M uch like taking photos, if you know me then you’ll know I’m a bit of a data freak. Working in IT – test specifically – has meant I’ve always had an eye for detail, and so I don’t suppose it’s surprising to see that I kept pretty detailed records throughout my walk?
It’s like the effort I put into writing up each day’s walk – over 1000 words a day! – regardless of how tired I was. Why not spend a little time recording these things so that in the end, a full, complete record of this amazing adventure could be kept?
This task was made considerably easier by virtue of the fact that I’d decided to take my netbook with me. This meant I could create spreadsheets and keep detailed notes to my heart’s content!
Below you can see a breakdown of a number of different interesting(?) areas of my LEJOG walk. The data used to create the graphs etc. is all available on the individual detailed route pages. I didn’t think it would be interesting to collate it all here on this page, having one very large table to look at!
Days Taken
T he table below gives an overview of when I started/finished my LEJOG walk, how many days I was walking, and how many rest days I had. The route I originally planned had 68 walking days and 10 rest days; clearly I needed more looking at the numbers below? Not that that was a problem; it wasn’t a race at the end of the day!
Distance Walked
H aving replotted each day’s route so that it started/finished where I actually stayed each day, I had a pretty accurate record of each day’s distance.
As expected, the distance walked each day was all over the place and I didn’t think it was worth looking any further into the data as it is what it is. Interestingly though, my originally planned route was a total of 1,145.29 miles, just shy of 44 miles longer than the route I actually ended up walking.
If you’ve read through the blog you’ll know that I made some changes to the route along the way, mainly due to problems sorting out somewhere to stay at my intended destination for the day. Much like taking more time to complete the walk, changing the route plans as I went along wasn’t a problem because, at the end of the day, I walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats and that was what the walk was all about!
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Climb & Descent
Having re-plotted each day’s walk I had a complete record of each day’s elevation and climb details.
Much like the daily distance walked, the climb/descent for each day was all over the place, as you would expect considering the diverse landscape across this wonderful country.
I think the most interesting statistic I gleaned from looking at this set of information was the fact that in total, I did the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest (8,849 metres at its peak) 4.58 times over the course of the walk! Add to that the fact that I also descended 4.58 times the height of Mount Everest as well, I think you’ll agree that that is pretty mental?!
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Climb
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Descent
Walking Pace
A s I recorded when I started and finished walking each day, and also how long I spent resting each day – more on which can be seen below – I was able to calculate my walking pace each day.
The average walking pace for a person is somewhere in the range of 2.8 MPH to 3.4 MPH. Funnily enough I was outside this range most days of my LEJOG walk, which isn’t surprising considering the weight I was carrying and some of the terrain I had to traverse. But, I was inside this range for just over a third of my walking days – 36.23% – and I had an overall average walking pace of 2.71 MPH, which wasn’t too bad if you ask me.
It’s interesting to see that on the last three days of my walk, when I’d pretty much fallen apart, I managed to have a walking pace of over 3 MPH each day. Granted, running the last half a mile on the final day probably helped a little bit, but it’s still amazing to think that I managed to do that even after everything I’d put my body through up to that point!?!
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Steps Taken
A s far as I’m aware – or I’ve managed to find on the World-Wide-Wait that is – the following set of data is pretty unique. I’ve not found any other records of how many steps someone took each day on their LEJOG/JOGLE walk which makes me pretty happy I decided to take my pedometer along with me; I still carry it in my pocket to this day!
Each day I’d record the step count shown on my pedometer as I set off and reached my lodgings for the day. This made sure I didn’t muddy the waters by including any steps taken before I left or while I went out in the search for food and drink in the evening, making this a reasonably accurate account of the number of steps I took to get from one end of the country to the other.
As you’d expect, the longer the day, the more steps taken, which means there’s not a lot more to say about this data. It was just nice to know how many steps it’d taken me at the end of the day, and taking nearly two and a half million steps over 69 days walking is pretty insane!
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Start Time
T here’s not a lot you can say really about the start times each day. I aimed to be out the door reasonably early to get the day going, and to get to my intended destination sooner rather than later of course.
As you can see below, on average I was out and on Shanks’s pony before 9am each day but looking at the overall data I was later than 9am 33.33% of the time. Some of this was down to delays with breakfast, and only twice did I leave after 10am, the latest being when Russ drove me back to Horton-in-Ribblesdale from Knaresborough before I could start the day’s walking.
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Arrival Time
A s far as the finish times go there’s not a lot that you can say other than the longer the walk, the later I got in…obviously. Even though the average arrival time was shortly before 4pm, I actually arrived at my destination gone 4pm just over 49% of the time; nearly 22% I arrived after 5pm, and just over 4% I arrived after 6pm.
All in all though, arriving at my intended destination before 5pm 78% of the time was a good thing as it allowed me a good few hours to chill out, feed up, and talk to the girls before hitting the hay for the night.
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Walking Time
A s you’d expect, the graph below showing the time I spent walking follows almost exactly the same shape as the one above for the distance I walked each day. Kind of obvious really as there’ll be a pretty close correlation between the two.
That said, I was kind of expecting that when the terrain got harder this would have had a bigger effect on the time spent walking, regardless of the distance. That doesn’t really seem to have been the case though so I guess I must have managed to keep up a pretty constant pace even when the going got tough?
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Resting Time
M ost days on the walk I stopped for at least half an hour while I had my lunch. On top of that I tried to stop every few hours for ten or fifteen minutes to take my boots off and get the air to my feet, and to help get the blood flowing too.
As you can see below this averaged about an hour a day which isn’t bad when you consider I was walking on average for almost six hours a day!
What is interesting to see from the graph below is the fact that there’s a very clear downwards trend in the time spent resting as the walk went on.
I didn’t really expect to see this as it really felt like I spent more time resting my poor feet as the days and weeks passed. The numbers can’t lie though eh?
I guess I either got stronger and my feet weren’t as bad as I thought, or I just got better at gritting my teeth and ignoring the pain? I’m not really sure which one it was…maybe a bit of both?
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Wrapping Up
S o, what do all the above facts and figures show or prove? Ultimately I guess they prove that walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats is no simple task, it’ll take you no small amount of time to do, and that along the way you’ll get fit!
Over and above that I guess it all goes to show that I was able to put my body through a lot more physical – and mental – torture than I ever thought possible.