Conquering 2021

Following on from 'My name is Heggie and I am an Addict' I decided to kick off 2021 with a The Conqueror / My Virtual Mission themed resolution. This is what was available at the start of the year:

In 2020 I completed NINE virtual challenges:

• Inca Trail, Peru (walking) 42 km
• Grand Canyon, USA (rowing) 451 km
• Ring Of Kerry, Ireland (cycling) 200 km
• Camino de Santiago, France-Spain (walking) 772 km
• Great Ocean Road, Australia (rowing) 240 km
• Alps to Ocean, New Zealand (cycling) 290 km
• Mount Fuji, Japan (climbing* + walking) 74 km
• Cabot Trail, Canada (cycling) 297 km
• Conquer 2020 (all of the above but with some extras - total 2020 miles)

I started in May and completed everything in advance of the New Year with the intent of having all 2021's challenges similarly completed within the calendar year.

I try to do each challenge in an apt way for the route (so I won't be doing the English Channel until I can swim it). I have an old rowing machine, in mid 2020 I acquired a recumbent exercise bike and climbing machine and, at the end of the year, I finally got an elliptical cross trainer.

I started 2021 with SIX challenges live and a SEVENTH code in the pipeline:

• Pyramids of Giza, Egypt (climbing* + walking) 75 km
• Mount Everest, Nepal (climbing* + elliptical) 64 km
• Ring Road, Iceland (cycling) 1332 km
• Land's End To John O'Groats (AKA LE JOG), UK (walking) 1743 km
• Appalachian Trail (AKA AT), USA (climbing* + elliptical + walking + rowing) 3167 km 
• Conquer 2021 (all of the above) set at 4040 miles being double 2020's target

* Climbing elements are the minimum amount required to cover the height of the whatever using a climbing machine and the conversion chart (1 min = 0.22 km); so the height of Mt Fuji, the sum heights of the principal pyramids, the height of Mt Everest, and the heights of TWELVE specially selected mountains of the Appalachians (namely: Mt Mitchell - the highest point, Currahee, Bear's Paw, Owl's Head, Goose Eye, Camel's Hump, Peaks Of Otter, Dick's Knob, Kitty Ann, Seven Sisters, Pixie, and Misery)

So here we are, in mid September (I meant to revisit this mid year but it's been a bit hectic, as always)... how's it going?!

Well, I got Giza and Everest completed pretty quickly although I have since decided to re-do the distance for Everest as ALL climbing and add that to AT. AT has been extended into 2022 to the max number of weeks as I am MONTHS behind. Not least as the goddamn cross trainer BROKE after a couple of months! I consequently changed my Conquer 2021 to a more attainable 4444km.

In the end I gifted that seventh code (for Hadrian's Wall) to my daughter (who I introduced to The Conqueror gifting her codes for Flower Route and Conquer 2021).. and bought several more for myself:

A Kruger Park challenge was introduced and then withdrawn due to complaints the route was too long & boring (they'll be relaunching it soon) so I signed up to the original before it was discontinued - I am cycling that in tandem (separate distances) with Ring Road. I am close on target with both - catching up and slipping behind again - but basically on track.

I bought the Marathon To Athens one and did the full thing overnight* August 27-28 styled as my Stupidly Long Walk™. I set out before 8pm, walked to Reading, caught a train to Slough and then walked back again via Eton, Windsor, Ascot, Bracknell... Bumped into my dad and daughter at Woosehill and didn't have the willpower to refuse a lift home at which point I discovered I was 1.3 miles short... which I did around the block! It was quite the adventure. The route through Windsor Great Park was impossible as gates were locked overnight so I ended up on country roads with no footpaths or lighting. I took a wrong turn outside Bracknell and ended up having two rest breaks on the same bench!

*I LOVE walking overnight. Less people, less traffic, less heat in summer (so less fluids to carry) and infinitely easier to take comfort breaks whenever needed!

As I set out - 7:50pm

My trainers after a good trashing, just north of Martin's Heron - 4:30am

Fortunately I took spare (if equally pre-battered) spare trainers. Unfortunately I neglected to take spare socks.

I have bought codes for a number of challenges I want to do when I've finished my current lot: Mount Kilimanjaro, Cote d'Azur, Trek to Petra, North Coast 500 and Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

I will be doing PCT post mum. It's 2485 miles / 4000km but I have a cunning plan:

"They say you don't know someone else's struggles until you have walked a mile in their shoes? Well, I'm adding a mile for every day I've been looking after my mum. She suffered a severe stroke, unusually affecting both hemispheres of her brain, on 16th April 2018. While she was in hospital I visited her and ran errands and prepped the house to become her carer. None of my other challenges has included any distance from physically caring for her... from doing up to six loads of laundry in a day or dealing with the second major stroke which hit during lockdown and we honestly believed was the end... so I have no qualms about having covered an actual mile for each of those days - right up to her passing on [TBC]"

Will I finish LEJOG by New Year's Eve?! Who the hell knows... but I'm still trying.

I bit off more than I could chew this year but I am set to carry on indefinitely!