As many of you may already know, Robbie Britton and Dan Lawson are currently running across Jordan in a bid to complete the 650km Jordan Trail. The trail stretches from Umm Qais in northern Jordan to the coastal city of Aqaba in its south, passing through 52 villages and towns along the way. The trail is promoted by the Jordan tourist board as an epic walk to do in 40 days. Robbie and Dan are aiming to complete it in 10.
Dan Lawson, GB 24 hour runner who attempted the JOGLE last year, and Robbie Britton, hard to pigeon hole these days though something like ‘GB 24 hour, marathon, 5k, mountain runner, skier etc etc’ set off on the 7th March and right from the start it’s fair to say it’s been challenging. We caught up with them to find out how it’s going. Here’s what Robbie had to say:
‘It’s not been as plain sailing as we’d hoped. There’s been some really good sections, where we can do some running, but they’re few and far between and interspersed with a lot of Wadi crossings or going through Wadis. There’s some fantastic, beautiful landscape, it really is a stunning country. The people have been so friendly – everybody wants to say hello and we’ve had about 1500 invitations for a cup of tea and we’ve had to turn down all of them because we need to keep moving!’
‘When we’re moving, we’re good. We got about 30k done in 3.5 hours this morning, including a Wadi or two, but yesterday 30k took us about 6 or 7 hours, so it really does depend on the day and the terrain. Despite some unexpected setbacks we’re still on target to get under 10 days’
‘As the day heats up it’s tough [Dan copes with the heat much better than Robbie] and I have to carry a lot more water. But as it cools down in the evening I come into my own a bit more. It’s really hard when you lose the trail. If you’re on the trail and moving, no matter what pace, you feel productive. When you’re off the trail you don’t, and it happens a lot, we’re navigating by GPS watches and maps and some of the sections yesterday was the hardest navigation down a rock mountainside that I’ve ever done. It was impressive. You look back and it’s just amazing to think you’ve come down that, but I couldn’t have picked a line going up it. Last night we got caught out in the dark coming down the other side of that Wadi and it was really difficult. It was a bit sketchy at times but we got through it and got to our crew at the top and we got a few more miles done on road. It was worrying.’
‘We’re on target, we’re moving strong’
You can keep following their progress via Strava as they’re uploading their runs each day. You can also follow their Instagram accounts (@ultrabritton and @therunningdan) Good luck Robbie and Dan, and keep going!
Image copyright Robbie Britton
