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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| This was my favourite campsite so far. |
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| The Shed Showers |
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| 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.
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| 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
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