Lands End to John O'Groats Day 6 - The Cat Is Out 'The Bag!

Day 6 Morning
The alarms went off and nobody was hungover although I was a bit tired as Nick in the bunk above me had been having a full blown conversation with himself at about 3am. I think cooking tea on day 5 had made him dream about work as the conversation was something about beef. Lots of it was just mumbling but the bits I could make out was all food related - Nick worked in a Carvery. I'd let it go on for about 15 minutes before I flashed his bunk light on and off a few times. It seemed to work, he went quiet again but I couldn't get back to sleep. I was really excited about finally announcing to the world that I was doing the challenge. As always when you can't sleep, I nodded off not long before the alarms sounded. After days of moaning at him to get up faster Nick was up and being useful which made a big difference. All four of us working together got us ready with enough time to use Kinesiology tape on Nicks dodgy knees and take a couple of photos before we left The Hideout campsite that we'd all enjoyed staying at. We'd put the decals on the motorhome and as we would no longer be trying to keep it quiet after Bristol we wanted a few pics for Facebook.

Myself, Ant and Nick posing at The Hideout campsite.

We had a fair distance to drive before we got to the start at Burnham-on-Sea where you could see across Cardiff Bay/The Bristol Channel to Cardiff. On the way to the start Ant asked the Dream Team if they could find us a pitch near Bristol for that night. We thought Camp sites may be rare in the city so also asked for hotels.

 We'd spoken with the Landlord, Clive and his regulars in the pub the night before about my route to Bristol. The original plan was to head straight through The Mendip Hills, a famous Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and home of The Cheddar Gorge and The Wokey Hole Caves. I'd visited the area as a kid and remembered how hilly it was so Ed and I had been looking at a bit of a detour via Weston-Super-Mare to avoid The Mendips. Clive and his regulars told us we should revert back to heading through the Mendips. They told us that if we took the coast road then it would be flat until we passed Weston but then it would become extremely hilly. They showed us a route through The Mendips using a gorge that ran parallel to the Cheddar Gorge which would be a steady climb with three fairly steep but short climbs. They promised there was nothing as bad as Dartmoor so we took their word and once in my chair we headed for The Mendips.

On the road to Bristol.

 The start of the push wasn't too bad at all, the steady climb didn't start to kick in until we left Somerset and entered the county of North Somerset. It was exactly how Clive and Co and explained but in the distance I could see The Mendips, Nick and I were trying to spot a gap in the hills where the gorge I was heading for would be, looking back now I was just being a bit thick, that's not how a gorge works!

Leaving Somerset for North Somerset.

The climb did get a little steeper but it was a dry day so I tackled them with a bit more confidence than I had done previously. There were three steeper parts of the climb just like we'd been told but none were too bad compared to what I'd been up already. Plus The Mendips' status as an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty was well deserved and the views back over the Somerset Levels helped ease the climbs.

Climbing in to The Mendips with the Somerset Levels in the background.

We had a bit of a downhill coming out of The Mendips but not as much as I was expecting and it wasn't long before we were starting to climb again as we made our way towards Bristol Airport. The roads were now the busiest we had been on and Ed was starting to drop behind me quite often, about halfway up the climb we stopped in a layby to change batteries in the cameras, refill drinks and check the map. It was only a 5 minute pit stop before finishing the climb and passing right by Bristol Airport.

Passing by Bristol Airport.

Ed and Ant were soon caught up in the airport traffic again and with my speed on most of the next 7 miles being well over 20mph and hitting 40mph at one point, they didn't have much chance of catching us. We had found our way to the outskirts of the city itself but the traffic was horrendous and the road signs were confusing so Nick and I stopped at the first pub to wait for Ed and Ant to catch us up in the Motorhome. It took them a good 25 minutes to get to us in which time the drizzle had started.
Once Ed was parked up we went inside the pub and they gave us free brews and lots of food. As we were stuffing our faces we gave Elouise and the Dream the signal. It was Go! Go! Go! Elouise had already redesigned all the social media stuff, changed the charity details and the dates of the challenge, there had been a charity giving page set up and press releases written up but none of this could be put online before this moment without alerting people that not only was I still doing the challenge but I had brought it forward 10 weeks and had already conquered the west country. Elouise quickly got all of this new material online and Lance, Natalie, Camilla, Sam, David, Michael, Dave & Amy plus My family and the other dream team members started sharing the hell out of it online.
 It took a matter of seconds before a couple of members of the club/charity that had tried to fuck me over commented asking if the money I would raise would be going to them or not. I found it quite telling that the very first comment from them was about the destination of the sponsor money. I wanted to us one of my dad's favourite sayings to answer the question about if they would receive the sponsorship.
"there's more chance of the hole in your arse healing up!"
I didn't want to start a war though so I just ignored them. A few friends and family were a bit shocked too, I did feel a bit guilty about not letting them know what was happening but I was determined to keep it secret until Bristol and that meant keeping my team very small.
 We were all sat in the pub glued to our phones watching the reaction and seeing the views and shares build really quickly. Although I was doing this challenge for myself more than anything else it wasn't quite as special as it should have been over those first 5 and a half days as there was no praise at all coming from outside of the family and the Dream Team. It was nice to start getting good luck messages coming in.

Letting the cat out of the bag.

Day 6 Morning Stats

Miles: 22.07
Time: 2:19:32
Average Moving Speed: 9.5mph
Top Speed: 39.5mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 15 - 23:55 (snail)
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 19 - 2:14 (Flying!!)
Total Ascent: 1363ft
Average Heart Rate: 143bpm
Max Heart Rate: 166bpm

Day 6 Morning Progress Maps

Day 6 Afternoon

We'd miscalculated where we were going to finish on day 6 as I'd forgotten I was ahead of schedule. I blame the 3 pints! On the original itinerary I was due to end day 6 in Bristol. Another message went to the Dream Team asking for camp sites further north. Once we'd done what we could on social media for the launch of the challenge we thanked the staff at the Miners Arms for the food and drinks and went to the motorhome to study the maps again as we knew the city centre would be tricky.

About to leave the pub that had provided lunch for us.

I took in as much of Ed's briefing on the directions as possible, I have memory problems so I have to work to remember things. I asked Nick to try and remember it too but like most none drivers he's next to useless with directions. The traffic was quite bad so it looked like Nick and I would drop Ed and Ant almost instantly and that is exactly what happened. We were storming down the steep hill towards the city centre. I'd of been going much faster if the roads weren't gridlocked and if they had been repaired in the last 20 years. The roads were by far the worst we'd had to deal with. Not far from the bottom of the hill I dropped a bollock, lost concentration for a split second and hit what was either the crater left by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs or the biggest pothole I've ever seen. Big enough for all three of my wheels to be in at the same time. On my way out the other side of the crater my front wheel shot up in the air and because I was still unbalanced from falling in to the Mariana Trench, Somehow I smashed my chest into my knee. At the time I thought I was just winded but I now know that I broke two ribs. It really bloody hurt!
If we had been with the Motorhome or if we had a support vehicle then this might have been another occasion the journey ended. How bad would that have been? 20 Minutes after the challenged is announced to the world and I am out. I decided to push on to find somewhere to wait for Ed and Ant but When we did get to the bottom of the hill the reason for the traffic chaos became obvious, there was a skyride event going on. The whole city centre was closed to traffic to allow cyclists to ride round and round the course. That meant to route plan was out of the window and it also meant I would have to get to the other side of the city centre to meet Ed. The diversion looked a bit steep so I got Nick to open the barriers and we gate crashed the Skyride. We made decent progress on the closed roads despite the bust ribs, we were going faster than most of the cyclists. We saw a road sign for where we were meant to be going so we snuck back through the barriers and headed up a main road. After a mile or so we had to pull over to phone Ed who was still stuck in traffic at the start. We described where we were and he managed to direct us on to the road we needed to be on for the rest of the day. We then started the climb out of the city centre, this was the most pain I had been in I managed 3 miles of climbing but then stopped to phone Ed again to see if he was any closer and he wasn't. I didn't think sitting and waiting was a good idea in the cool weather so I kept on pushing, I left the city and county of Bristol for the county of South Gloucestershire and then South Gloucestershire for Gloucestershire itself. Still no motorhome!
Finally after an almost 22 mile afternoon Ed caught us, he'd had to use the motorway to gain ground on us which mad me feel like a beast! They had used their time in traffic well and found us a campsite free of charge again for the night. We'd pushed through five counties in one day and covered 43.8 miles, more than 10 over target for the day.
The Campsite we were staying at was called Tudor Caravan Park, we all cracked jokes about it being Tudor themed with Henry VIII working reception and Jousting for entertainment. When we arrived we found that it was named after the local pub rather than a Tudor theme park. The site was really modern and had cracking facilities, it was a huge site so the shower blocks were giants. There was washing and drying facilities which was a relief, we were running low on kit.
Ed did a fry up for tea! Love a fry up!

Another free pitch blagged!

Day 6 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 21.73
Time: 1:57:59
Average Moving Speed: 11.1mph
Top Speed: 36.1mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 2 - 9:26
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 16 - 2:08
Total Ascent: 976ft
Average Heart Rate: 144bpm
Max Heart Rate: 170bpm

Day 6 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 43.8

Lands End to John O'Groats Day 5 - The much needed pint!

Day 5 Morning

Day 4 had given me a bit of confidence back, I'd smashed the target mileage even though it was still hilly and it had been wet most of the day. I felt good that the two things I struggle with the most, rain and hills, hadn't stopped me. Waking up on day 5 I was tiered and sore but looking forward to pushing that day. The weather forecast was only occasional showers and I knew the route wouldn't be quite so hilly. Nick had been up late sewing my gloves, I saw them on the table when I got up and I was genuinely shocked at what a brilliant job he had done with them. They are made from leather and thick tough rubber pads, I've had professionals tell me they couldn't mend them but my favourite southern goon had done a top notch job. Having Ant in the motorhome made the morning routine much faster, he played wheelchair jenga moving all the chairs, spares, wheels and luggage onto the beds so we could use the table for breakfast which Ed was preparing. I was downloading all of the Gopro footage from day 4 and Nick was doing his 20min get out of bed routine! To be fair he'd had the least sleep with staying up sewing.
 As soon as I set off on the push I could feel a big difference in the gloves, they were much firmer and putting less pressure on my knuckles and they had no holes in them so they weren't as drafty! I got to Tiverton in no time and felt really good. I was dealing with the hills much better, granted they weren't as big as in previous days but I still felt much better.

Nick needing to crouch down Froome style to keep with me on a downhill.

I felt like I was in a rhythm and that I actually was a wheelchair athlete and not just the bloke who turned up in Cornwall thinking he'd have a go at pushing 900 miles without training. Now the initial panic of getting ready in just a few days and getting found out before I had a decent head start was over I felt much better in myself. I could start to put in to practice some of the things I had been speaking to David Brown from The Academy Of The Sporting Mind about. We'd spoken about what made my heroes good at what they did and thinking about how they would react to certain situations. I probably should have put that in to action sooner rather than screaming at my wheels before punching them on day 2!

Patriotic Pic.

  During the first half of the morning run I left Devon behind and entered Somerset. I thought Devon was incredibly beautiful although I was more than happy to see the back of it and there is absolutely no chance of me ever going on a training holiday to Devon. It is a god awful place to push a race chair in. Even worse when you have pushed the entire length of both Devon and Cornwall and not even had a sniff of a scone dripping in clotted cream and piled high with jam.

Ant posing as no hands Nick and I pass.

I got to Taunton in a very quick time compared to the speed I had been pushing in previous days. Taunton was where we had planned to stop for lunch but with me feeling good, the route being gently undulating rather than hilly and it being too early to have lunch I decided to keep going. I ended up pushing a marathon, 26.2 miles and I felt great. I'd done it in a time that was only 12 minutes down on my best race time for marathon. I'd improved my average speed by around 3mph. I'd made Nick work hard to keep up with me for the first time. He was starting to get a sore knee so was quite firing on all cylinders but every runner or cyclist knows the little buzz you get on a training run when you open a little gap up on one of your mates who, on paper, is faster than you. On the gentle climbs he was right there behind me, often cycling with no hands but on the flats, the gentle and steep descents I think I was making him regret being a smoker. It was funny watching his little matchstick legs going ten to the dozen.

Entering Taunton, Somerset.

Having Ant on board made a big difference to how we communicated with the  Dream Team, for the first 4 days Ed could only message them when he was parked up if he wasn't waiting on me hand and foot. Ant would relay information back to the dream team so they could sort things out for us whilst we were on the move. On day 5 he let them know a rough idea of where we would be finishing the day and the dream team sprung in to action. On Day 5 it was dad who found a campsite relatively close to the estimated finish. The campsite was called The Hideout and dad said it had great reviews, it wasn't far from Glastonbury so I was looking forward to seeing The Tor.

During lunch I read through the conversations my team had been having that morning in our secret Facebook group. I felt really humbled seeing how excited people were that I had pushed a marathon in a relatively quick time. As I was reading the comments Nick posted one whilst he was sat next to me. I was really choked by it. He was saying how well I was doing and how proud he was of me. The thing was I was really proud of him, non sporty and a smoker - he was doing great. We did like each other really even if we had been crying laughing at each other the day before.
We'd stuck with cheese sandwiches for lunch as I seemed to be ok on my guts. We'd also stuck with not sleeping at lunch because the first few days had been a right struggle after the sleep.

Day 5 Morning Stats

Miles: 26.26
Time: 2:17:03
Average Moving Speed: 11.3mph
Top Speed: 36.8mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 10 - 9:42
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 13 - 2:55
Total Ascent: 1339ft
Average Heart Rate: 148bpm
Max Heart Rate: 169bpm

Day 5 Morning Progress Maps

   

Day 5 Afternoon

When I set off in the afternoon I only needed to do 6.8 miles to reach my target. In fact I could have chosen not to do an afternoon push and still been ahead of schedule. I felt good and I wanted to push, I had an idea of doing 10 miles as I expected to tire quickly due to me pushing a marathon just a couple of hours earlier. I was a little slow heading towards North Petherton as there was quite a climb, after that there wasn't any climbs that bothered me and I clicked off the miles without having to fight my way up a hill. At the 10 mile mark I decided to carry on to Half Marathon distance thinking that a marathon in the morning plus a half marathon in the afternoon would be a brilliant achievement By the time I got to 13.1 I had worked out the daily total would have been 39.3 miles so I carried on yet again to tip the odometer over 40 miles for the day. I ended at 41.5 because there was nowhere safe for Ed to park the motorhome until that point!

Nick being Nick as we pass through posh villages.

We were quickly into the motorhome, Ed and Nick stripped the chair down and fastened the bike up to the rack whilst Ant made me a brew, a protein drink and an electrolyte drink. We then made our way to The Hideout but the satnav didn't seem to know where it was! We left the main road and drove along narrow winding roads through a tiny village with at least six or seven houses I would have described as my dream home. It must have been a very wealthy village back in the day, there didn't seem to be any normal size houses just lots of very large and very old stone built houses with amazing gardens and incredible views. The village church looked extremely old and was actually smaller than a lot of the houses. I think a combination of the Satnav not being accurate and Ed and I fantasising about having enough money to live in the village had led to us doing a few laps looking for the campsite.

We were struggling for signal on our phones so we were just about to go back to the main road and phone the owners for directions when a girl who had been flying up and down the road in a pickup pulled over and asked if we were looking for The Hideout, we told her we were so she shouted to follow her. She was a typical farmer on country lanes and shot off like Lewis Hamilton, poor Ed was having a hard time keeping with her in a motorhome that only just fitted down the lanes. When we got to the campsite it was just a field behind somebodies house, Ed went to find someone to check where we should set up for the night. The owner was busy building an extension on the back of his house and told Ed to pitch up anywhere we liked, we drove through the gravel carpark area passing two large shed like buildings which we spotted were the bathrooms and laundry. They looked brand new but I wasn't sure what to expect inside them. We hooked the motorhome up to the power and I headed to the shed for a shower, I was pleasantly surprised the bathroom inside
was by far the cleanest on the trip so far, it was just like a family bathroom in a home. The power shower was amazing too.

This was my favourite campsite so far.

The Shed Showers

Odd from the outside but spotless inside!

  Returning to the motorhome, the owner's wife had come to speak with us about the challenge, she was lovely and she was really interested in what we were doing. It was nice to speak to somebody who I didn't know who was so keen to learn all about the ins and outs of the push. We'd decided to have a BBQ that night as it was Saturday and we fancied a bit of a celebration of leaving Devon and Cornwall behind - something the other wheelchair athletes to attempt Lands End to John O'Groats had failed to do. Nick was in charge of the BBQ, I could see a change in him even though it had only been 5 days he seemed to be more relaxed and growing in confidence. Whilst Nick was being chief chef Ed and I put the decal's on the motorhome. They hadn't been printed in time to be put on before we left so my dad had got the to Ant who had brought them down on the bus with him. I was actually quite glad we hadn't had them stuck on for the 8 hour drive to the start and the 5 days pushing as I think the risk of photos and comments being put online would have been pretty high and my cover would have been blown. We had a visit from the site owner who seemed just as interested as his wife, we asked him about the area and he told us all about using his tractor to free people from the mud at Glastonbury Festival the year before. He also told us about the local pub, sunshine, BBQ, good mates... all it needed to make it a perfect Saturday was a couple of pints. Nick wasn't the only one growing in confidence, I was now quite a way ahead of schedule, I wasn't half as injured as I thought I would be so I thought a trip to the pub would be fine.
After the BBQ which Nick had done a mighty fine job with, we put our glad rags on and set off to the pub. When the owner had said Local pub I think he meant closest pub! It wasn't very local, we'd driven quite a way along tiny single track lanes to find another little village. Once we'd parked the massive motorhome in the tiny carpark, the lads, Bonnie and I went for a well deserved pint in The Ring O'Bells.

Bonnie in the pub!

What a cracking little pub. I was pissed off one pint, maybe it was the effort from pushing over 40 miles that day or maybe I was dehydrated I don't know. It did make playing pool interesting, I stand up to play pool and just lean on the table. The thing is I wobble like a weeble at the best of times add a couple of pints in to the mix and sore legs from being in the race chair for extra long periods of time and you get someone looking like an extremely pissed person doing a slow motion hula dance with no hoop. I could see people doing the trying not to stare look which always makes me laugh, they must of thought I was steaming! I got talking to the Landlords son, Lee, and told him about the challenge. He soon had us talking to all the locals who were offering us drinks and asking how they could sponsor us. I'd gone from the strange northern piss head to pub hero within half an hour. Unfortunately we had to be sensible and not drink the pub dry, I had a world record to beat! I am glad we went to the pub, I really enjoyed myself and it gave me another boost to my confidence, shocking these strangers at how far I'd come in just 5 days. I was getting back to the athlete I was before Sue had started playing her games.
 We headed back to the hideout to get some kip for the next day where the hope was to reach the city of Bristol. The plan was to go public with the challenge once I'd got to Bristol and it would be too late to be caught.

Day 5 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 15.3
Time: 1:23:36
Average Moving Speed: 11.0mph
Top Speed: 31.4mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 1 - 9:11
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 3 - 3:53
Total Ascent: 419ft
Average Heart Rate: 150bpm
Max Heart Rate: 172bpm

Day  Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 41.56

Lands End to John O'Groats Day 4 - Bonking in Bear Country.

Day 4 Morning

   With the news that the day was going to be another wet one and the fact that Dartmoor wasn't going to be flat we had set the alarms even earlier to give me more time during the day to meet my mileage target of 33 miles. The Alarms were set for 6:45AM but I was up and wide awake by 6:30AM, the herbal sleeping tablets had done the business, I'd slept well for the first time since Tania had dropped the Justin Bomb during my date and told me I couldn't do my challenge. The workload and stress of getting ready to leave 10 weeks early, the anger when you realise you've been mugged off for a year or more by people you thought of as friends and the pain of pushing long distances without training had ruined my sleep. That one good night's kip had worked wonders for me. Yes, it was wet outside and I knew I would have climbs to make but I already had 100 miles behind me and got further than most of the wheelchairs that had attempted Lands End to John O'Groats in the past so I had a bit of confidence growing. I was first out of bed, beating Ed for the first time, I started the morning routine and felt good that I wasn't being waited on by Ed. It wasn't long before he was up playing mother though, I was playing father and shouting at Nick to stop being a lazy little oik and get out of his pit and lend us a hand. Lazy? haha! This lad who had only cycled 15 miles before had just cycled over 100 miles in 3 days for me, he wasn't lazy just tired... but we did need all hands on deck in the mornings as there was less of us than we had planned for. The mornings were taken up with the obvious making and eating breakfast, moving kit/wheelchairs/luggage etc from the seating area on to the beds, pumping tyres, checking brakes, replacing batteries in the tech, downloading footage from the previous day to my external hard drive, mixing several different sports drinks, learning bits of the route, letting the dream team at home know roughly where we would need accommodation that night and lots more!
  We only had a short drive to the start of the day's push and my first 10 minutes of pushing was heading back towards the campsite so I could get on the former railway line that the site owners had tipped us off about. It was a bit tight getting through the gate and on to the track and I was worried that we would get a few miles down the track and there would be a bridge or stile I couldn't pass. The other worry was that there was no way for the motorhome to follow us down the track. Nick had to carry extra supplies in his rucksack in case we had a problem. He had extra food and energy gels, drinks, tools, tyres and gas canisters in case I had a puncture and dry gloves. The track wasn't completely flat and the gloves did slip quite a lot but I kept the wheels turning and the first time we saw Ed on an old level crossing we told him everything was going well. It wasn't long before we saw him again and everything was still great. We swapped our empty drinks bottles for ones filled up in the morning and left in the fridge in the camper and set out on the longest stretch of the path, we wouldn't see Ed again until we got to the end of the ex railway line at Oakhampton. Not long after we left Ed we hit an untarmacked stretch of the path. We weren't expecting any off roading in the entire trip and we'd been told the path was fully tarmacked, race chairs and carbon fibre wheels are not meant for off roading! The path was made out of the stones they lay railway lines on top of so I was being shook about like a chubby middle aged housewife sat on a washing machine, all of my jiggly bits were being well and truly jiggled. The back wheels on a race chair are set at an angle so quite often if you hit a small stone whilst training they either shoot out the side of the chair or fire across and hit the opposite wheel, they make a loud noise when they hit the opposite wheel - the carbon acts like a drum. This part of the path was overgrown and the grass flower and seed heads had bowed down over the path with the weight of the rain. They'd bowed down to the exact height of a wheelchair athlete's eyes. A wheelchair athlete with hay fever. I must've looked a right sight trundling along with £5000 worth of kit, being shaken all over, sounding like I was shooting a gun, getting twatted in the face by bunches of pollen wielding kryptonite and cursing like hell. Nick was concerned and caring to start with but soon couldn't contain himself and started laughing to the point he was crying and struggling for breath.

On the old railway line.

At the ex level crossing on the railway with Bonnie looking on.

  Back on the tarmac we started to head down towards Oakhampton, I'd have loved to let go fully and fly down the hill but the path was narrow, my brakes don't work well in the wet and my eyes were streaming after being abused with grass pollen so I had to hold back. We were trying to get in a routine when we spotted a gate Nick would cycle ahead, open the gate, let me through and then catch me up. I was struggling to stop before the early gates with having wet gloves and useless brakes. I bumped a couple of gates and ended up in the long grass next to another that we didn't spot in time but nothing serious until close to the end of the path it left the old railway line to pass through a long tunnel underneath some sort of goods yard or train depot. Nick let me through the gate and I started pushing but then quickly realised there was a right angle turn at the end of the tunnel and a very big drop if I didn't make the turn. There was no way I was going to make the corner, the path wasn't wide enough. I slammed on my brake but it did cock all to slow the chair, I gripped the back wheels but then I couldn't steer. So I started yelling at Nick who raced down behind me and grabbed hold of me, we did hit the wire fence at the bottom of the downhill tunnel but he had slowed me enough that I just grazed my elbow rather than broke my neck! Little Nick was a hero, without him there at that point I think the challenge would have ended.
 No more than 5 minutes later we were off the path and with Ed at the top of a steep hill on the outskirts of Oakhampton. It had stopped raining so we popped the deckchairs up and had a brew whilst we added more tape to the push rims and my very damaged gloves. Just like when you've done something difficult like climb the tarmac cliff, when you've just nearly died every northerner needs a cup of tea. Whilst sat out in deckchairs, with bits of wheelchair and tools strewn everywhere on a nice residential street the guy who lived in the house we were outside pulled up. I thought he might have been annoyed at three untidy lads camping in his street but he asked if I was ok as I was bandaging some blisters and he asked about the challenge. I told him I had been struggling with the wet days. He grinned and said that the locals called it Soakhampton so it wouldn't be right passing through without getting wet. He brought out his biscuit barrel for us to tuck in to with our brews and made a donation to the charity. He spoke to Ed about the route through the town and warned me about the descents having junctions at the bottom so I needed to be careful.
After brew time the push was undulating but with a fair amount on downhill, I was frustrated that the road and weather conditions didn't allow me to go as fast as I wanted on the downhill sections. Nevertheless I managed to push 23 miles that morning, which was a minor miracle in the wet. The campsite owners had done us a great service by telling us about the railway line which cut out some huge hills. We stopped for lunch at a place called Copplestone, cheesy beans on toast! Poor Nick was going to be cycling behind me after I had eaten a full tin of beans! Over lunch we were trying to mend my gloves again with canvas tape, there were no new gloves in my size in Great Britain or the USA - Camilla had been trying to hunt me some down. I was telling Nick and Ed how I needed the gloves to hold together until Scotland where my dad was joining the trip. Dad sews my gloves and pushrims quite often so he would be able to patch them up. Nick suddenly chirped up that he could sew, I wasn't sure if I believed him or not but he gave Ed a shopping list of exact type of threads and a certain needle to get. He seemed to know what he was talking about so once we got going again Ed was going to stop at a haberdashery in one of the next villages and see if they had what Nick wanted.

Day 4 Morning Stats

Miles: 23.05
Time: 3:05:06
Average Moving Speed: 8.4mph
Top Speed: 39.3mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 20; 17:54
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 12: 3:02
Total Ascent: 1168ft
Average Heart Rate: 150bmp
Max Heart Rate: 171bmp

Day 4 Morning Progress Maps

Day 4 Afternoon

During the afternoon push we passed through Crediton where we picked Ant, Ed's fella, up. Ant is notorious for being terrible with directions and getting on the wrong tram at home in Manchester but somehow he had travelled all the way from Manchester to Devon by bus! I was so happy to see a fresh face and felt really honoured that he had travelled all that way to be part of the challenge. He came in useful straight away shouting directions out of the passenger side of the motorhome and handing Nick drinks bottles.
  Once we were on the road I would be spending the rest of the day on Ed and Ant went to get food and granny Nick's sewing wish list. That left me and Granny to fend for ourselves for a while. This area of Devon was lovely. We passed so many chocolate box thatched cottages, little villages that would make a jigsaw my mother hubbard would love to do.

One of the many beautiful houses we passed on Day 4.

Whilst passing through a heavily wooded area that felt quite remote Nick chirped up
"do you think this is a place bears live?"
I asked if he was taking the piss and he said
"They live in forests, I've seen it loads of times on TV"
"Nick, we are in Devon, not fucking Canada or Russia!"
Haha! Whilst I was still laughing my head off and trying to explain we've not had bears in Britain for thousands of years he asked if there were honey badgers
"coz they are hard as fuck, they fight lions and everything!"
"yes Nick! They fight fucking lions in fucking Africa"
It was my turn to be crying with laughter at him, he's the only person I know that can ask a question so stupid they rival my sisters questions. She once asked me if a squirrel eats ham does that make it a cannibal? No Debra, a squirrel would have to eat a squirrel for it to be a cannibal. I love daft questions! They make me giggle so much!
Anyway back to the pushing, at around 8.5 miles I bonked on a long dragging fairly steep hill. For all you none runners out there giggling like school girls bonking is a term runners use for what happens when your body runs out of fuel. You feel terrible, dizzy, sick, confused, uncoordinated and generally like you are about to faint. When you see people staggering all over the place at the end of a marathon on TV, they have bonked. It makes you look drunk but it's awful when it happens. Ed and Ant hadn't caught us back up yet after shopping so Nick phoned them. Luckily they were only a few minutes away so I pushed to the next layby at just over 9 miles and met the motorhome there. For some reason I felt a bit embarrassed about Ant seeing me in a mess, maybe because it was his first day or maybe because the hills weren't quite as bad as the first 3 days, I'm not sure.

The hill that made me bonk.

Anyhow, Ed and Ant were like a formula 1 pit crew within a minute of pulling in to the layby I was lifted out of the chair and in to the deckchair, handed that magic medicine - a cup of tea, given an energy bar and wrapped in a foil blanket. I was just under my daily mileage target by less than a mile so I could have stopped there but once I was warmed up and had a bit of sugar in my blood I perked up a bit. so I decided to push on a bit more. I managed another 6 miles to take me to 38 for the day, a day that could have been a disaster turned out to be a good day mileage wise but I'd had to work for it. I really had run myself into the ground on this one.

Considering phoning for help.

The Dream Team had pulled another free campsite out of the bag The Forrest Glade campsite near Tiverton. I went for a shower whilst Ed made us a curry, well most of us, Nick wouldn't eat curry because it wasn't beige. He just had grilled chicken with nothing at all on it, no herbs or sauces and plain boiled white rice. I think me and Ed both felt guilty, like we weren't feeding him properly but all our nagging wasn't working. I think maybe Ant got through a bit more by telling Nick he had been a fussy eater too but now he will try things to see if he likes them and not just decide he doesn't like them without even tasting them. Ant and Nick are similar ages and to say they had never met before they seemed to be getting on well.
I was in bed by 7:30PM, Again feeling guilty that the lads were up sorting things, especially Nick who was up very late stitching my gloves with his new needle and fancy thread. I used another herbal sleeping tablet hoping for another good nights sleep.

Day 4 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 15.40
Time: 2:01:11
Average Moving Speed: 8.8mph
Top Speed: 35.7mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 9 - 23:30
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 3 - 2:54
Total Ascent: 1480ft
Average Heart Rate: 148
Max Heart Rate: 170

Day 4 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 38.45

Lands End to John O'Groats Day 3 - The Tarmac Cliff

Day 3 Morning

I woke up on day 3 after a really crappy sleep, I'd been tossing and turning all night because I was aching all over from the physical effort on the previous day and I had struggled to switch off from the thoughts of failure. Day 2 had scared me, was I just making an idiot of myself thinking I could push the length of the country without training for it? Was I going to let everyone down who had put in a lot of effort to get me to that start line? I was happy to see the weather had improved when I opened the curtains, I needed a little bit of a boost.

Happy to be pushing in the sun. Click for larger image.

I'd finished day 2 early because I was struggling on another big hill and as I hadn't reached the target we'd had to drive along the route to get to the campsite, that meant I had seen just how big the first hill was. It was another beast so I'd decided to get up earlier to give me more time to get to the start and get up this hill, Nick wasn't best pleased and it took us a few attempts to get him out of bed. I think he was feeling it as much as me, he isn't sporty and at that point he wasn't interested in looking after his body. It meant a lot that he was putting himself through pain to help me out. Once we got through the morning routine we were on our way back along the course to my start position, so I got two chances to check the hill out.
The bright sunshine, dry clothes and a full belly put me in a better frame of mind for this first hill. After dreading it all night I smashed it. A hill that would have taken well over an hour if I'd tackled it in the rain at the end of day 2 was conquered in less than 15 minutes. I made real progress after that and enjoyed clicking off the undulating miles.

Another hill heading towards Dartmoor. Click for larger image.

At around 7.5 miles Ed went ahead to check out a duel carriageway we had seen on the map the day before which would lead us to a town called Liskeard. When he returned we had a quick chat and decided to go around it as it looked busy and there wasn't a hard shoulder. Ed said to follow a road that ran parallel to the duel carriageway and turn left when I saw Jewsons. The parallel road drops a long way below the duel carriageway. I loved the long, fast downhill for the first minute or so. It felt great to be moving fast again but then I started to worry thinking that all this altitude I was losing meant I would have to climb again soon. Once Nick spotted Jewsons we took the left turn which was going uphill, it went through a tunnel under the dual carriageway so we couldn't see far ahead. Once through the tunnel we could see two lanes one steep one to the left and one to the right that was so steep it looked like a bloody tarmac cliff. I looked at Nick, Nick looked at me, I said "surely its the one to the left" Nick replied with "I think it might be the one on the right fella" Ed had parked up the motorhome and ran back to us to tell us it was the tarmac cliff I was going to have to tackle. I wasn't even sure if I could push up a hill this steep without the chair tipping up. I did consider pushing back to the dual carriageway instead of trying to get up this wall of tarmac. In the end I went for it, I grabbed my wheels and turned them quarter turns again, saying the quotes from Brian at the trustees meeting I wrote about in an earlier blog. I would do one quarter turn for each of the words in his quotes "if you fail it could damage DW and JA good names." I wanted to use the anger those nasty lines of his created to get up that hill. I followed each of his quotes with a push for each of the words "I can and I will"
 Nick was great with me, he gave me tons of encouragement each time I inched forward. He was there to catch me each time I rolled backwards. He took the strain and held the chair still when I needed to let go and stretch my arms out. On the second half of the tarmac version of Big Ben I also had Ed at my side shouting at me and keeping me motivated, he'd parked the motorhome at the top and walked back down to help.

The Tarmac Cliff! Click to Enlarge.

We were passed by a handful of cars, they looked at me like I was mad. Ed explained to a few of them what I was doing and got some to sign as witnesses to say they had seen me on route moving under my own steam. Later that day one of the people that passed me had posted on a Liskeard local facebook page. There were lots of comments from people saying they don't even walk up the lane its so steep and just being impressed and bemused as to how and why I was going up this lane. Unfortunately I had to ask an admin for the page to take the post down as I was still pushing in secret although it was nice to read all of the comments on the post. At the top of the hill I was gagging for a brew - like every true northerner after they do something difficult! We all sat in deckchairs in the sun drinking brews and having a snack whilst discussing how bloody steep the detour had been.
  we set off again and Nick tried his best to cheer me up by singing and chatting at me. I was knackered so I had my head down a lot of the time and I didn't really talk much. I knew that I needed to get to 18 miles during this push to stand a chance of getting my mileage target so it was a case of getting my head down and grinding this out, just keep pushing. Nick's constant talking was entertaining me, at one point he said "you're doing great pal, you're nearly at Styves" I wasn't sure what he meant so I carried on pushing and at the next junction he said "Styves is down that road" I asked him why he was going on about this Styves place and he told me that it must be a big place because it is in big letters on the road signs. I'd never heard of it..... Until the next road sign when I spotted St. Ives! HAHA! He had me in stiches the bloody idiot! I asked him if he thought they sold £13.60 fish and chips in Styves?
At 20 miles done we found a layby to stop in for lunch, cheese sandwiches dipped in tomato soup, so wrong but so right!

Me and My Shadow!

Day 3 Morning Stats

Miles: 19.95
Time: 3:13:12
Average Moving Speed: 8.2mph
Top Speed: 39.7mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 10; 33:29
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 9; 2:19
Total Ascent: 2,103ft (oooooooooouch)
Average Heart Rate: 149bpm
Max Heart Rate: 178bpm

Day 3 Morning Progress Maps

Day 3 Afternoon

During the afternoon push I went through the absolutely stunning Tavistock, I'm so glad that Ed got some photos of me in the town centre and by the college. The college is an ex boarding school and is a beautiful building but somehow I had completely missed it. When Ed showed me photos for the day he couldn't believe I hadn't seen it!

Tavistock Town Centre

Tavistock College that I completely missed seeing!

After Tavistock we began to make the climb in to Dartmoor national park. It was a bright and sunny day, such a contrast to the day before. The views were breath taking. In the park itself the road snaked its way up a hillside, Ed needed to drive quite a way ahead to find somewhere to park. When we reached him both Nick and myself were out of drinks and energy gels, I had sweated a lot in the sun so I also needed an electrolyte drink. I decided to carry on pushing whilst the lads were mixing the drinks and sorting out snacks. I was on a hill so it was slow progress but it wasn't steep enough that I would roll backwards. About 10 minutes after I left the lads an elderly lady pulled over just ahead of me and ran back towards me to ask if I wanted to be towed to the top of the hill! I really did want to be towed but I declined the offer and explained what I was doing and that I was raising money for The 53 Foundation so she pulled out a £20 note and put it in my bag tied to the back of the chair! She wished me luck and then got on her way. Only a few seconds after that a wheel appeared at the side of me I thought it was Nick so I said hello without looking up at him but when he spoke back I realised it was someone else. He said he was a professional cyclist and that I was mad to be tackling this hill without gears and only using my arms. I told him it was nothing compared to where I had been that morning and I described the tarmac cliff to him, he knew exactly where it was and couldn't give me enough praise for getting up it. He cycled along side me chatting away until Nick returned, then he wished us luck and shot off on his fancy bike.

Dartmoor. Beautiful but Painful! Click to Enlarge.

 I made it up a couple more hills and then called it a day at 15 miles in the afternoon session and 35 in total for the day. That put me ahead of schedule again, I was out of Cornwall and in to Devon. Cornwall had been utterly beautiful, somewhere I want to go and explore more but I definitely wasn't sorry to see the back of it on my challenge. Hello Devon!
 Elouise had found some campsites near our estimated finish position during her lunch break at work and my dad had phoned around them and managed to get us another free pitch for the night at  Lydford Caravan and Camping Park. This campsite was set in a lovely little village and it had great views up into Dartmoor. When we arrived the owners came to say hello and to have a chat about the challenge, I mentioned how difficult I was finding the hills - especially in the rain. She asked Our route for tomorrow and told us it would be very hilly and rain was forecast. She told us that we would be better taking the ex railway line that had just been tarmacked as it was relatively flat and would take us straight to Oakhampton which is where we were heading. Whilst I went for a shower Ed went to the office to speak with the owner and have a look on maps where exactly this ex railway was. After we ate our amazing spagbol dinner cheffed up by Ed in the pans he'd managed to find time to buy during the day we walked Bonnie down to the old railway line do see if it was suitable to use. It was just about wide enough for a race chair, we might get problems if we met people on bikes coming in the opposite direction but we decided to risk it.
   Ed had also picked up some herbal sleeping tablets for me on his shopping trip, I was in desperate need of a decent sleep. For one reason or another it was now 10 days since I'd had a decent sleep! I got in bed at 7:30PM feeling really guilty at leaving Ed and Nick working on taping my wheels and my gloves up, washing up, washing and drying clothes and more. They needed sleep too but I was shattered after 35 miles pushing and climbing over 3,500ft - a mountain is any hill over 2000ft!

Day 3 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 15.27
Time: 2:32:19
Average Moving Speed: 6.6mph
Top Speed: 34.8mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 5; 21:37
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 3; 2:48
Total Ascent: 1472ft
Average Heart Rate: 152bpm
Max Heart Rate: 172bpm

Day 3 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 35.25

Lands End to John O'Groats Day 2

Day 2 Morning
The alarms went off at 07:30 on day two, I hadn't had a good sleep at all as the aches of pushing 38.5 miles on day 1 had kept me up all night. I moved the curtain to see it was a wet day which made me extremely nervous. I have never been good at pushing in the wet, I'm still learning technique and getting my gloves to stick to the push rims whilst wet is something I struggle with. The morning routine on day 2 was a little faster as we all knew our roles from the day before, Nick was slow to get up (I think he was as tired as I was bless him) but we were ready earlier than on day 1. It helped that we decided to push from the campsite, it was only 1km from the point I finished day one at and it would be faster to get ready at the campsite. We said our goodbyes to the staff, thanked them for our free pitch and the weather had brightened up slightly so I got on my way. I'd woken up with a slight pain on the inside of my elbow but that soon eased. A downhill start ended with the climb in to Truro, what a beautiful place it is, somewhere I would like to go back and visit! The rain started whilst I was in Truro and that made the going really tough, once through Truro there was no flat ground. I was slipping on long dragging climbs and struggling on the steep descents which aren't easy in a wheelchair with a brake so useless at stopping the chair most athletes just grab the wheels to slow it down.

The weather and aches and pains were eased slightly by truck drivers encouraging me by beeping and stopping to clap, a bus driver opening his doors as he overtook me to shout me on and lots and lots of car passengers cheering for me. I was getting so much support I was starting to worry my cover would be blown by people posting on social media. I must have looked like I needed help as people were really enthusiastic with their encouragement!

Day 2 Elevation Chart. No Flat!

I needed a few stops on the hills to try and dry my gloves and get some grip but after 22miles I was spent for the morning, there was a serious rain shower going on and I could see I had a mammoth climb to come so I pulled in to a layby for lunch. I don't think Nick was going to complain about stopping, he was as cold, wet and tired as I was. I got in the van and got stripped off and into some dry clothes as fast as possible trying to get warm again. Ed had made us cheese sandwiches whilst I had been climbing up the last drag at a snails pace.
 Whilst eating lunch I facebooked the dream team at home and asked them to search for a freebie campsite for the night as we still had nowhere to stay. Natalie, Elouise and Michael were on the case during their lunch breaks at work and it was Elouise that came up with the goods on day 2; Siblyback Watersports Centre offered us a free pitch.

Day 2 Morning Stats
Miles: 22.38
Time: 2:54:06
Average Moving Speed: 8.2mph
Top Speed: 38.9mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile twenty one; 15:00
Fastest Mile Split: Mile two; 2:29
Total Ascent: 1487ft
Average Heart Rate: 152bpm
Max Heart Rate: 182bpm
Day 2 Morning Progress Maps

Day 2 Afternoon
It had rained right through our lunch break, I'd been sat looking out of the motorhome window at the hill I would be starting the afternoon push on. There was no way I could've got up it at the end of the morning push and I wasn't confident that just over an hours rest and a couple of cheese butties would get me up what I could see ahead of me. Thank god that I couldn't see the full extent of the hill that I was about to tackle, if I'd of checked google maps I think I might have hidden under the bed and refused to come out! I summed whatever positivity I could find and tried to gee Nick up to get ready, that lasted all of 15 seconds. For some stupid reason I talked myself into putting my wet clothes back on as I would be wet again within a few minutes anyway. That silly choice meant that I was already cold before I'd even got sat in the chair and ready to go.
The push started with a 100m roll back down the hill as Nick had pushed me to the motorhome just before lunch and that is obviously against the rules. Nobody would have known if I didn't redo that short bit of the course but as much as I knew I was going to struggle on the climb I wanted to do it under my own steam, that was the entire point of the challenge. Straight away my gloves were slipping on the push rims, it took a good 6 or 7 minutes to get the 100m back to the Motorhome still parked in the layby where we had had lunch. The hill was a complete bastard, I tried three sets of gloves but they were sodden within 5 minutes of changing them. At one point I got the lads to swap my disk wheels for my quads. Quad wheels are carbon fibre the same as the solid disk wheels but they have four wide, blade-like, spokes with open space between them. I thought if I put them on then I could grip one of the spokes and use that to turn the wheel rather than the push rims. I didn't get very far at all before I realised the quads were dangerous. My grip kept slipping and my hand was going through the gap between the spokes and as the chair rolled backwards my hand and wrist was getting trapped between the wheel and the chair frame. It hurt a lot! So the lads quickly changed the wheels back to disks.
Nick was walking behind as I inched forwards, he was wearing a camera on his helmet to give a view of me in my chair and to prove I wasn't getting any help. All he could do was stop me rolling too far back down this arsehole of a hill. I was literally turning my wheel a quarter of a turn and then rolling back almost as far as I'd gone forward before nick would ram his bike's front wheel into the back of the chair to stop me rolling off. It must have been so frustrating for him watching me and not being able to actually help me move forward. I wasn't being good company either, I was rhyming off every swear word I knew in every combination I could think of. At one point I got so angry after running over my own hand I started leathering my wheels with my fists and doing a half growl, half shout thing at the top of my voice! I was furious that I wasn't moving anywhere near walking speed. The first mile of the afternoon push took me over one and a half hours to complete, that's more that 15 minutes slower than the world record for a marathon in a wheelchair! I was cold, wet, tired, angry, frustrated and not in a good frame of mind. This was only day 2 and I was struggling big time. In that first mile I had climbed 450ft, in my running days I had done plenty of fell races that weren't that steep!
 Both of the lads were great with me on that hill, they kept me going by being positive whilst I was having a melt down. Over one and a half hours climbing had taken a lot out of me both mentally and physically. I was running on empty I managed another two small hills and then a decent downhill but when I met the next hill I'd had enough. I climbed it for 15 minutes but I was so exhausted I was falling asleep in my chair, I had nothing left at all. I called it a day after just 5 miles on the afternoon push. Those 5 miles took almost two and a half hours and they most certainly were not fun!
I hadn't met my daily target mileage and even though the total for the two days together was still on target I felt like I'd failed that day. I thought that if I felt that bad on day 2 there was very little chance of making it to John O'Groats. Was day 2 the beginning of the end? Ed made a phone call to our mate Danny during the drive to the campsite, I can't remember what it was about but I remember Danny asking how I was doing and Ed answering with "he's had a tough day but he's keeping his spirits up." I thought to myself I'm in a foul mood and have been most of the day, I wonder if that is a pre arranged code for "he's doing shite, I think we will be driving home soon". Haha!
When we got to Siblyback Watersports Centre all three of us were blown away by the beauty of the place. The campsite was completely empty so we chose a pitch right next to the lake. The only problem was I didn't have the energy to get up the campsite to the shower block, Nick had to push me! I was meant to be pushing the length of the country and I couldn't manage the length of the campsite! After my shower Nick helped me back to the motorhome and we were met with the news that we had forgotten to pack the pans in our rush to get on the road two days earlier so our only choice of food from what we had with us was toast, microwaved beans and grilled bacon. Not the most nutritious food but needs must! Nick was happy though, he'd heard of toast, beans and bacon so he was confident we weren't trying to poison him unlike day 1's Couscous-gate!
I was in bed and snoozing by 8pm, before the lads went to bed Ed did some more route planning and Nick added lots of small bits of tape to my push rims to try and give me more grip. At least the campsite was silent that night with it being so remote.

Our motorhome at the beautiful Siblyback lake. Click for larger image.

Day 2 Afternoon Stats
Miles: 4.98
Time: 2:23:47
Average Moving Speed: 6.1mph
Top Speed: 35.2mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile one; 1:36:34 (yes over an hour and a half for one mile!)
Fastest Mile Split: Mile four; 6:54
Total Ascent: 722ft
Average Heart Rate: 139bpm
Max Heart Rate: 166bpm

Total Daily Mileage: 27.36

Day 2 Afternoon Progress Maps