Here are my photos & video from last weekend's WOW. I only got as far as CP1, Holdgate, as my pulled right hamstring went again (I'd first pulled it on a short run the previous Wednesday).
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_pp/albums/72157670636212951
Video: https://youtu.be/eYpVREiWtTQ

As a relative novice to long distance walking and being a local too, this was a wonderful experience for me. Yes, the mud, the bracken, the crops, the nettles, the brambles and the flies were all worse than I anticipated but I had a great time. Heading out from CP5 soon took me within 400m of my home (and my bed) which threw up a momentary but vivid dilemma! The walk took me a lot longer than I expected but how lucky were we that we didn't have the heatwave that hit the area 48 hours after the event? In that case, I'm not sure the 28 hour limit would have been enough.

Everybody who worked so hard to make the event possible and run so smoothly deserves a big thank you. I'm a clumsy sort of person so I fell flat on my face before the start and flat on my back at the finish - thank you to those that picked me up and set me on my way again!
The checkpoints were perfect - a special call out to Dave on CP3 who told me how much I would have enjoyed a particular type of sandwiches that had just run out - I chuckled about that all the way to my lasagna at CP4.

Same time same place next year I hope!

For results and photos (including photos of the cakes) go to http://marchesgroupldwa.weebly.com/

WOW, is the only way to describe it.
I've lost count how many 100km walks I've done over the years but this has got to rank amongst the hardest, or indeed the hardest of them all.
Before the event we were given a list of grid references and a brief description of the route between them. This was to aid pre-marking the route on a map. 1:25k was a must. Those with an appropriate gizmo could download the gpx track of the route.
Checkpoints were spaced with some long distances between them. The longest being CP5 to the finish a distance of over 24km.
The 8000' of ascent over the route did not prove an obstacle but the underfoot conditions did. The ground varied between very soft squidgy mud to rutted and hard.
The organisers suggested we consider wearing full leg covering for protection against the sun, biting insects and summer veg/crops.
I got away with shorts throughout and only a few times regretted that decision when in bracken and gorse. Having said that as I finished over half way down the field the route was often beaten down for me. Not so sure about shorts if I was at the front of the field though.
All in all, a true challenge that could only be met by around two thirds of the starters.
Highlights for me (excluding finishing) were:

1) The gorgeous ascending gully path up Abdon Burf. An uphill that felt level. Why can't all ascents be like that?

2) CP1 in a church. Cool and full of a huge selection homemade cakes. Thank you to all the bakers. I don't think I've sat in a church pew before eating cake and putting padding on a foot hot spot!

3) Lasagne at CP4. As a meat eater I can take or leave vegetable lasagne. But not this one. It was superb and I'm truly glad I was served a large portion.

A big thank you to all concerned in running the event. My legs are fine but my feet very sore.

Last Minute Route Notes

WP 4 to 5. ?Head to field corner? is straight through barley.
At 2nd stile after SC1, head up to the L then straight through the barley to the corner of the wood.

WP 15Abode Burf. SC2 is beyond the toposcope in its lee.

WP 28. Liable to be very muddy.

WP 31 to 32. ?Dog-leg in wheat? is now 2 fields of rape.. Turn L at GT as marked with an arrow and around to the R through the cleared path.

WP 34-35. In a small paddock there is electric fence tape that was not connected on Friday. I have made gaps, so hopefully those will still be there.

WP 35. A short dog-leg L/R will avoid the slightly overgrown sunken path.

WP 36. Look for a low orange arrow at the ?AH B290?.
At the bottom of the hill there is a brand-new kissing gate. This way down has been cleared and is slightly quicker. In which case at the road turn L 100m to GT.

WP 44. Look for orange arrow on L. Going downhill it?s muddy to start with but quickly improves.

WP 47-48. Look for red & white tape on canes and orange arrows through the parkland. The bullocks in the next field are merely inquisitive.

WP 63. Ours is the higher clip on the pole at the summit of the Lawley.

WP 64. Look for red & white tape on canes and orange arrows to the gap in the trees.

NB. Something else (orienteering?) is going on around this area. Ignore any pink arrows.

A link to the GPX file for this weekend's walk has just arrived in an email from SIEntries.
It's no good just clicking on the link however, as this just displays the contents of the file in a browser page.
If reading your email in a browser, to download it, you need to right-click the link, select "Save Link As..", then select a destination folder, then save the contents of the GPX file into that.
If reading email in an email client, such as Outlook, you'll need to click the link to get the file contents displayed on a web page, then save the contents of that web page to a file. One suggested way of doing this is to 'Select' the entire page by a single click on the page contents then Ctrl-A to hilight the contents, then Ctrl-C to copy the contents into a Copy-Buffer. Then open a text editor such as Notepad, then start to create a new file with File->New, then copy the Copy-Buffer contents into Notepad with Ctrl-V, then remove the possible first line that may start "This XML file does not appear to have any style information...", so that the first line starts "<gpx xmlns="http://www.topographix.com....",
then save the contents into your new destination gpx file.
Phew!

I have one which I created from last year's 50 mile route which I was sent and added the extra loop myself. If you let me have your email address I will send it to you with loads of caveats that I haven't walked it, checked it etc etc.

Just checking out the route description for this year's extension down to Titterstone Clee.
It has taken several readings and mis-understandings to realise that there are two similar abbreviations "BWay" & "ByWay" (presumably standing for BridleWay & ByWay, although neither is explained in the abbreviations list)
Now I know this, it make the whole job a lot easier.

To anybody attempting to print out the Route Description, be aware that the Word document is sized for Legal or Foolscap or something instead of A4. Printing it can cause the printer to ask for the correct size of paper. The solution to this is to tell it to print on A4 paper. This then causes further problems as the text on long lines then gets truncated on the print (also on the print preview). The solution to this is to edit each long line & insert a Carriage Return where necessary.

Hi has anyone got a gpx file for this event? It's this weekend . Thanks