The Challenge

The Route (PDF file)

Definitions

Targets and standards

The Gaveller

The Challenge:

Anyone who completes the challenge within twenty-four hours will be entitled to be called a Woodwose and their name will be entered in the Forestal Book of the Honourable Order of Woodwoses, which can be found in digital form among the pages at Gaveller's Weblog. There you can also find a list of those who have earned the title Woodwight, which is reserved for those who have helped a Woodwose, for example by keeping them company for part of the route.

Anyone who is part of a successful "baton" relay team that completes the circuit in under twenty-four hours will also be described as a Woodwight. This implies that the relay team must be regarded as a virtual Woodwose.

The term Wistman shall be reserved for anyone whose achievement suggests that they have the magical qualities associated with this term.

If you have already completed the Challenge, contact the Gaveller to claim your Woodwose certificate.

If you are interested in numbers, Targets and Standards below has some suggestions of times to which you might aspire. Current records are kept on the pages of Gaveller's Weblog, also at gaveller.wordpress.com. Step-by-step directions describing the route, in the form of an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, can be obtained by clicking here.

Warning:

There are three problems: 1) Nutrition, including water; 2) navigation and 3) communication.

1) Your muscles run on glycogen. How far you can run depends on the size of your glycogen stores. These can be increased by training, but no-one has big enough glycogen stores to run 45 miles; so you will need to top up your levels by taking in carbohydrates and water to metabolise the stuff as you go along. You need to train your body to do this in advance otherwise the sugars may just make you feel sick. Personal accounts from people who have completed The Challenge to become Woodwoses contain helpful information about this and can be found on the TACH website and on the Gaveller's weblog.

2) You need to have the map-reading skills to navigate the route safely. It is helpful if you have familiarised yourself with the route by exploring it in stages before you make your attempt. Be aware that road crossings are a particular hazard when you are tired. Step-by-step directions, in the form of an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, can be obtained by clicking here. In addition, take a look at Martin Berkeley's Runreplay site, here, for a view of the entire route from above. The Gaveller's weblog also indicates where people have gone wrong in the past.

3) You should not attempt these challenges except as part of a team. You may be able to carry all the food and water you need on your back, and you may be the best navigator in the world, but if you break your leg or have a seizure of some sort, you will only get out of the situation if you have some support on the other end of a mobile phone. Therefore, you need a mobile phone and some one you can trust at the other end.

Woodwose:

Woodwight:

Virtual Woodwose:

This is entirely consistent with Buddhist ideas, in which the original symbol of the Buddha was a giant footprint!

Wistman and Wisthound:

"Once you walk into the tangled web of trees you are transported into a mystical world of moss carpeted boulders, lichens of all descript, finger like oak branches, all engulfed in a wonderful smell of earth and age. For millennia this small, mystical, stunted woodland has been held in awe and for many fear. Tales of Druids, ghosts, the Devil and a host of other supernatural creatures abound, some dating back to the long lost ages before man could write. Many writers have described the wood as being 'the most haunted place on Dartmoor', others warn that every rocky crevice is filled with writhing adders who spawn their young amidst the moss and leaf strewn tree roots. Locals will never venture near once the sun begins it slow descent over the nearby granite outcrops for it is when the dark mantle of night draws tight that the heinous denizens of the wood stalk the moor in search of their human victims. So be afraid, very afraid, as the wagging finger of fate warns you to stay clear and risk not your mortal soul in the 'Wood of the Wisemen'."

Wistmen are evidently creatures to be reckoned with and may be recognised by their actions. Matt Edwards has already been entered as a Wistman, because he has shown himself to be a mystical Hierophant.

Record holders shall also hold this accolade.

See Records page on Gaveller's Weblog.

Occasionally, a Woodwose may be accompanied by a Wisthound, one of those mystical creatures that are said to be kennelled in Wistman's Wood.

Wood:

Then wood also meant: 1) Out of ones mind, insane, lunatic. b. Of a dog or other wild beast: Rabid (Sorry Alfie!) 2) Going beyond all reasonable bounds; extremely rash or reckless, wild; vehemently excited. a. Extremely fierce or violent, ferocious; irascible, passionate. b. Violently angry or irritated; enraged, furious.

I particularly identify with meaning 2, which goes with the original meaning of Forest - the place beyond the gate - from the Latin "Foras!", which is the answer to the question "Where are you going dear?" when a modern spouse might say - "OUT!"

Targets and standards:

The general idea is to finish the challenge between dawn and dusk, an idea that is linked to the seasons. Thus a winter attempt during daylight hours is more challenging than one at midsummer.

By convention, Woodwoses completing in under twelve hours are deemed to be Running Woodwoses and those who complete between twelve and eighteen hours are deemed to be Walking Woodwoses. However, in practice all runners walk for some of the time and one Woodwose completed in eleven hours 35 mins walking all the way.

The current record of seven hours 19 minutes and 50 seconds requires a pace of just under seven miles per hour.

To achieve a time of nine hours would require a pace of five miles per hour, which might be deemed a good target for us to aim at.

A pace of four miles per hour would get you round in about eleven and a quarter hours.

At three miles per hour, you would take fifteen hours. This is the pace aimed at by the LDWA (Long Distance Walking Association) on their social walks of about fifteen to twenty miles.

For current records see the Records page on Gaveller's Weblog.

The Gaveller: