We are now over halfway through the Wood for Trees 4-week Camino De Santiago charity walk! With some of the teams already having racked up their miles and completed the full distance, they will continue to walk until the end of the challenge and see how many miles they can cover. What a bunch of overachievers! Here are this week’s updates from Team Walk This Way, Team Jefferson Perez, Team WINO, and Team Wambled…
Team Walk This Way
After a busy first week Team Walk This Way has kept up the pace, pounding the streets, determined to up their step count, and very much looking forward to reaching the goal so that they can have a well-earned drink in Santiago. We were neck and neck with Team Wambled for much of week 2. However, despite amassing 178,284 steps across Saturday and Sunday there was no keeping up with them, especially once it was clear that Matt was on a mission!
After a long walk on Saturday morning, Lesley put her feet up and enjoyed a Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea, and rested up ready to tackle week 3. The rest day paid off and she hit the 100-mile mark on the 16th of March! Nick made the most of the week by taking plenty more seaside walks after work, always a satisfying way to end each day, he amassed an outstanding 27,306 steps on Saturday alone! Jon is continuing to explore all that Frome has to offer and has been racking up the steps, too. Tim, Aimee, and Siobhan are all members of the late-night walk section of the team usually completing their daily steps between 8 pm and midnight.
Team Walk This Way’s step count for week two was 493,344, combined with our week one step count of 498,297 we had almost completed the challenge before week 3 had even begun. After adding another 139,267 steps together over the 15th and 16th of March the team has reached Santiago! It has been great fun so far and with 526.8 miles under their belt the team will continue to see how far they can get before the challenge finishes on the 29th of March.
Team Jefferson Perez
The blistering pace of the previous week has continued, albeit for some, with blisters. Between us we’ve walked by a Duchess’s summer house, an Elizabethan Manor house, through beautiful countryside, parks, and sleepy villages, all separately of course! Some of us have had our young children join us, with varying degrees of carrying, persuasion and tantrums to complete our walks…
Ever mindful of the work and distance covered by NHS nurses during their shifts, we’ve persevered with our walking and now we’re over the line in Santiago! Between us, we’ve covered 1,111,147 steps. Sangria awaits!
Team Wambled
We’ll start with the highlight – a full-on week for Team Wambled means we’ve got to the finish line on Sunday, just under two weeks from starting out and the first of the four to complete the route! After gaining the lead position during weekend one, it was lost again early in the second week. Despite it not being a competition, this spurned the team on (nagged endlessly by Matt’s obsessive Slack messages) to increase the pace and try and regain the top spot. The distance between Team Wambled and Team Walk This Way stayed very close for the remainder of the week, with some final ridiculous distances covered during weekend two to complete the challenge on Sunday evening.
At the finish line the team had put in a collective 1,086,103 steps, some 24% of those from the final two days alone – we did say some ridiculous distances were covered! It wasn’t clear what would happen when the finish was reached. Would the app stop counting steps and our movements be frozen in time? Turns out not, and the steps continue to accumulate.
It’ll be interesting to see how many steps in total we end up covering before the official challenge ends, although now it’s just for fun rather than rivalry. Or is it? With the total step count currently standing at 1,191,211, we continue to add miles, although it has to be said it’s definitely at a more relaxed pace of around a fifth of those peak days.
Team WINO
Going into week 2, Team WINO was trailing behind the others. After a weekend of redoubling our efforts and putting in the extra time… Well, we were still in last place come Monday morning.
Unfortunately for us, the other teams also made the most of the weekend, and we finished the week in last place too – the only team not to have made the full distance! But then it’s sometimes about enjoying the journey en route, and not just about a mad dash to the finish line, right? Plus it’s still the middle of the month…
Reflecting on the last couple of weeks, the challenge has had the desired effect even if we’re all a little upset at finishing last. But more importantly, the challenge has gotten us away from our makeshift desks and gotten us out in the fresh air, and raised some good money for Dorothy House, our chosen charity.
So now, even though the days blur into one to some extent, we’re collectively feeling the benefit. I’ve struggled with motivation to exercise recently, but have rekindled my love of running, fuelled almost entirely by listening to Little Richard. Clare has Fibromyalgia and finds exercising helps with pain relief, particularly on bad days, and has found new parts of the countryside to explore while listening to an audiobook. And Andy has been using an app that has helped him find walking routes he’s lived close to for years and never discovered.
We’re nearly done with the challenge now but hopefully, the habits we’ve formed will benefit us beyond the end of lockdown, as well as raising cash for Dorothy House.
A huge well done to the teams that have already completed the challenge, and an even bigger well done to those that are carrying on to achieve their miles, and then some! Check back next week to see the final outcome and miles covered.
