2nd Weekend – Sunday

We went to the Outdoor shop in the morning and they fitted my boots with some special insoles to soften the bottoms and stop the blister, sort of deluxe £32 odour eaters. We left the car at Shawford, a station half way between Southampton and Winchester and planned to get a train back to eastleigh and walk up to Shawford. We miscalculated the mileage and got to Shawford in two hours, so quickly planned a further route up onto Twyford Down, through a golf course where we got lots of dirty looks (as if we weren’t on a public right of way), then across a footpath over the motorway, up St. Catherines Hill and back to Shawford along the Itchen Navigation canal. I had to remove the deluxe odour eaters as they made the boots too tight but at least they had me through the 9 miles of up-hill-and-down-dale without the blisters getting worse. I’ll try without them next time and see if my feet have toughened up. This was a good bit of training as there were plenty of hills and it was an incredibly hot day and we got through the weekend without too much pain.

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