(14 August 2013, 23:01)Highlander Wrote: Personally I disagree with you on food,.. yes I believe that hot food will be needed, you really cant expect to travel any great distance on cold food or eating on the move. reasons are that you will need to rest, so you have the time to eat, you will also need a moral boaster, and there is nothing like a hot meal to set you up and keep you going.... if a small fire is placed in the right spot, its well worth taking on hot food and drink.
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You will need shelter, I would be carrying a tarp in a GHB as a tent will be much heavier,... you could get away with a good poncho for shorter distances
I agree that your feet will need to be looked after above all else,.. a good pair of boots will be the most important thing here,... but I still wouldn't carry anything else for my feet like flip flops,... I would remove my boots whenever I could and give my feet an airing when ever possible, dry them off with powder, if you do this then it doesn't matter if your boots are wet,... the likes of flip flops will add un necessary weight to your pack
I disagree with you where sleep is concerned, I would try if possible to get regular sleep, someone who moves too fast with sleep derivation is more likely to make mistakes
With food, I understand why you would disagree. It seems totally counter intuitive to eat cold food all the time. Well, annoyingly (for some people) that's pretty much how I live day to day. I eat cold food, almost every meal, and I have a very active lifestyle. Would you agree that people manage to travel 26 miles a day without a hot meal? Marathons. Ultra-marathons can be upto and over 100 miles, travelled without a hot meal. All in a single push. One effort of a constant 100miles. With that in mind, there are a lot of considerations to think about in a different light.
A hot meal for moral? Partially agree. For me, knowing I'm travelling closer to my wife will keep my spirits as high as a kite in a tornado! But considering I plan to make a push of the whole journey, as a single effort, stopping for an hour or so to cook up a hot meal, and become a static target, not cool. Plus carrying the extra equipment and weight, as well as the possible clunking noises, not on my to endure list. If that's how you want to do it, that's cool. By all means. But for me, I'm happy to survive on what gives me sustenance to travel, not what fills my belly and puts a smile on my face. But I get where you're coming from. If that's how you want to play it, that's your call.
Shelter is important, but for my plan (single journey, here to home) shelter will slow me down. Got to set it all up, then take it all back down again, and all that boring stuff. If I want a shelter, it's the UK, it won't be too hard to find a derelict building somewhere. Beyond that, I could always just cut a load of branches, lay up against a tree (sleep sitting upright to not drop into too deep a sleep) and use the leaves as cover. Plus, the space blankets, emergency shelter tube tent, and the emergency mummy-space-blanket-tube-thing, are shelter enough.
For the flip-flops, they weight nothing, and if you're passing through water, boots getting wet can really suck. Plus it still poses a greater risk of getting blisters. When walking through puddles and the alike, I'd be in flip-flops. They weight pretty much nothing as it is. I have Vibrams with my GHB, and flip-flops next to it. So they're there if I need them. Having said about boots. I know this sounds counter productive, but boots are awesome, if you're used to them and are comfortable in them. Personally, I can out pace most people in boots, while I'm in Vibrams or skate shoes. Not because they're magical, or anything like that, but just because that's what I'm used to. Only bad thing about skate shoes is deep mud means you need to shop for new shoes haha.
As for sleep. We only NEED 1 hour of REM sleep to be fully recovered. This is where people start going nuts about how stupid I am. Okay, keep laughing. While you all laugh, I have a question, would you be surprised if I told you that nearly 50% of the population go for around a year with about 3 hours sleep in a 24 hour period? If you would be surprised, then it probably means you're not a mother. The average mother in the UK goes for 11 months with an average of 3 hours sleep for the first 6 months and 4.5 hours sleep for the next 5 months. Pretty shocking hu? But why do we, as people, sleep for 8-9 hours a day? Simply because we're weird. There is no logical reason for this, just as there is no logical reason for shops to close after 5.30pm or for an average work day to take 8 hours. It's just because that's the way we have been brought up. Check out sleep patterns for other places, not all people sleep 8 hours a day, but we all have 24 hour days! How weird a species are we? Oh, and considering I plan on doing the journey in a single push, I can go 2-3 days without sleep. I know this because this is what I regularly do now.
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