Monday, 30 May 2011

New training ideas ... 1. Tour. 2. Geo

Dear Blog,
Before I wind up this trudging lark in the next couple of weeks, and finalise my collection for Tiny Tims Children’s Centre and Newlife charities, I thought I would jot down a few ideas to help you with your preparation for your next London Trudge; it will also keep your interest in the coming months when your waistline swells and your kit grows old and mould. I have mentioned at length, the idea of participating in a Tour or two, and have detailed a little background for you to whet your appetite. Today I thought I would bring to your attention a very pleasant method of training where effort is interspersed with the excitement of a novel rest ...  a sort of search and find session. Geocaching, the unthinking man’s orienteering!!!
Littered around the landscape, in country and urban areas, here and there, near and far, are literally thousands of carefully hidden containers; containers in many shapes and sizes, many camouflaged to aid secrecy and avoid the possibility of being found by a Muggle. Each container, ‘cache’, contains trinkets, one of which you may take upon discovery, but being replaced by one of your own. There is also a log which you fill in.
So. Training? How why?? Plan your route (your training session, deciding how far you want to trudge), pack your tokens in your bum bag, don’t forget your pencil. Having decided your distance, its fartlek downhill all the way home. If a cache proves difficult to locate, it means a longer recovery between efforts. It also means the next effort is of a higher quality!!!  So besides adding to your training log, you have the added advantage of a completely novel training routine, the excitement of collecting tokens and recording the number of caches found. And you can do it anywhere in the country. On holiday, deciding on a session is no longer a problem, a route is there waiting for you to follow! You could also set up your own cache trail with a theme. Dear Blog, you may follow the Trudgers Trundle Trail!!!! Just supposing that you have another friend besides me, you could organise a Geocache Race giving containers and tokens as prizes, with a free Geocache T-shirt ..... but you would have to find it first!!!! Geocaching.com might be useful for you. Happy bidding.
Colin

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