parking lot.  For this iteration, I elected to do 5 repeats of the Mary's Rock climb.  In total, this took me 9 hours and 19 minutes to do the 5 ascents, which covered 18.6 miles in total plus 1,210 ascent ft (and descent ft) per repeat....so pretty big day....

Net/net I was about 4% faster in my VAST2 vs VAST1 at a slightly lower HR.  Not surprisingly, my rate of energy burn was also up about 4% at the lower metabolic cost.  Gotta love the training effect! 

 Of course, it's hard for me to really judge if this is good enough progress or not--such is the unknown nature (to me) of the 29,029 event.  That said, 4% improvement is better than none and I still have 19 weeks to Show Time.  I was a little disappointed with the last rep on this cycle but that may have been as much mental as physical--hard to grind away for 9+ hours.  Although that really isn't a good excuse because being able to put continuous time on task is what this event is all about.

For this trip I decided to tack on two more days of regular trekking (vs. 1 day for VAST #1).  The second day, I did what I call the "Cemetery Hike" past the famous Bolen Cemetery and the lesser known Dyer Family Cemetery.  Here is what that looked like:

My legs actually felt pretty good once I warmed up although I could feel the VAST effort in them.  Still a pretty solid effort on a beautiful day!

On the third day I climbed Hogsback and SugarLoaf Mountains in another solid hike:

19 hours and 42 minutes in total over the three days with 20,000+ ft of total vertical (half up and half down) across 40.8 miles.

Here is how the full week played out:

Swim: 3,000 yards (less than I wanted but with travel and fatigue, this is what I did)

Bike: 130 miles (over 4 days)

Walk/Run: 57.1 miles--this took over 24 hours to do given the terrain.  I ended up taking just Thursday off.

PT: 3 hours 50 minutes

Total Training time: 37 hours 33 minutes.

You might not find it surprising to learn I'm pretty whipped today (did a 3 hour hike with 1,000 ft of vertical today as well).  Probably need to think about backing off given my last 4 weeks have been 31:19, 31:12, 31:54 and 37:39...

Onwards and Upwards!

Oh, also last week, week 11 had the following totals:

Swim: 4,500 yards

Bike: 244 miles

Walk/Run : 33 miles

PT: 5:55

Total Training Time: 31:54

Hadrian Wall Trek Plan

 Just to mix things up a bit.  Here is the current plan for our Hadrian's Wall Trek.  Basically we are walking across England from Newcastle to Bowness On Solway.  More on this to come but here are the details:

I'm not specifically training for this but rather training through this for the 29,029.  This is an important adventure for sure--not ignoring it, but rather I'm confident my training for 29,029 will more than prepare me for this and since HW is 10+ weeks before the 29,029, it will serve as pretty good training for the 29,029 (although obviously not so much from a vertical perspective!)

VAST (Vertical Ascent Speed Test) #1 and Weeks 9/10 Update

 The big news is I went down to Shenandoah National Park to get some vert under the belt.  I went down early Monday (3/3) morning--was on the road by 4am and at the Panorama parking lot at Thorton's Gap about 8am.

My task for the day was to find out where my baseline vertical ascent fitness was at.  To do this, I did what I call a Vertical Ascent Speed Test (VAST).  For the first version of this in the current training block, I decided to do 4 ascents of the Panorama to Mary's Rock Trail.  This is about 1.85 miles in length with a Vertical Ascent of 1,210 feet.  This works out to about 12-13% average grade (vs. 19% for my Snow Basin 29,029 in August).  Less steep makes it a bit easier on the body at a given speed but also makes it a bit more difficult to get VAS--this might seem counter-intuitive, but consider this: 3 mph at a 5% grade will yield 792 vertical ft/hour, while 2 mph at a 10% grade will yield 1,056 vertical feet/hour.  Based on my experience in the mountains/trails, these are roughly equivalent physical efforts.  At the extremes 100mph at a 0% grade yields no vertical ascent and I probably can't walk up something thats steeper than 60% grade so in practice you have to test it out.

One of things that makes the VAST harder than what I will do in the 29,029 is that unlike the latter, I have to down climb the trail each time (no Gondola!).  This of course doubles the distance and due to eccentric contraction puts a bunch of stress on the quads that I won't face at Snow Basin.  Also, this specific trail is very rocky which puts a lot of stress on your stabilizer muscles in your ankles and hips especially.  

The other complicating factor about 3/3/25 was that it was 16 degrees when I started and when I finished the test 6 hours and 28 minutes later, it was still only 26 degrees--this created heat regulation challenges (hot up/cold down).  It also meant there was quite a bit of ice on the trail, especially on this one section that had some nasty exposure so caution was required on both the Ups and Downs over about 3/8ths of a mile mid climb.

Be that as it may, here are the results of my 4 runs of the VAST #1:

The key data point I'm looking for on this effort is the VAS--which averaged 1,417 ft hour.  That may not immediately mean anything so let's put that into the context of what my 29,029 challenge entails:

The Snow Basin 29,029 involves 13 repeats of a 2.3 mile trail that has 2,310 vertical feet/lap.  This works out to 30,030 vertical feet in total.  To successfully complete the 29,029 challenge I need to do these 13 laps in 36 hours.  Within these 36 hours are my 12 "Transitions", which is the time it takes from completing one climb and then taking the gondola down and doing the other stuff one needs to do before starting the next climb.  My research indicates that the gondola rides are about 12-15 minutes.  So my guess, is my transition times in practice will range from 20-40 minutes each.  Let's take the midpoint of 30 minutes and with 12 transitions, this means 6 hours (12 X 30 minutes) will be consumed in transitions.  This basically leaves me 30 hours to climb 30,000 vertical feet or 1,000 feet hour.

We can take this info and devise an equation that describes how long it will take me to do the event given my average VAS/lap and my average transition time (ATT) (this excludes any extended rest periods):

Total Time to complete the 29,029 = (13 X 30,000/(VAS/lap)) + (12 X ATT).  How this all works can be visualized with the following chart:

Here, I've displayed 5 isobars that correspond to ATTs of 20 minutes (red) up to 40 minutes (purple).  I've also showed the Minimum VAS required to finish in 36 hours for ATTs of 25 minutes-35 minutes (my current best guess of what I will average) and we see we need about 975 ft/hour @ a 25 min ATT and about 1,025 ft/hour @ a ATT of 35 minutes.  Again, this assumes no other rest time.

Another way to use the above equation is to see what would happen, at various ATTs if I was able to replicate the 1,417 ft/hour I achieved in my test:

The 1,417 VAS line intersects with the 25 minutes ATT isobar and indicates it would take me 26 hours--leaving 10 hours of cushion for rest and any issues that might develop.  For the ATT of 35 minutes this extends to a bit more than 28 hours--leaving 8 hours of cushion.

Now, before we declare victory, I know there is no way I could do 1,417 VAS at this point in time.  Here is a plot of my vertical vs time and my HR from one of the four ascents:

Note the nice steady slope of the green line which indicates a fairly constant VAS--which is great, this is what we are aiming to do.  However, note that for the last 20-30 minutes, or about half of the climb my HR is in the 140-150bpm range--decidedly Z3.  No way I can hold that intensity for 20+ hours of climbing, even with the 30 minutes of rest between climbs.  I'll probably more likely average low Z2--say 110-120bpm, so I have a lot of work to do!

When I repeat this test, I'll hope to see a better combination of VAS and average HR.  Also, there are a lot of things that are different between climbing 19% grade at 6,000+ altitude for a climb of 2,300 vertical at probably 80+ degrees (and riding a gondola) then what I did on this test.  So it's really hard to say how confident I should feel about this test result.

I do now I need to keep training a bunch and I'll repeat the test a few times between now and August and I'll be expecting to see my performance improve.

-----

After that first day, I then banged out a 12+ mile/2,700+ vertical/6+hour hike the next day on the Appalachian Trail:

After these two days, my ankles and hips were definitely sore--I definitely felt this effort so I took a day off but ended up completing my biggest walk/run/hike week this year.  Here are the results of the last two weeks--the one before the above and this past week including these efforts:

 

Week 9

Swim: 2,000 yards

Bike: 246 miles

Run/Walk: 38 miles

PT/Weights: 5:10

Total Training Time: 31:19

Week 10

Swim: 3,500 yards

Bike: 134 miles

Run/Walk: 48 miles

PT/Weights: 3:05

Total Training Time: 31:12

Onwards and Upwards!