Lands End to John O'Groats, Day 19 - A Big Fat Black One.

Day 19 Morning

After 61 miles you would have thought I would sleep like a baby. I very nearly did sleep like an actual baby, waking up every few hours balling my eyes out! I didn't cry but bloody hell my ribs were letting me know that 61 miles wasn't their favourite thing to do. My legs were protesting too. I still have almost normal feeling and some use of my legs which puts me at a disadvantage in wheelchair athletics. My legs weigh more than other athlete's legs and they hurt after a while in the chair - they are tucked up in an aerodynamic position, not a position designed for comfort.
After the alarms went off and everyone got their morning jobs done Ed and I sat down with the maps, we knew with a 61 mile push on day 18 I had a chance of finishing on day 20. The problem was throughout the challenge each time I had pushed a tough or a long push I had then struggled the next day to get much further than my 33 mile target. I was still 90 miles from John O'Groats. We'd been tipped off by a few different people that there were two very steep hills climbing out of gorges at Berriedale and Helmsdale which were around 40 miles from John O'Groats. We both felt like I would need to get them out of the way on Day 19 because starting on two very steep hills on day 20 would make it very tough for me to finish that day.
Getting these two climbs completed would need me to push past the 50 mile marker on Day 19, a tough ask after completing 61 miles the day before. I knew those final climbs were going to be tough after 50 miles of pushing.
I did have a carrot dangled in front of me to get off to a good start, I'd been offered a free lunch at the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora.... 30 miles away from my start point! The carrot of free food couldn't have come at a better time. I set off with the firm target of getting to Brora for lunch.

A traditional before picture

Ready to go!

The first 5 miles of the day's push were undulating but nothing to worry about, I made pretty good progress. I even delt with the first hill at 5 miles pretty well, much better than I had coped the morning after a big day so far in the challenge. Towards the top of the Hill we passed a village called Tain, I asked dad to drive through to see if there was a vets that could remove Bonnie's tick. Ant, Ed and I stayed on the A9 and dropped down the steep hill towards Dornoch Firth Bridge, again I dropped the lads on the downhill. On the way over the Bridge I just couldn't believe the beauty of the place. It's so stunning it has its own facebook fan page! Unfortunately I didn't have anybody with me to get any photos of me crossing the bridge. We'd been passing signposts for Bonar Bridge, Ed seemed very interested in the place - I did wonder if he'd took Ant on a detour just to get a comedy photo for facebook. As with the journey the whole way I didn't want to set up a photo of me on the bridge, all the action shots were as it happened so I just kept pushing.

Dornoch Firth

Stunning!

There were a big group of cyclists on a layby on the bridge getting ready to set off and I got a big cheer as I passed by. There was a big old climb as I came off the bridge and headed for loch fleet. On this stretch of the journey I somehow found myself in the centre of a vintage tractor rally! There were lots of photographers out and every now and then a 50 year old plus tractor came trundling past. Pretty odd, but I guess they thought the same about me!

Holding up some traffic on the way to Brora

After 20 miles we pulled over for a brew in a Layby. The group of cyclists I passed earlier pulled in just a few moments later. They were also on a Lands End John O'Groats record bid. One of their group was in his 70's and aiming for and age group record. They said they had followed my progress all the way from Bristol and had hoped to pass me somewhere. That's why I had got such a big cheer from them on the bridge. It was nice to know people involved in a completely different sport to me were following what I was doing and were impressed by it. We wished each other luck and they got on their way.
 I was starting to feel the previous days Mileage when I got back on the coast road at Golspie there were two short but nasty hills between there and Brora but the call of a free pint and free food kept me going. In true Lancashire style I love 'owt fer nowt'! We made our way to the Royal Marine Hotel, I think we all felt a bit out of place in a swanky hotel in our sweaty kit! It took us a while to find our way through the hotel to the restaurant but once there the manager came across and offered us anything from the menu. I fancied a pint, steak and followed it with apple crumble and custard - the best custard I have ever tasted. I was made up with my free lunch!

A tad under dressed lads?

Being a fool in the hotel.

Day 19 Morning Stats

Miles: 28.90
Time: 2:44:05
Average Moving Speed: 10.6mph
Top Speed: 31.4mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 24 - 10:31
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 18 - 2:37
Total Ascent: 1167ft
Average Heart Rate: 137bpm
Max Heart Rate: 157bpm

Day 19 Morning Progress Maps

Day 19 Afternoon

 After lunch we posed for photos with the manager and then got on our way again.

The top custard man in the UK.

At the first hill just after 3 miles I was already struggling, I'd eaten too much and had a cheeky pint, my stomach wasn't best pleased with me. From mile 3 to 11 I managed to keep it ticking over, I didn't feel great though and just as we got to Helmsdale we had rain so it was time for a brew.

Some flat!

Helmsdale.

I was hoping that the rain would blow over but it didn't so after half an hour or so I had to get back out in the rain before I started to cease up. In the first few hundred metres the main rubber pad on my gloves came off. I tried a set of soft gloves instead but my hands were too battered to put any useful effort through them in soft gloves so another few hundred meters down the road I had to put my damaged hard gloves back on and Ed Gaffer taped them together. Yet another few hundred meters down the road we had to stop again, the tape was too tight so we needed to loosen them.
The 5km climbing out of Helmsdale was awful, it took me over an hour, my PB is just under 12 minutes.

A Hill

This hill was a nightmare, luckily there was plenty to look at as I climbed it. Including a memorial for the Highland Clearance victims. I found myself a bit choked by it, statues of a family being forced from their home. Ant and Ed hadn't heard of the clearance so giving them a geek fest history lesson passed some time. When we finally got to the top we celebrated big hill number one being conquered by having a brew. Dad was already in a layby with a family who had stopped to have a chat as they had seen me a number of times last few days. The dad of the family warned me about the second climb, he said it was very steep and had some bad bends on it.

Memorial

The family that stopped to chat.

I decided to set off before long as it was getting quite late. There was a smaller hill between Helmsdale and Berriedale and that was hard enough. We decided to phone the campsite to check if there was a time we needed to be there by but we were told not to worry. So on we went, down to just a few feet above sea level before tackling a bitch of a hill.

More rain on its way!

  On many parts of the hill I struggled to keep moving forward, Ed had to keep catching me from rolling back down the hill. Ant was fantastic at keeping me motivated. Dad shouted me on from wherever he could. I'd tried edging my way forward just using the tyres on not the push rims to give me more leverage but with the gaffer tape on the gloves it wasn't as effective as it was in Cornwall. I resorted to zigzagging across the road and back again. It was such a slow way to move forward but it was the best thing I could think of so Ant and Ed were checking for traffic and when it was safe I was cutting across the road and back again, inching my way forward.

Hated this hill.

 I was knackered, the closest to tears I had been on the trip. I was falling asleep and absolutely goosed. It was starting to get towards twilight and there was an invasion of slugs onto the road. It was a strange sight hundreds of slugs crossing the road. Ed then came out with one of those lines where you really had to be there for. I still giggle about it now. My best gay mate suddenly said
"do you know, its been years since I've seen a big fat black one!"
Just to clarify, he was talking about the slugs. There was a moment of silence after he said it, almost as if all three of us were waiting to see who'd be the child first. Then all three of us were in hysterics, I was crying so much I couldn't see where I was going, I even bloody dribbled! Ed was performing his ridiculously loud laugh at the top of his voice, Ant was struggling for breath, we were all like a group of high teenagers! We eventually calmed down and carried on climbing but every few minutes one of us started giggling and we'd all end up in hysterics again. It made it even more difficult to climb, crying with laugher at the end of 110 miles in two days whilst having two broken ribs hurts like hell! That mile climbing out of Berriedale took me 42 minutes, probably the slowest mile of my life.

Knackered.

When I finally got to the top of the hill I Wanted to get out of my chair as fast as possible so at the first semi safe place I could get in the motorhome I did. I'd done what I needed to do, I still had 40 miles to do on Day 20 but barring anything going wrong I should get to John O'Groats.
  The campsite for the last night was a bit shit, it was the back garden on a house on the main road. It was the first campsite that charged us on the whole challenge and it was the worst site too. The owner was rude to Ed, she'd also left snotty notes around the shower block. "Remove shoes, I don't clean for fun" and "This door is here for a reason: Close It!".
I'd got quite used to doing my short video interviews by now but it took so many attempts to get this one out. I kept forgetting where I had been and I kept giggling about black slugs. Myself and Ed were stood outside filming it and we were getting eaten alive by the famous Scottish Midge! I was in that much pain with my ribs I couldn't even sit in my day chair to film it!

Day 19 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 21.84
Time: 3:19:41
Average Moving Speed: 6.6mph
Top Speed: 36.4mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 21 - 41:53 (By far the slowest of the challenge)
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 10 - 2:21
Total Ascent: 1905ft (OOOOOOOOuch!!!)
Average Heart Rate: 135bpm
Max Heart Rate: 157bpm

Day 19 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 50.74

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