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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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