I think it is time to drive out the complete shi-ite and bollox that has been cluttering up this dark and dusty corner of ARRSE for too long and get one or two proper Blogs going.

What is a Blog?
A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience.
Or
“From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web.”

So, as I understand it, a Blog is a continual journey that hangs together as a story or a set of interconnected events. Some of the good bloggers are:
“Crow_Bag...the story continues”
And “my leg and other stories...(part 3)”
Lucky_Jim’s offerings, including “Lucky_Jim’s fantastic day”
Legs’ Big Adventure
And “WW’s antipodean adventure...”
... and some of the newer ones such as Arrse-Bandit.

Some of the crud that has been posted recently should not class as Blogging, in fact if it had been posted in the NAAFI bar it would probably have been holed within minutes. Unfortunately not many people come here so it tends to stay.

So now we come to my Blog. Some of you may remember that I did a little walking thing called Trailwalker in 2008 It went well, I finished it and I raised some money for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust. I also knackered my knee (Torn medial meniscus cartilage and a cyst) and had an operation last November. After the op I sort of sat on my arrse for a few months and ate a pie or ten for a bit (because I was depressed) and undid all the good work. I started training properly again in June of this year and have now managed to get roped into TrailTrekker 2010.

Apparently it’s a bit like Trailwalker – walk 100km in 30 hours – but it has a few more hills. As I did for Trailwalker, I’ve decided to run a bit of a Blog and just share some of the highs and lows of training for something like this. It may be useful, it will probably be boring but at least it will be a rough approximation of a proper blog. Perhaps I will be punished by being made a moderator of the Blogs forum!

Our team is about to sign up (if it hasn’t already done so) and we are, apparently, calling ourselves “3 Crabs and a Pongo”, you’ve gotta feel for me already. (Yes, I am the pongo)

Oh yes, I’ve set up a fundraising page as well. I know you’re all tight as sh1te and I am nowhere near as coercive as MDN but go on, go on, go on!!

I’m quite pleased with my training so far. I have my gym mojo back again and I’ve trained off about 2 stone in the last 7 months. My knee gets stronger all the time and I am feeling OK about running again, which is good.

I went for an awesome walk on New Year’s Day. I was up in Carlisle so decided to get my Hadrian’s Wall map out and do a bit of it. I got dropped off out in the sticks and ended up walking about 17 miles, it was one of those cold, crisp days. There was snow on the ground and a few snow showers as I was walking, and I was the only person near me for many miles. I did spend about 10 miles following footprints along the path, I had worked out it was a small person with a single walking pole by the time I caught up with the little Korean fella with a single pole just outside Carlisle.

I was sat in the atrium at work the other day, sipping an espresso and checking out my latest Facebook posts on my iPhone (I’m a complete civvy cnut now!) when Snozzer rang me. We were chatting away and he was talking about Capt Phil (Deadliest Catch) dying, apparently he was a heavy smoker and led an unhealthy lifestyle. That reminded me that it was exactly 2 years to the day since I gave up smoking.

Some people say that you have only truly given up smoking when you forget when you gave up. Does this mean I have truly given up or not? I had forgotten the significance of the day until I was reminded about smoking.

I’ll be doing my first over 20 mile walk at the end of February. It’ll be a 23 mile meander around Bristol, should be interesting and I move to Bournemouth the day after; busy weekend.

There’s not much happening on the Trailtrekker front, training carries on and I haven’t injured myself this time; so far so good.

Had an interesting Chav related incident last night. Aforementioned Chav decided to spread his car all over the road in front of my house – after losing control and hitting the dirt bank at significantly more than the 30mph limit. He then took off up the road, chucking objects into the undergrowth as he went. (Un)fortunately his running away skills were sh1t, so a few of us nabbed the bounder and marched him back to his car.

He smelt of booze, he had tried to palm his scales off to someone by the pub and his front tyres were bald as a coot. Luckily the paramedics quickly turned up, then we had to wait about 10-15 minutes for plod to amble up and watch matey boy swear at himself and try to batter his face with his mobile phone.

Entertainment South Wales style, perhaps he thought he was driving a golf buggy – they hold the road better because they are very slow.

This all adds to the joy I am feeling because in 2 weeks I shall be leaving this delightful little principality and heading down to Bournemouth. Yep, I am moving even further away from the Chubbster (I worked about 2 miles from her house at one point!) to take up a new job on the sarf coast. At least the walking should be a bit more level.

Some boring stats:
Days to Trailtrekker – 108
Money raised so far - £0

It's been a while since I posted to this blog but that doesn't mean I've given up. No news is good news and that is the case here. The training goes well and since I have knocked running on the head, it has got better. I found that trying to run with a knee that is missing a fair bit of cartilage wasn't good, especially the shin-splint sensation I was getting in my right leg. Mind you, 30 minutes of rowing and 20 minutes on the step machine is a bit of a killer but it has improved my hill-walking abilities no end.

Another reason for not posting recently is a certain amount of upheaval in my life. I've taken the plunge and become a contractor recently and am now based out of Bournemouth during the week with the odd visits to Wales to see my son.

This has given me the opportunity to train somewhere a bit different so I am now slogging around bits of the New Forest - which gets me thinking: Why is it called the New Forest? The bits I've seen so far aren't new and they aren't even foresty - it's more like open heathland. Perhaps I'm in the wrong bit of it?

As always, I like to end with a few stats:

Weight lost since June 2009 - 34lb
Sponsorship so far - £135 - aiming for £500
Days to Trailtrekker - 40
Hours until my first drink at the Army-Navy game - 103 (I'm going up on Friday night!)

If you fancy punting me a few quid of sponsorship money, go to my fundrasing page.

PS I have just returned from Sainsbury's - the "woman" in front of me had on the conveyor:

3 x cream doughnuts
4 x bars Aero chocolate (the big ones)
2 x Bottles DIET Coke

Is it just me??

I thought it was about time I came back and finished this off. Living by the seaside, in summer, with lots of fun and fillies on offer has made me neglect my blog.

I completed Trailtrekker 2 weeks ago in a time of 25 hours and 50 minutes. Once again I did it with three very gay ex-crabs and once again they were pathetic; in fact one of them didn't finish becuase he strained his stomach muscles having a sh1t! I did enjoy it (the walk not the sh1tting crab), The Yorkshire Dales where pretty stunning and I had never walked in that area before.

Rewinding a bit, I did do a pretty memorable walk around the New Forest are a few weeks before. It turned out to be a rather civilised MArch & Shoot - I walked 24 miles and did an hour's worth of spraying pellets around the sky with a shotgun in the middle.

So that's that ..... or is it? For some completely unfathomable reason, I have just volunteered to step in as a team member for a team of girlies doing Trailwalker. So, I will be walking ANOTHER 62 miles in the middle of July - I think I need to stop this silliness!