Lands End To John O'Groats Day 7 - The Flying Cripple Situation.

Day 7 Morning

After the excitement of going public on Day 6 of the challenge I had been adding up the figures for how far I had travelled in total and how high I had climbed too. Before Day 6's total was added it was somewhere around 225 miles and 18,000ft of climbing. I was happy with that but I now had two bust ribs to deal with. Whilst adding up the mileage something had dawned on me and it had me worried all night. Nick was only supposed to be cycling for two weeks as that is all the time he could take off work with such short notice. The original plan was to have Nick show his brother Mike the routines when he joined us on day 14, Nick would then carry on with us until the Scottish border around day 16 or 17. A combination of Mike's work and his dragon, sorry I mean wife, meant that he couldn't take part due to the date change but that wasn't what was worrying me. Nick had set his heart on cycling the entire length of England but we now had two or three less days than planned, there was no way around it, Nick had to leave on day 14 or he would risk losing his job.
  Nick wasn't only cycling to help me out, he was doing the challenge in memory of his son, Charlie. Charlie had come in to the world too early and despite putting up a big fight he sadly passed away. Without going in to too much detail I think it is fair to say that Nick had struggled to cope with the loss of his little man after just a few precious days. Nick wasn't much more than a kid himself when it happened so it must have been absolute hell for him. He had been trying really hard to sort his life out and had made big changes to his lifestyle, not least moving from London to Rossendale to be closer to his brother. I knew how important it was to Nick to get to the border, I knew I needed to do whatever I could to get him there in 14 days!
It was another wet morning but at least we'd left the hilly west country behind us. It felt nice to be heading north instead of heading east like I had been doing for the first 6 days. I had totally underestimated just how long the west country is. I was in front of schedule but I didn't feel much closer to Scotland as I was still down the bottom end of England. We got on with the morning routine and set off to Berkeley Heath where I would be starting my push. Ledbury was 30 miles away so I thought on a wet day and in pain with my ribs that would be a good target or maybe 5 miles further down the road.

Damp Day 7

  Oddly, after being in heaps of pain all night and not even being able to sit at the breakfast table without being in tons of pain, once in my race chair I felt much more comfortable. Myself and Nick got on our way and once Ed was happy that I was ok pushing and not going to need him or Ant they shot off to get some shopping and fuel. I got myself settled into a nice rhythm, pushing along at a speed not too far behind my race pace. The roads were flat so despite the rain I was doing well. It wasn't long before we crossed the River Severn (which I excepted to be more impressive) and we could see Gloucester Cathedral in the distance. When checking the route the previous night Ed and I had been unsure if we should head through the city streets or use the ring road which would be shorter and faster but more dangerous. Ed was going to scout the start of the ring road out on his shopping trip and let me know what he thought when he got back. Unfortunately Nick and I had been following the road numbers we needed and completely missed the junction where we'd have to choose between ring road and city centre. We found ourselves already on a busy ring road. We pulled in to the first layby to phone Ed and Ant to see where they were, they were on the road further down towards Bristol looking for us. They told Nick not to use the ring road as it was too busy but it was too late we were on it! They turned around and headed back towards us but we made the decision not to wait for them as we were getting very wet and cold. I was pushing hell for leather, faster than my race pace, trying to get us off this bloody dual carriageway. There wasn't a hard shoulder, just a 2ft wide bit of tarmac beyond the white line. Nick could get his bike into that thin strip but I could only get one wheel in the space. I was trying to keep my front wheel in the tiny gap between the rumble strip and the cats-eyes but this was really hard work at speed and in the wet. Each time my front wheel hit a cats-eye it squirted water all over me. After 5 or 6 times of getting a face full of filthy water I tried getting my front wheel the other side of the rumble strip but that meant every so often my back wheel hitting a cats-eye and squirting Nick. Each time I heard him shout I giggled to myself, partly nervous laughter as I thought I was about to be run over but mainly just the thought of Nick getting a face full of dirty road juice.

Nick being Nick

Once off the ring road we found a layby for Nick to phone the lads, we had 8 missed calls from them but there had been nowhere for us to stop safely on the ring road. Apparently they had been up and down the ring road 3 times looking for us and had thought we'd got lost or taken a different route as they hadn't spotted us. They weren't far away so it only took them a couple of minutes to find us in the layby. Ant put the kettle on, you know me, any excuse for a cup of tea! A near death experience was definitely a good opportunity for a brew. Nick and I told Ed and Ant all about the ring road like a pair of school boys telling their mates what they'd been up to on the summer holidays. Brews drunk and stories told we were on our way again.

Back out on the country roads

There was quite a climb away from Gloucester, my arms were tired from racing to get off the ring road, my ribs were sore and it was wet so maybe it seemed a little tougher than it should have done. The climb was followed by a steep descent which I was really enjoying until I saw brake lights in front. I tried hard to stop but wet gloves and brakes did nothing to slow me. I was headed straight for the back of a car when I spotted a left turn onto a residential road running almost parallel to the main road a bit like a layby with houses on it. I took the turn to give me more time to stop. A split second after I turned I hit a speedbump and took off, all three wheels in the air. "fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"  Obviously when you have no wheels on the ground braking is impossible. I landed with a thud. just metres away from the next speedbump where I got air time again "shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!".  Luckily I just about managed to get control as the road met the main road again and the row of cars that were sat waiting at the lights. I wonder what they were thinking seeing a lad in his wheelchair flying through the air, twice. Then Nick caught up, came to a stop with a skid and gave me a right bollocking! He sounded just like my dad! The lights changed and I set off tentatively, not sure if I had damaged the chair, the wheels or even myself. Everything seemed ok and it wasn't long before Nick was laughing at the flying cripple situation. Threatening to get me a cape and playing the song One Call Away on his phone singing "superman's got nothing on you" at the top of his voice.
Before we knew it we were in the Malvern Hills and just a few miles from Ledbury, I didn't feel tired at all so I pushed to Ledbury where we stopped for lunch. Almost 31 miles! When I got out of the chair my ribs started hurting like mad again. I found sitting at the table for lunch too painful so I ended up eating whilst laid on my bed. During lunch we had to cancel the campsite we'd found near Ledbury as it was going to be too far away from the finish point now.



Day 7 Morning Stats

Miles: 30.87
Time: 2:50:43
Average Moving Speed: 10.8mph
Top Speed: 33.7mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 28 - 9:21
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 4 - 3:42
Total Ascent: 1358ft
Average Heart Rate: 144bpm
Max Heart Rate: 169bpm

Day 7 Morning Progress Maps

Day 7 Afternoon

Back in my chair after lunch I felt comfortable again I found it really odd how being in the position that had bust my ribs was the only position I was comfortable in! We were now in our next county, Herefordshire, the weather had brightened up and the scenery was the stereotypical English countryside, lots of green fields, ancient hedgerows and rolling hills. The houses we passed were amazing too. This was a posh neighbourhood. Lovely place.

English countryside.

Still damp

We started to see signs for Hampton Court Castle which confused me for a while as Hampton Court is in London not far from where my now ex club trains. Eventually my tired brain clicked that Henry VIII's gaff was Hampton Court Palace not Hampton Court Castle that we were about to pass. As we got to the gate house I could see Ed and Ant poised on the opposite side of the road, ready to take photos of us with the gatehouse in the background. It took everything I had to fight the history geek inside me. The history geek wanted to turn and look at the castle but there was no chance I was going to stop and pose for a picture or go back and do a rerun for a staged picture. I kept looking forward and didn't get to see the castle at all. I am so glad I made that choice because Ed captured my favourite photo of the entire trip, Nick and I going fairly fast, the gatehouse and through the gate up to the castle. This is another of the places I want to go back to - if only to see it with my own eyes!

Hampton Court Castle, my favourite photo of the challenge.

 I kept a fairly steady pace through all the rolling hills and I managed an enormous total of 50.2 miles for the day. Partly this was because of my growing confidence that I was going to get to John O'Groats but mainly this was the start of me trying to get a head of schedule to get Nick to Scotland in memory of Charlie.

Our new campsite for day 7, another freebie, was called Nicholson Farm and it was a fully working farm. As soon as we headed down the lane and into the farmyard I was excited about the stay. Ed went in to find out where to hook up and the farmer had given him a firm warning not to damage his grass. I love farms and I love country people. The place was absolutely stunning, there were cows everywhere and the farm dogs just wondering around. They came to say hello to Bonnie and they all had a run around the field together. I was desperate for a shower, they were housed in an old outhouse for the farm, possibly an old pig pen. They weren't the cleanest but I didn't care, I loved the place. The showers were full of spiders and I was grinning to myself thinking that Nick and Ant were going to struggle as they are both soft arses when it comes to spiders. Right as I was lent against the wall showering and dodging spiders the bloody light went out and as there were no windows it was pitch black. There I was, naked, fumbling about looking for the door lock so I could go out and turn the light back on. I secretly hoped the same would happen to Ant and Nick!

Back at the motorhome Ed was talking to the owner of the only other caravan on the site. An old man from Oldham, he had come on holiday with his wife and two dogs but sadly one had taken ill and needed to be put down. He had been due to go home a few days earlier but he wouldn't leave without his dog's ashes. It was such a sad thing to hear, I don't know where I would be without Bonnie!
After we ate the lads went exploring the paths around the farm and down to a lake, they come back thinking they'd been to the wild west because the cows had followed them. Ed found it highly amusing that he'd found another animal that Ant was petrified of!

The Nicholson's cows!

In the evening we were treated to the loudest bird song I've heard for years; Ed managed to get a short video:

Day 7 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 19.34
Time: 1:57:59
Average Moving Speed: 9.9mph
Top Speed: 23.9mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 3 - 8:46
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 7 - 3:26
Total Ascent: 856ft
Average Heart Rate: 143bpm
Max Heart Rate: 163bpm

Day 7 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 50.21 (17 miles beyond the target)

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

Lands End to John O'Groats Day 1

Day 1 Morning.
This was it, the day had arrived, 10 weeks earlier than expected. No long distance training that would be any use to the challenge, no support vehicle with flashing lights to keep me safe, no horde of cyclists to keep me company, no send off party. Just the motorhome, two of my best mates, Bonnie the dog and some good luck messages from the handful of people that got me to the start line to give me any chance of pulling this off.
 We woke up at about 08:00 to start getting ready. It was a bit of a struggle on that first morning to try and work out who was doing each job. We hadn't had a dry run with having the date change and we were one person short of my ideal plan of having 2 drivers one for the motorhome and one for the support vehicle which I'd planned to have drive behind me wherever possible. That was an extra pair of hands missing, a pair of hands which would have been very handy for all the small tasks in the mornings. Making breakfast, taping my hands, mixing supplements and hydration powders, sorting out GoPro cameras, learning route prompts, lots of little jobs.
  On day 1 I had a chocolate protein porridge for breakfast, again something else I would have liked to trial before the challenge itself, I love porridge (I have Scottish blood - loving porridge is part of the DNA) but this stuff was foul. I shovelled it down anyway as I knew I would be needing every last drop of energy. Nick isn't a fan of breakfast, well Nick isn't a fan of food full stop, but to be fair to him he had been listening to my nagging him on the drive down that he would need to force himself to eat breakfast. He hadn't cycled more than 15 miles before and he was about to cycle 33miles a day each day until we crossed the Scottish border. I was worried he wouldn't make it and I desperately needed him to as he was my only support rider - I had no other options.
 Once we'd finished all the prep we could at the campsite we made our way to Lands End. We arrived to find 20 or so cyclists nervously getting ready to start their own  journey. A few said hello but nothing more than that, I think they were all shitting themselves. I felt oddly at ease with the whole thing, there was a little bit of stress whilst trying to show Ed and Nick how my race chair was put together but once that was done I was fine. Lands End is a bit commercial, it has a huge carpark and gift shops, cafes, the last house, the last hotel, etc etc. It took us a few moments to find the famous sign post and when we did find it I was shocked to see a fence around it, a kiosk and a charge of £10 to pose for your photo next to the sign! Nick stumped up the cash and we all posed for the photos, Bonnie included!

Photos done, final check of the two video cameras and away we went at 10:05AM. It was a bright sunny day but not too hot, pretty much perfect for pushing in. The plan to reach my 33 miles per day was split into 20 to 23 miles each morning and 10 to 13 miles in the afternoon to finish off the daily mileage quota. The first 5 miles were relatively flat, a few small inclines and declines but nothing to worry about. Me and Nick hadn't practiced pushing and cycling together before and there were a few teething problems, mainly Nick not being able to cycle in a straight line and getting too close to my hands or trying to fit into spaces that weren't there. Also at 5 miles in I needed to stop to remove the camera from my helmet as the added weight was giving me neck ache, I mounted it on the chair instead as I didn't want a slight ache to turn into an injury in a few hundred miles time. No major problems, just things that could have been sorted before setting off if we had been able to stick to the time frame we wanted to.
We headed straight to Penzance as planned but at 8.7 miles myself and Ed decided that the A30 was a no-go. There were heavy road works the night before during our journey down, there is no hard shoulder on what is in essence a motorway and there were no cycling signs up. We'd quickly plotted another route through the west country and asked Natalie, one of the chosen few volunteers at home, to check if she could find a flatter route than we had. Whilst we waited for news on alternative routes I carried on pushing, making great progress as the route had become mainly downhill at this point. Penzance was beautiful but the traffic was a nightmare. It didn't really hold me up but the Motorhome got stuck in it. At 12.7 miles in I decided to stop to refuel with an energy bar and refill our drinks, we were making really great progress so a quick break was well deserved. We stopped on the coast road and I posed for photos with Saint Michael's Mount in the background before we headed off again.

 From Saint Michael's we had 5 miles almost continuous uphill to Ashton, followed by a couple of very fast downhill miles, including a mile I covered in 2:00min, to finish the morning a one mile uphill section which got me to the outskirts of Helston where we parked up for lunch having ticked off 22.5miles.
 As soon as I finished my push I ate a MyProtein protein flapjack and had a recovery drink. Ed cheffed up some couscous for lunch, it tasted great and was filling so I was happy. Nick looked at us like we were trying to poison him! Bless him, he tried his best to eat it. He was really excited about what we had done that morning, he'd already gone further than ever before. He kept telling Ed how fast I was going downhill and how he was struggling to keep up with me. It was great to see him excited but we needed to save energy so as soon as we had eaten we had a nap.

Day 1 Morning Stats
Miles: 22.5
Time: 2:09:41
Average Moving Speed: 10.9mph
Top Speed: 39.5mph
Slowest Mile Split: 22nd mile; 11:54
Fastest Mile Split: 21st mile; 2:00
Total Ascent: 1566ft
Average Heart Rate: 161bpm
Max Heart Rate: 187bpm

Day 1 Morning Progress Maps

Day 1 Afternoon
 The afternoon push didn't go quite as well as the morning push. I felt really groggy after my nap and mustn't have listened to Ed's route description properly, I got slightly in front of the motorhome and took a wrong turn inside the first mile. It took me down a steep hill and I then had to climb back out of the valley I had gotten myself into. Ouch! Instead of roughly 400m on the flat I did almost a mile, half of it climbing a hill steeper than I'd ever climbed in my chair before that point. The next 7 miles were mainly uphill with some really steep parts, even steeper than the detour I had accidentally taken. It was very slow going but Nick kept my spirits up my constantly chunnering on, singing and well, just being Nick. Ed was bunny hopping us in the motorhome beeping as he passed then pulling in down the road, getting witnesses to sign that they had seen me and cheering as we passed him. I kept my mind off the climbing by looking in peoples gardens - I'm a massive garden geek and I was jealous of all the plants the southern softies can grow in their gardens. I felt like a wildling south of the wall! I was so slow in places that I had to let go of my push rims and just grab the tyres an do quarter turns, it gave me more leverage so it kept me going but only just!

 At 8.5 miles I finally got a long down hill which took me to Penryn and my daily milage total but as there was just a small uphill before another long descent I decided to carry on pushing. Ed decided to shoot off to a campsite he had spotted on the route to ask if they would put us up for free. At mile 14 I'd had enough and wanted to stop, I'd got to a big hill and had nothing left. Ed hadn't yet got back from the campsite so I got Nick to phone him and tell him I was goosed whilst I used the time to grind out a few more metres. This is when the extra support vehicle would have come into its own, I was shattered, all of a sudden I got cold and I started to shiver even though it was still a fairly warm day. I had already pushed 36miles that day so I was over target, it was further than I had been in one day before but I just wanted to stop. Another mile and a half later, not far from Truro, we got to a descent but I was so shattered I decided it was dangerous. I couldn't concentrate enough to go down a fast decent so I turned off the road and into a park.. down a very steep narrow lane where I struggled to stop and ended up in the long grass! It was a tree lined lane so there was no sun and I started to get seriously cold. I got Nick to wrap me in a foil blanket and run back up to the road to direct Ed in. It honestly felt like an hour waiting, feeling like utter shite, it was probably no more than 5min. I was saying something like "Come on Ed, Come on Ed, Come on Ed" over and over again whilst waiting for him. Its a good job nobody came down the lane - I'd of been off to the local psychiatric unit if anybody had heard!
 When Ed did arrive him and Nick had to almost lift me into the motorhome, Ed sorted out my chair whilst Nick got me the recovery drinks that I needed and then we were on our way to the campsite. To say they hadn't practiced the end of push routine they were really slick, I think it helped being in an 8 birth motorhome blocking a single track lane. Added urgency! The owners of Carnon Downs Caravan Park had given us a pitch for free, as we pulled in to the site the owner let us know that there would be a fish and chip van on site within the hour that was top quality. We were all shattered so decided to go for the chippy tea rather than start cooking. We parked up and the lads hooked the motorhome up and I headed off to the disabled shower, except I spotted a mahoooosive bath in the room next door so I crawled into that room dragged my chair in behind me and had a long well earned soak. When I got back to the motorhome Ed and I had a good look at the next days new route and we sent Nick to the Chip Van for tea. 15min later I got a call from Nick telling me the fish were £13.60 each, he thought we should have sausage instead. I did say I thought he had got it wrong but he was adamant he hadn't. Ed went to check he had enough money on him and it turned out somehow Nick had read '£' as '1' haha the bloody numpty, I can just imagine everyone else in the queue giggling at this young lad was telling everyone how expensive the fish was. A bloody £ looks nothing like a 1! Haha! It really tickled me. Our £3.60 fish and chips were every bit as good as the campsite owner had said!
  fish and chips shovelled down and then I went to bed. I don't think the lads were far behind me that first night. 38.5 miles in the bank 5 ahead of schedule at the end of day one! Good Work! The only thing that would have made the day better would have been being able to share it with people other than the very small group I'd put together to organise the last minute changes in just five days. The team sent lots of messages of encouragement but it wasn't the same as sharing it far and wide.


Day 1 Afternoon Stats
Miles: 16
Time: 2:11:00
Average Moving Speed: 7.7mph
Top Speed: 34.6mph
Slowest Mile Split: 16th mile; 17:37 (Ouch!!!!!)
Fastest Mile Split: 12th mile; 2:48
Total Ascent: 1,373ft
Average Heart Rate: 149bpm
Max Heart Rate: 173bpm

Total Daily Mileage: 38.5

Day 1 Afternoon Progress Maps