Baltic Adriatic Run 2011 - Route Planning (Books)

I am now in possession of the two books which cover the route from the top of Germany all the way to Verona.
Europäischer Fernwanderweg E1 by Arthur Krause published by Kompass covers the 1773 km German section of the E1 from Flensburg to Konstanz. It's in German but I figure that a guidebook should have a fairly limited vocabulary which I'll be able to master pretty quickly. It looks pretty detailed. The route is divided into day hikes of roughly 20 to 30 kilometers. There's a little map for each day, it tells you what waymarkers to look out for, suggests how long it should take and other stuff I haven't figured out yet.
To fit the whole route into one volume means that the maps are pretty small scale. If I'm reading it right they are 1:200,000. Each section advises what larger scale maps are available for that section. So that's good.
The second book I'm using is Across the Eastern Alps: E5 From Lake Constance to Verona by Gillian Price and published by Cicerone, one of the Cicerone Guides. This starts from Konstanz and continues along the south (Swiss) shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee), cuts across Austria, a bit of Germany again and then Austria for real and goes through the Alps. Somewhere along the way Austria becomes Italy and then it's down the hill towards Verona which is just a cough and a spit from Venice.
This book too is divided into daily sections with distances and estimated times. Now, very usefully, it also gives ascent/descent details for each section, i.e. how much hill you're gonna have to get up, which, in the mountains, is a much more serious determinant of how tough a day is going to be than distance on it's own. Every few stages are summarised by a diagram of the altitude changes which is pretty good.
The Cicerone Guide has photographs which the Kompass book doesn't. I like the pictures. I'm getting a buzz just imagining going through that landscape. But they are also useful for giving you an idea of the terrain.
The two books together weigh in at 18 ounces or 520 grams. That's an extra pound I have to carry just for the luxury of knowing where I am. The need for more detailed maps really depends on how well these routes are signposted. If I do need more detailed maps I can, hopefully, buy them and discard them as I go.
So the German section is 1773 km, Konstanz to Verona is 585 km, let's say 100 km from Verona to Venice. Oh, and I want to do a day or two in Denmark before I start the German route just for the extra boasting rights, let's call that another 50 km. That makes the whole journey about 2500 km. In english money that's 1550 miles. Sheee-it. Now that, is a run.

Baltic Adriatic Run 2011 - Route Planning

Yesterday I was thinking that I might use the E1 walking route from Kiel to Genoa and that would mean ending the run on the west side of Italy rather than the eastern Adriatic side. However, I've now found that the E5, which goes from Brittany to Verona, crosses the E1 round about Konstanz/Lake Constance somewhere. If I start out on the E1 from Kiel, go south all the way through Germany, pick up the E5 at Konstanz and follow it through the Eastern Alps to Verona then I'm just 60 miles from Venice and the Adriatic.
I know, what's the difference between ending in Genoa and ending in Venice? Well, my old friend Thomas Duncan has promised me a place to crash for a couple of days in Treviso. It would be nice to finish the run among friendly faces.
There's a Cicerone book on that last, Eastern Alps, section of the E5 which I need to get. I can feel a visit to Stanford's coming on.

Baltic Mediterranean Run 2011

So I'm thinking the Baltic/Adriatic run is probably going to become the Baltic/Mediterranean Run. It's the same kind of thing. I'm just moving it a bit west, that's all.
Starting from Kaliningrad and heading down through Poland and what? the Czech Republic? Slovakia? towards Venice was a very attractive idea but when I bought a couple of maps of Poland to start planning a route I realised I might be stretching my navigational skills a bit too far. I don't even know the capital cities of some of the countries I was going to be traveling through. I mean back in 2009 when I was running from John O'Groats to Lands End I found it easy enough to get lost in Yorkshire.
If I start from Kiel and head down through Germany towards Genoa then I can follow European walking route E1.
It's a long distance walking route so there should be plenty of off-road hiking trails suitable for running, there'll be signposts, it goes through places like the Black Forest. There's even information about it on the internet. All the information I've found so far is in German or Dutch. But that's fine.
Now, the big advantage of taking the E1 is that I have a route to follow. The disadvantage, I'm guessing, would be that Germany has to be more expensive that Poland.
Here's a thing. I could save a lot of money by cooking my own food. But a camping stove, or rather the fuel, is a heavy item considering how lightweight I like to be. I have got the bivvy bag which I have yet to try out. If I could go with the bivvy bag rather than the tent I save over three pounds in weight. That would allow me to take the cooker. But is it realistic to sleep in a bivvy bag for thirty or forty nights? I dunno.

Early Morning Richmond Park

After Ten Mile Sunday and Recovery Monday it's out at 6 am this Tuesday morning for a quick five miles of scaring rabbits and deer in Richmond Park. No other runners around. I am sooooo special.
I am thinking that when my contract ends at the end of March I will go up to Scotland for a couple of months of full-on running around the hills before running across Europe.
It would be an opportunity to test things out. I have a lightweight bivvy bag which I am keen to test. It is a great deal lighter than the tent. But would I be able to sleep in it night after night for an extended period? That is something that would be worth an experiment before heading off to the Baltic.
If I could do a thousand miles of Scotland before heading off there might be a book in that. I have lots of ideas for a book about Scotland. When would I have time to write it, though? I could draft it as I go and finish it when I get back from Europe later in the summer. A lot depends on how long I can make my money last, I suppose.
Any way it plays out I have a feeling this is going to be a great year.

Preparation for Baltic Adriataic Run

Went shopping at the weekend and bought a new Salomon XA 20 backpack. The last one served me well for more than a thousand rugged miles and nearly two years of daily usage. I did look around but I couldn't see anything to compare with it in the 20 litre capacity class.
I got the bag from Field and Trek in Maiden Lane so it was a short walk to Stanford's in Long Acre. Stanford's is the biggest map shop in Europe, reportedly. At any rate it's big. Maps of all kinds for all over the planet, travel books, guide books, funky travel bits and pieces. There's a coffee shop too.
But I was looking for maps of that middle bit of Europe I'm going to be traveling through. I'm pretty sure I want to start in Kaliningrad and go south through Poland. But I've never been to Poland and don't really know anything about it so I haven't a clue what route would make sense.
I bought a general road map of Poland and countries to the south and a camping map of Poland.
What I need to do is talk to as many people as I can who have done any trekking or general traveling in Poland.

Baltic Adriatic Run 2011 - Psychogeography

Woke up in the middle of the night, which I rarely do, thinking Baltic/Adriatic.
Last Summer's run from John O'Groats to Lands End had many wonderful psychogeographical aspects. My perception wandering northeast/southwest, North Sea/Atlantic Ocean, Scotland England, roadside/canalside/cattle trail/military road/mountain path, caledonian mythologising, Jacobite incursion/retreat/defeat, suppression of culture and language, redcoated army of occupation, Cheviot borderland, cattle and sheep robbing, boggy borderlands, remote outpost of Roman Empire, mountainous backbone of England, king cotton canals, ancient rivers, southwest pagan/celtic remnant, hedgerows, accents, placenames, conversation scraps, shared jokes, blank stares, skies, trees, roadkill, roadsigns, car horns, tourists, fudge, cheesecake.
Baltica Adriataica is creating space in my head and enacting a symbolic occupation. Baltic Sea, ancient source of amber, magical substance, trapped insects from a million years ago, traded south to the Black Sea and, oh yes, the Adriatic and the Roman Empire. Christianity spreading like a stain, Holy Roman Empire, Martin Luther and bloody reformation, Peace of Augsburg (where did that come from?). Cold north/warm south, traveling from barley and beer to grapes and wine along rivers older than civilisation, bloody wars I know nothing of, bloodier and more recent ones which made the map of modern Europe, an Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Adriatic, Berlin Wall, Prague Spring, east/west, north/south. Ikons, armies, faiths and flags, a landscape stinking with history. I am overwhelmed. I long for something clean and pure and inhuman. Mountains cold and old, the careless, ragged Carpathian ridge lit by a full moon, white as bleached bone.
I need to get back to sleep.

Baltic Adriatic Run 2011 (BaltAd11)

OK. You heard it here first.
In July of next year I am going to run from the Baltic to the Adriatic. I'll start, maybe, in Kaliningrad, or Gdansk, or, possibly, north Germany, I'm not sure yet, and finish in, probably, Venice. The route is pretty open at the moment. I will, however, make sure the journey covers over a thousand miles.
I'm feeling pretty fit right now. In fact, despite a shaky year (post John O'Groats/Lands End), I am sure I am fitter that I was at the same point in the preparation for that last big run.
I spent a lot of time this summer working on a book length account of the John O'Groats/Lands End run and have completed a first draft. I will continue work on the second draft as I find time.
My priority at the moment is the preparation for BaltAd11. Suggestions for an alternative to 'BaltAd11' as a shortform name for the project would be appreciated.
I am also working on a new solo show, working title 'Run'. Or, what do you think of 'Thousand Mile Man'?
I will be making regular updates to this blog as training and other preparations move forward.