First thing to say is thx to everyone who sponsored us. We have now done 101% of a target we kept revising upwards, which is great, because, to quote an old football adage it matches our efforts - the boys gave 101%
For me, I'd break the experience into 3 parts. The first, 6am-5pm which was a quite pleasurable long walk, with some great conversations, funny moments & stunning views. Then there was the bit from 5pm to about 5am, which hurt constantly. Finally, there was the bit to the end, where you've broken the back of it all and you know you'll finish - the fact of which makes it all the harder when a storm breaks and in a moment of exhaustion your planning has gone out the window when you realise you left your coat, for the first time, with the support car!
The second stage for me really was the defining stage of it all. This is the bit of which there is no real photographic evidence and so, like a lot of experiences it will just live for ever imprinted on our memories. Walking down from Devil's Dyke, having just got thru the attack of the large bees, then recovered with a hot meal in a large army tent, we teetered across chalky rocky terrain only being able to judge the profile by the range of our head torches. It go to the stage where it really hurt going uphill, but not as much as it hurt going down.
From the Dyke to Jack and Jill Windmills is only about 4 miles and after some running repairs on feet we set off for the walk along the ridge to Ditchling Beacon. Several times I looked behind me and saw a whole string of lights from head torches snaking back across the ridge. In front of us was the beacon, lit up it seemed by warning lights on some kind of mast. The mast never got any closer though - I think in fact it this mast actually miles and miles away - nothing to do with the beacon at all.
For the early part of this stage Lloyd set the pace - a cracking one - and Tristan, who was probably hurting the most at this stage with his blisters locked in behind him and got back in the zone through a combination of the back of Lloyd's legs and his Ipod. Once Lloyd dropped back, Tristan set the pace and so we swapped around like the leaders of a peleton as we reeled back in a lot of the groups who passed us. I think Lloyd's call was a good one and an impressive one. Getting cracked on with it made sense, especially as this was the defining stage, but none of us really is in the sort of general physical state to go haring off like that and ensuring we got thru it, into Kingston, meant we pretty much ran our tanks down to empty and that was hard.
By the time we started the last stage we had that initial lift we'd experienced from many of our breaks and once we'd done the last 200m climb I thought that was it. But the storm, the rain, the slippy chalk paths, the snaking hill which didn't appear in the booklet and the deceptive length of the finish almost saw me in tears as we crossed the line 4 miles later.
I can't really compare this with anything else I've done. I love a bit of distance running - but with that sort of thing, you train, get your CV fitness up and you run as fast as you can for a comparatively short period of time. This was different though. Its not tiring as in being breathless, its hard as in being able to deal with pain, because for 12 hours, after say roughly 35 miles, all we did for the next 12-13 hrs and 30 miles was push ourselves and help each other through pain. The organisers call this the world's greatest team event and you would not or could not do this on your own. The help of the support team is essential (Thx Caroline, Lou, Jack and Phil) as is what you get from your teammates. Its an exercise in digging deep and mutual support and although training might have made this easier, there are things you cannot train for and keeping going when the tank's empty is one of them.
Its oh so far away from the 'couple of miles, couple of pints' I thought it was when I replied enthusiastically to Lloyd's mail back in the winter....
Monday, 16 July 2007
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