Rosie decided to do this at the last minute, so the two of us set off shortly after 6am on Saturday 26th August to drive to Alwinton, the start of the event. This was the 8th time I'd taken part in the Cheviot Challenge - in fact since 1998 I've done it every year apart from 2001 when everything was cancelled due to Foot and Mouth, and 1999 when although I took part, it couldn't really be classed as completing the event as I got hopelessly lost, an occasion I wrote about here.
Rosie was lucky in getting a late entry very easily, and we set off promptly at 8am. There were as usual, several people I knew who were also taking part in the walk, one of them being John who supplied most of the photos on this page. The weather was reasonable ... cloudy and overcast for the most part, with an odd heavy shower and occasional periods when the sun would shine rather more fiercely than I for one would have liked, as it nearly always chose moments when I was attempting a tough uphill stretch. Rosie is 21, in the TA and very keen on fitness at the moment and she's had rather more opportunity to train for something like this than I have, so I wasn't surprised when long before checkpoint 1, she was a spec in the distance! She eventually finished an hour and 20 minutes ahead of me, in a very good time.
Still, I was quite happy to complete the Challenge well within the time allowed, and feeling reasonably comfortable. I think the worst part was climbing up a flank of Cheviot, on a very steep, seemingly enless path which wouldn't have been easy walking even if it had been dead level. We took in two 2,000ft peaks, Bloodybush Edge and Windy Gyle and altogether covered 24 miles with almost 4,000ft ascent. There was the option to do a shorter route which missed out Windy Gyle. The ground underfoot was quite boggy as the area had suffered very heavy rain the night before and the whole week prior to the event had been fairly wet.
The best part of doing any of these challenge walks has to be the finish! Apart from the sheer pleasure at not having to do any more walking, there's always a tremendous atmosphere and the Rose and Thistle is a great place to relax and briefly rest before beginning the journey home. We were presented with a mug to commemorate the fact that it was the 25th running of the event, plus the annual Search and Rescue report (the organisation who run the Challenge). I always enjoy reading through the log of "incidents" the team have been called out to over the year. However, it's sad to see that political correctness has reached ridiculous levels even here ... no longer is the team callout time measured in man hours, they're "person hours" (even though the call out team are actually all men). Oh dear.
