Rob's Blog

I might not be Jack Bauer, but that was the longest day of my life.
17th Jul 2006 13:07

The absolute most important thing to say is: we did it. At 3:37pm on Sunday Emily, Tron (Roz [or Rosie as I’ve now heard her mum calls her!]) , Dawso (Steve) and I crossed the finish line at the race course in Brighton, the same Team 341 that started at 8:10am on Saturday- 100km (62.14 miles, or 2.37 marathons) away in Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Petersfield. What’s that I hear you say? It took more than 30 hours you say? It’s true. But I think what’s important is that despite everything we managed to cross the finishing line as a complete team of four - something that a lot of other teams can’t lay claim to. So read on!

1 to 5 - A walk in the park

We were all in the car by 5:30am on the Saturday morning, we got to the start line in Petersfield by 7:00am, corrected our details (how did they really think my full name was Swan Swan?) were registered, kit checked, assigned ChampionChip (punny!) electronic ID wrist tags, and stood on the start line at 8:10. There was a buzzer, a horn, a cheer, and we started. That feels like such a distant memory it’s hard to believe it was the beginning of today (I’m going to use ‘today’ to refer to everything since I last slept!). Gem sent the team a text informing us that a paraplegic girl had started just behind us. We’ve no idea whether she finished it. Anyway, we reached the first checkpoint much, much faster than we thought we would. It was a beautiful morning, everybody was happy. There was a huge stream of people in front of us and a huge stream of people behind us. We hung fairly near the back, we weren’t in a hurry. We had coffee and mountain snacks sitting on the grass looking at what was really truly, truly stunning scenery. Those views really did look like the toy towns from Postman Pat or Fireman Sam. I guess nothing of much note happened in the 37.8k (23.5 miles) to Checkpoint 4. From Queen Elizabeth Country Park to Amberley via Harting Down, Hilltop Farm, and Littleton Farm. Dawso drew a short straw with some early blisters, but he wasn’t really limping at that point. We were all talking, chatting, and having a lovely time. It was basically nothing more than a lovely long walk in the countryside interspersed with many and plentiful picnics (and, admittedly, a strange sense of ever impending doom). At this juncture I’ll point out that we didn’t exactly go hungry out there, and that there isn’t a chance in hell that we could’ve completed this without our truly amazing support crew. Tron’s mum, dad and brother, Gemma (legend!), and Emily’s mum, dad and sister. As the day got longer, our support crew got bigger. We had three car boots filled with supplies, and were met at checkpoints with picnic spreads, first aid kits, encouragement, and perhaps most importantly with legs that didn’t mind running around the checkpoint to fetch us stuff so we could actually sit still for 2 minutes. The next stage was fairly tough 4 to 5 was a full 13km (8.1 miles) and was nearly 3 hours solid walking. We got in to Checkpoint 5 in Washington for dinner at about 8.30pm. We stopped for a full hour to load up on chicken drumsticks, pasta, bread rolls, yum-yum’s, flapjacks... amazing! We literally feasted. We also used a lot of talcum powder, changed our socks, got out our torches, and found some cold weather clothes. We’d heard that the largest number of people that drop out do so at Checkpoint 5. It’s the point where this stopped being a ‘walk’ and became something a little bit more serious. The sun was going to set, and we weren’t going to stop. We were going to carry on. We were all starting to feel pretty damn weary, and we were only a few hundred meters over the halfway point. I’m just going to go ahead and say that I found the next checkpoint fairly easy, we had the excitement of starting to walk in the dark (hey, so I’m easily amused!) and Emily’s sister joined us for the whole section so we had someone a bit fresher than us to keep the conversation ticking over. Once it got ‘properly’ dark I really liked the way we could see bobbing torchlight ahead us and behind us. If you just wanted to skip ahead to the part when we started to suffer you should start reading here.

6 to 7 - Botolphs to Devil’s Dyke

The walk from 6 to 7 was the hardest part we’d done yet. By a lot. It was really, really hard. Seriously hard. Tough as nails. I’m talking double-laminated corrugated cardboard here, none of your flimsy paper. This was tough. It was also disheartening. It was something like 2 in the morning, it was uphill, we had to constantly take jumpers on and off to compensate for the ever changing wind... and then the mist descended. We’d been making really good time up to here. We were fully on track for completing everything in less than 24 hours, but his was the first checkpoint that we missed our target time for 24 hours. We were really beginning to slow down, and because we were slowing down, and because of the mist, and because we could see the light from the next checkpoint but not judge the distance of that light, and because the gradient map for this checkpoint (yet no other) didn’t seem to be drawn to scale on the x-axis... we didn’t know how much further it was. And it was always further. It was always just over that next hill. We’d pass someone walking the other way (yes, at 3am, we never really found out what was with those people!) who would say “you’re so nearly there” - and they’d lie. The map was lying. The people were lying. We were starting to hurt. Everything was starting to hurt. My concept of time was starting to hurt. My feet, my legs, and my sunburnt right arm were starting to hurt. This is the point, my friends, when it really started to suck. Eventually we made it in to Devil’s Dyke. We were met by our now tiring late-night support crew. Just Gemma, Tron’s mum, and Charlie. We’d been looking forward to the promise of a hot Ghurkha cooked meal, and it just didn’t compare to our picnic spreads (yeah, yeah, we’d been spoilt). Steve went to the first aid tent to get his feet tended to. He was seriously limping by this point. Gem had been reduced to tears at the site of our team and was trying to get Steve to stop. We were obviously starting to appear somewhat bedraggled.

7 to 8 - Devil’s Dyke to Jack and Jill

But onwards - for the next checkpoint was Jack and Jill windmills in Clayton. We’d done the walk from that point the weekend before - so we knew the route, and we knew the time it took. That made it “the turning point”. It was when “everything gets easier after the next checkpoint”. It was “the home stretch”. It was “familiar territory”. It was “the final leg”. I’m quoting myself here because I was so, so, so, so wrong! This was when the sun came up. We saw it rising behind the windmills we were aiming for in the horizon (what brilliant placement!), and we soldiered onwards. At this point I was concentrating pretty hard on doing three things: 1) not crying 2) not vomitting 3) remembering ‘left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot’. All I could think was “I was wrong. We’re not nearly there at all.” I had to stop at the bottom of Church Hill to try and throw up. I think it was the Ghurkha chicken soup from Checkpoint 7. The bastards. I didn’t even have the energy to throw up. So we carried on. Walking past Pyecombe golf course I’ll swear that damp grass has never looked so comfortable. We just wanted to sleep. Emily took the lead at this point. Like all of us she just wanted to get to the top of this hill. So she put in a bit more power... and we all made it to the top of the hill. There was a point in that final push were Tron thinks she actually feel asleep while walking, just for a few moments. She was seriously pale, I was trying not to vomit, Dawso was just concentrating on walking, and Emily was ploughing on ahead.

Portaloo’s at Jack and Jill

There were portaloo’s at every checkpoint. We all know what portaloo’s are like. Especially after hundred’s of people have passed through. Those of us who’ve been to festivals know better than most, and they’re the ones that will be most amused by my thoughts at the top of the hill. Just to sit down, to take the weight off my legs, I could’ve sat on that shit filled portaloo and slept for hours. It was just so damn comfortable. Obviously, Tron wasn’t the only one feeling delusional. Unfortunately mine wasn’t the only portaloo experience at that point. Emily went to sit down, and somehow popped her knee out of the socket. Ouchy. So, off she went to A and E. We delayed much longer than we should have at the windmills - and after sitting down there Dawso was never the same man again. I felt less sick after drinking some water. It was something like 5am I think at this point. The sun was up but cool, and we were dreading another 13km (8.1 mile) checkpoint. I think we all felt that once we left this checkpoint turning back was going to be out of the question. Emily was in hospital, but on we went. For this whole checkpoint the hotspots on my feet hurt. Hot, stabbing pain. I’d resolved after Devil’s Dyke that my boots would stay on to the finish now. I think that was possibly a mistake, but I just wanted it to be over. So on we ploughed. We’d made a mistake. We’d made a really, really big mistake. We were tired. Our support crew were tired. Somewhere in the tiredness we didn’t appreciate that if this checkpoint took us 4 hours or more we’d be walking for a long time in the morning sun. And the morning sun was hot. It was, it turns out, something close to 30 degrees Celsius. We were exposed, on a ridge, with no sun cream, no sunhats, and only a ‘normal’ amount of water (1 litre each per checkpoint). I had a sarong with me, which kept me largely out of the sun - but Dawso was exposed for the whole checkpoint, and as we came down through Lewes you could see it. But we didn’t. Me and Tron could see that he was walking slowly, but we thought it was just the blisters and a lack of determination. I was no where near as sympathetic as I should’ve been - in fact, all I wanted was for Dawso to drop out at the next checkpoint so we could pick up the pace and just get this damn thing over with. It had stopped being fun in any way shape or form. It was pain. It was endless. It just went on, and on, and on, and on... we were overtaken by a lot of teams, and it didn’t look like there was anyone else behind us. We were now (so we thought) the very last team. The early morning cyclists were travelling the other way - somewhat unsympathetic to our very lethargic attempts to move out of their way. This was were it went wrong again. When we did this the other weekend, we did it a different route. So we were yet again confronted with being in unknown territory. Never knowing where the next checkpoint was. The walk through Lewes itself was brutal. Pavements hurt our feet, and Dawso was doing a kind of half-step zombie-shuffle. Something like 4 and a half hours after we left checkpoint 8, we eventually fell in to checkpoint 9.

9 to 10 - Uphill

At 9 we were rejoined by Emily, now released from hospital and ready to finish the challenge. Okay, so she missed what was possibly the hardest checkpoint - but she was in hospital (!!) and I reckon that makes up for it! We’d now been walking for more than 24 hours straight. Our concerns about Dawso’s speed were voiced. Understandably Dawso was pissed off, we wanted to plough on, so did he, but we were now an unbalanced team. This is a team challenge though - and somewhere in the haze of the heat and the pain we said we’d stick together. And we did. But it was slow. And it hurt. Gemma joined us for this last stretch, and without her I don’t think Dawso could’ve stayed on his feet. There’s not that much to say about 9 to 10, except it was long, hot and uphill. So I’m going to skip ahead to the finish line now. I could see the line. I was happy. It was there. It was over. Tron could see the line. Emily had walked ahead to wait for us near the line - having missed 8 to 9 she had the energy we didn’t, and couldn’t bear to walk at our speed. We tried to wait for Dawso, but I physically couldn’t walk at that speed - so there was a lot of stopping and starting. But we reached the actual horse racing track together - and saw that final ‘1km to finish’ sign. The utter, utter bastards! They were going to make us do a whole section of the damn race track to make up the distance!! I don’t know whether Dawso got worse, or whether with the finish now in site we could see more clearly - but I can’t believe he was still walking. He was completely red, still doing a half-step zombie-shuffle, dripping with sweat, and utterly unable to speak. But he carried on. Relentlessly. He might have soft feet, but that man has sheer willpower that I think dwarfs what the rest of us did. We came around the corner, and eventually the moment came that seemed so long ago - we crossed the finish line to the sound of cheering and bagpipes. It was over. We’d done it. We got a photo, our medals, and threw Dawso in to a first aid tent. I still had the energy at this point for a little hop skip and a jump, half a bottle of sparkling wine, and to relay the story to the guys who’d all come to watch us finish - thanks you lot! Made it seem so much nicer to have a welcome team!!

After the event

It’s now Monday lunchtime. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t walk. Now I’ve soaked and stretched, and with the aid of crutches I can move around. Just. I’ve got a rash of acne on my shoulders where my bag straps were rubbing, I’ve got some nasty sunburn on my right arm, the back of my neck, and the back of my knees. But amazingly I managed to get away without any real blisters - just some painful hotspots and stiff muscles. God bless talcum powder, and everyone who sponsored me!