Pier to Pier

          So this is it, the first of what I hope will be many challenges to bring back my adventurous streak, in this case it was a 11km (7 mile) between two piers near where I live, if I`m totally honest I wasn`t actually looking forward to it, it wasn`t distance or the weather, which was good, it was down to the fact that the night before I had a family gathering and this left me mentally drained, which was only the start of the issues for the day. Murphy`s law prevailed for part of the day, I had planned on catching the train both to and from the start and end point, however the train company had other ideas, the first train from my local station didn`t leave until 9.15, 15 minutes after registration for the event opened, the bus company didn`t run to the start town on a Sunday which left me with the only option of driving to the start, not something I really wanted to do, the car park was a pay and display one but I had been prepared for it and had brought enough change to cover the parking...except the machine refused to accept one of my £1 coins, no problem I thought I call and pay over the phone....nobody works in the office on a Sunday because of course people don`t need to park their cars on a Sunday! so I text the number on the board, only to receive a text saying I hadn`t entered a valid location, text again, received one back saying I hadn`t entered a time, none of this was on the board just text this number! so I text back with all the info they required, got a text back saying I was already registered on the system, at this point I was on the point of screaming, I finally managed to sort it out and pulled my bag out of the car....to find the bottom of my bag soaking wet and water soaking into the seat of my car, the water bladder I was using had gotten a micro puncture at some point leading to water spilling everywhere, by a stroke of luck though I had packed my other bits and pieces into waterproof bags in case it was raining that day, as it was the sun was shining so I did a little reverse thinking and removed everything from the waterproof bag and put the bladder inside the waterproof bag this stopped everything from getting wet from the water I was meant to be drinking, thankfully there was enough left for me for the day, now I would have play the waiting game to see if my bag would be dry enough for me to walk with without problems.

7 miles in that direction is my goal

          by 9.45 everyone had registered and we were waiting for the warm up to get under way, people had also slowly started drifting towards the start line and this where I had a slight flash of anger, people were actually pushing me out of the way to get to the front of the line, this was a charity walk not a race! just after 10 am we offically started, 700 people heading along the coast in one direction and 140 from the other pier to where we had started. I had worked out how long this walk was going to take me at my regular pace, 4.8 km per hour would see me in at around about the 2 hours and 20 minutes mark, however what I didn`t count on was the flow of other people pace actually speeding me up, the support we received from the general public was great, people were offering free tea and coffee, some were even offering to make bacon or sausage sandwiches as well, as this was a public right of way and not closed off people were relaxing on the beach making the most of the early spring sunshine, some were preparing boats for sailing, others were dog walking some others were riding horses along the beach, soon after the tall buildings of Frinton came into view, and in the distance I could actually see my goal jutting out into the sea, another hour or so and I would be there, at this point my mind was trying to tell me that this was a bad decision to make and that I shouldn`t be walking, I ignored it and carried on, the pier gradually got closer and closer, the crowds of people on the esplanade got denser, two more corners and I would be at my goal, I saw the gazebo and walked over to it, after handing in my registration slip I was presented with a medal for my efforts.

for once I was "joined" on one of these adventures of mine by 2 friends.

they stayed with me throughout the walk and will probably be joining me in some later adventures too.

final time for the walk was 1 hour 55 minutes (18s).

I found it to be a bittersweet walk, first and foremost because I shouldn`t have wimped out and walked back to where I started, secondly I had no one to greet me when I made it to the end point and thirdly I had no one to walk with, oh sure there were 700 others but how many were walking with me?