95 Miles in two days

It had been raining for several hours now, it was dark, and the mud under my feet squelched and sucked at my every footstep, the pain in my right ankle was severe. I was beginning to shiver hard and clenched my teeth together to prevent them from chattering, trying to generate some more determination to keep moving. “Yep, a lovely Kebab! I’m going to get one and eat it in the car on the way home” said the dark figure a few steps in front of me in a mixed Belfast/Wakefield accent.
I smiled, “last time I had a Kebab was a couple of years ago, damn near killed me with campylobacter poisoning” I replied, “ I was puking and shitting bloody for a week” I laughed as Tom groaned in front, “ You’ve gone and put me right of the idea now”
We had been on the move since nine am that morning, it was now half eight at night. We had run a marathon and then had to start walking as we were drained of energy and both in pain, it had started raining at mile thirty and simply hadn’t stopped. Over the last two days we had covered ninety miles, I had run just under 50 miles the day before and Tom a couple less as he had managed to stick to the correct route where as I had made a mistake which had added three extra miles to the (just over) 46 miles that it should have been. We were now both wet and cold and pushing on through the mud covered water logged tow path of the Grand Union Canal. In an hour we would cross the last few miles to complete two back to back Ultra-marathons.
I had met Thomas Crawford Fitzsimons or ‘Tom’ only the day before but already it seemed like a lot longer; some people you just click with. We’d both started the morning before running from Northampton to Tring a distance which we’d been told was 45 Miles but turned out to be just over 46 Miles. Tom had gone hard the previous day and had really given it tons of spirit and had run far and fast, I’d run the first few miles with him then he’d pushed on but we met up again around 26/27 miles and I’d pushed ahead, but generally I thought we are around the same fitness level. The day before (Saturday) had been a great day; it was my first Ultra-marathon and today was my second. I’d run strong the day before with few problems. My biggest problem had occurred at 13.1 miles. I was in the middle of nowhere; I had been running along when suddenly I felt a piecing pain in the ball of my left foot. After a couple of paces I stopped as the pain was persistent and sharp. I took off my shoe and on closer inspection discovered inch and a half long hawthorn that had penetrated the sole of my shoe, gone through my insole and speared my foot. What was more annoying was that I couldn’t get the thing out.
I looked around to see if there was anything that I could use to secure a purchase on the offending piece of wood but there was nothing. Eventually in desperation I wiped off as much of the mud from the area around the puncture as I could and holding my shoe with both hands tried to get my teeth around the offending foreign body. It was whilst engaged in this act of desperation that the next two runners came around the corner; the look on their faces was I suppose what you’d imagine if you can picture two people who have just come across a man in the middle of nowhere during a race eating his muddy shoe!
I had been unable to get the thorn out so eventually knock off as much as possible of either end and carried on running. Every now and then the ground underfoot would hit exactly the point on my shoe to jolt the thorn up and back into my foot; of course I had no way of knowing when that might be so it was always a surprise. Eventually I managed to get the worst of the thorn out at a check point at just over the 26 mile mark using tweezers that one of the crew had with them. I thought about Shaka’s Zulu’s who he made run over thorns with bare feet, he killed those who complained or couldn’t do it; So I guess I was a lot better off than those men had been.
By the time Saturday evening had come I’d completed the distance, all I’d wanted to do was eat and sleep. It had been a long and tiring but great day. In all honesty I wasn’t sure how I was going to managed the next day but I knew that whatever happened I would not DNF (Did Not Finish) I had no idea though just how I would feel in the morning or if I’d even be able to walk properly.
This morning had seen Tom myself and a handful of racing snakes start the race; early on Tom and I had agreed to run the day together and that for us completing the distance would be the victory. Throughout the day we had motivated each other along when each of us in turn had dark points the other would crack a joke or come out with something motivational. As the marathon check point had come up we stopped for a quick five minute rest. I’d packed a pair of running socks in to a zip lock back along with a load of talc and used this as a chance to change my socks and talc my feet. It felt fantastic and the motivational lift afterwards was tremendous. When I had removed my right sock I had noticed that my right ankle was pretty swollen. I had had this problem once before just after the Dublin City Marathon, and it had led me to get MRIs done on the injury. Still there was no way I was about to DNF so I pushed on.
Once we had got to 30 miles the rain had started and as the darkness fell along with the temperature the rain appeared like snow as it fell in to the circle of light that our head torches flared around us. The psychological effect was to make us feel even more cold. I’d always said that ‘If you’re feeling cold its nature’s way of telling you to pick up the pace’ unfortunately by this point there was nothing left in the tank and no amount of energy bars or gels seemed to make any difference. Jointly we had decided to speed march the last 15 miles as neither of us was up to running any further; we tried to run but it simply took up more energy for no more speed and aggravated injuries . So we stuck at it grinding out the last few miles. We had talked a lot in the preceding hours about everything under the sun. Tom is training for the Marathon Des Sables (MdS) just three years ago he had been over weight and alcohol had blighted his life, he had drank fifteen pints a day everyday for fifteen years. Then he had decided to change his life and turned it around, he also started to train other people and started a charity to help alcoholics to reclaim their lives. He is running the MdS to raise money for charity and to show others that they can also reclaim their lives.

We were both pretty tired when the lights of Northampton turned the clouds in the sky above us orange, Tom’s feet were giving him some serious pain and my ankle was bordering on agony. Somewhere along the last 40 miles the mantra ‘I am a focused individual who wants to achieve’ had come out and now we used it both in jest and in sincerity to push ourselves onwards in the cold rain and slippery mud. I kept reminding myself that this was a training run for me, in Namibia I will be on my own in the desert and will have to motivate myself. The day before I had hit a low point in the night and mud and had decided that the best way to deal with it was by finding my song for the day, who knew but it turned out to be ‘The walk of life’ by Dire Straits!! I had forced myself to start singing it out loud and as the tune slowly unwound from within me it lifted me up out of the dark place and raised my spirits, and my feet had followed and the next I realised, my speed had picked up to. That was it then, for the rest of the run the song was on loop in my head until I had finished.
Tom and I push on and eventually were happy to see the exit point from the canal path, Tom had a religious moment and right then and there got down on his hands and knees and kissed the ground in a pontiff like manor; I was really impressed as I’m pretty certain that if I’d got down on my knees I’d have never made it back up again!
We finished the day together and were welcomed by Rory and Jen who were there to give us our medals. I was chuffed, I had completed ninety five miles in two days.
People have told me that I have inspired them, I’m grateful for hearing this as it means that maybe what I’m doing can help others as well as the children and families who need to Paediatric hospice that the Laura Lynn Foundation is building. For me I find others inspirational, people like Tom, Rory and Bethany. Bethany has also had to fight her personal battle with alcohol and also with mental illness, yet she competes as an Ultra runner for the Isle of Man and works for several charities including homeless charities. She also ran both days of the weekends Ultra-Marathons and ran well.

What inspires me about these people isn’t that they can run very fast or very far but that they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Even the general public inspire me, during the weekend people both ways stopped to take time to encourage total strangers to do something that most thought mad. Some people even took it on themselves to go and buy some jelly babies or mars bars to give to us as they saw us running past.
Ordinary people doing something extra ordinary, people are fantastic, we can all accomplish so much all it takes it the decision to do so.

A day with Mr Coleman

The alarm went off, I’d slept like a baby; a baby with a very painful knee. It was time to get up, get to the airport and get my plane. Yesterday had seen me run the snow marathon and today would see me run another with my coach Rory and Tom Aikens who is training for the MdS. Fi very kindly got up and drove me to the airport where I waited for my flight, and waited and waited. Eventually the plane arrived and I managed to board it. I had taken some ibuprofen last night and early this morning to reduce the inflammation in my legs and to a degree it had worked, but the pain was still there nagging away, I’d just have to deal with it as it was bound to get worse later on.
Rory had text me and would be picking me up from the airport, I was flying to East Midlands and as the plane came through the cloud I looked out of the window to see the ground covered in snow and as the plane landed it began to snow heavily outside.
I came through security and after a few minutes saw through the window Rory coming across from the car park. I walked out to meet him, my North Face jacket done up and my hat pushed down on my head. As I walked out from the terminal building the cold air slapped my face and large snow flakes brushed against my cheek and eye lashes. “Turned out nice again” I greeted Rory who laughed and shook my hand. We chatted as we walked to his car and I was grateful for the car’s good heating system in it as we turned out of the airport and headed to Rory’s place.
Due to the fact that the flight had been delayed it was now doubtful that we’d be able to do the Marathon we’d planned as Tom had to get back to London ready for work that evening. But run we would and Rory had something just as tough in mind.
We got back to Rory’s place and I met Tom, I was wondering what to expect as Rory had told me that he was phenomenally physically fit. He had beasted Tom in the gym the day before and was impressed with his level of fitness. So was I when I found out that he could run 3040 meters in 12 minutes and his VO2Max gave him a potential Marathon time of 2:30Hrs! Tom turned out to be a nice guy, quietly well spoken and as fit as a butcher’s dog as my friend Nick would say. Before taking up endurance running he had been a cyclist having completed some serious mountain races in France. Now he had set his sights on the Marathon Des Sables a six day endurance race of 151 miles across the Sahara desert.
After a coffee we got our kit ready and headed outside, Rory had a surprise for us as he came around from the back of the house with a shovel in either hand, “There you go” he said as he handed one to me and the other to Tom. The ground near to Rory’s place was icy but it was better than it had been by the airport and the snow had stopped falling. “You’ll need those to clear the bridge” Rory gave by way of an explanation. I’d heard about Rory’s bridge work out and as we started running with our shovels in our hands I wondered just how much this would hurt.
After a couple of miles we got to a desolate area by some railway lines, over which was a large pedestrian bridge. “Ok, warm up time, clear the ice from the ground” Rory instructed as Tom and I began to shovel the dirt and Ice away from the bottom steps of the bridge. When we had finished Rory took us up the three flights of steps, across the long bridge and down the three flights of steps to the other side of the bridge, “ok we need to clear this side too”. Duly Tom and I started shovelling again, throwing shovel loads of ice and mud off the area at the bottom of the steps to expose the concrete beneath. Eventually Rory was satisfied with our labours and took the shovels from us both.
“Right, we’ll start with one ups!” Rory said. “Climb one step at a time to the top, then turn around and come back down again and repeat until I say” Tom and I began climbing to the top of the steps, turning around and coming down again. After a few sets of ‘one ups’ came ‘two ups’ Yep, you guest it, two steps at a time. This of course was followed after several sets by ‘three ups’ the pace escalated as we advanced through the reps. After the three ups came bunny hops, which involves jumping up the steps one at a time with both feet together. When Rory deemed that we had had enough of the bunny hops Tom and I were introduced to the ‘one up ‘sprints. Climbing the steps in multiples of one followed by a sprint across the bridge and down to the other side repeatedly. This was naturally followed by ‘two ups’ sprints and… Well you get the picture.
We were rested by giving us dynamic rest periods which meant that instead of running down the steps we were allowed to walk down followed by running up. Eventually Rory gave us some close handed push ups from the hand railings to do, followed by some more sprints this time with him standing on the bridge and us running to him and back down, as we ran down he would move back across the bridge a bit further away.
Finally with our quads straining and the breath burning in and out of our lungs Rory announced that we were ready to run a half Marathon “with some obstacles”. Thankfully we stashed the shovels and ran on, the ground was like an ice rink and staying upright was no mean feat as I slipped and slided all over the place. We ran across an area which used to be a silver birch copse which some environmental terrorist had taken a bulldozer to and cleared. This also meant that we had to climb over a substantial amount of timber that had been placed in unsightly piles at the edge of the cleared area. Then we were off climbing a long ice covered hill, Rory got us doing shuttle runs much like he had on the bridge. This hill work was tough going, I’d run for twenty seconds up the hill in front of Rory then turn around and run down, around him and back up the hill as he walked slowly up the hill, Tom was doing the same and we were working hard. My legs were burning from the exertion, more so than usual after yesterday’s snow marathon. By the time we reached the top of the hill I’d run it several times over, but no rest for us, we pushed onwards towards our next obstacle without stopping. We hadn’t far to go; just over the other side of the hill we came to a steep embankment about five metres high. Rory ordered us both down the embankment I made it about two metres down before slipping and falling down the embankment on my backside and got to the bottom covered in mud. Up on my feet right away I had to attack the hill and get back to the top as quickly as possible Tom was already at the top of it and running across preparing to hurl himself back down again. I ran as fast as I could up the hill my Camelbak smacking around on my back, my arms swinging hard forcing my body upwards with their momentum while digging my feet in to the hill side. I crested and sprinted across to my right, looking down I tried to figure out a better route down, picked one and went for it. Half way down I slipped and fell again, this time sliding down to the bottom of the hill in a mudslide of icy mud. Up I got and went for it again sprinting up the hill, my lungs bursting and my heart banging hard against the inside of my ribcage as it worked hard to supply my muscles with oxygen. Tom was whippet-like on the assent and I dug deep and was determined not to let myself fall behind. By the time I’d completed five reps I was ready for a break but it wasn’t to be and we began to run again. The area is very hilly and Rory cheerfully mentioned that he thought the route was much harder this way around. I had to agree with him, I’d run this route with Rory before over a marathon distance and we were defiantly hitting the steep sides of the hills this way around. We settled into a rhythm as we ran on, I was aware that my Skins leggings and running shoes were soaked through with freezing mud; I’d landed badly on my left hip and it was quite sore. Tom was also feeling the pain as his knees were giving him reminders that they had taken a battering the day before in the gym. We pushed on over hill after hill, across fields’ coloured grey and white with snow and ice, some of them were ploughed and were quite hard going. The slippery frozen ground felt more like running on polished metal than earth, it was so hard under foot. Eventually we came to a grave yard on a hill side and Rory decided that it would be rude not to do some hill work, so once again Tom and I began our shuttle runs up and down the steep hill before once again continuing our run. As we ran we talked, I asked Tom about his life as a Chef and his restaurants in Chelsea, I asked him about the type of cuisine that they make and how he comes up with new recipes I was please to find that he is interesting to talk to. Rory was also talking about food, beans on toast to be exact. I must admit that the thought of eating beans on toast when we got back put a smile on my face and I eagerly anticipated tucking into a plate of hot beans on toast, washed down with a nice cup of tea… But we still had several miles to go. As we ran back the lead runner alternated naturally and we found ourselves making good time. The strength had returned to my legs and my heart had had a chance to recover dynamically over time. When I decided to do the Namibia 24 Hr UltraMarathon last June my resting heart rate had been 110 BPM. A fit adult should be between 60-80BPM, today my resting heart rate is 52 BPM. Since June I have also lost 21Kg (about 3.5 Stone) and today as I ran I felt stronger than I have ever done before.
We eventually got back to where we had stashed the shovels, and then ran back to Rory’s place, and I have to tell you, Tom may be a Michelin Star Chef, but Rory makes beans on toast to die for!
The day was rounded off nicely as Rory had a client to train in the evening so I went along with him to the gym and went for a good swim to shake out the running. Over the last three days I have run 50 miles; including a Marathon, just over a half Marathon and a ten miler.
As I sat back in the plane seat that evening I contemplated the fact that in just over two weeks I will be running my first Ultramarathon, a ninety mile race over two days from Derbyshire down to Hertfordshire and back, 45 miles a day for two days. Tom has entered too, and I look forward to seeing him again. We have decided that we will celebrate completing our respective desert Ultras by going Skydiving this summer, I look out of the window of the plane as we climb into the sky, I close my eyes sit back and smile, its been a good day.

The Snow Marathon

I opened my eyes; the room was still dark, time to get up. As I made my way down the cold stairs and into the kitchen I turned on the radio, the presenter on Q102 was talking about the weather, he informed me that today the Leinster area would be the worst hit with heavy snow fall of eight to twelve centimetres brought to us by blizzards. Well that was just too bad because today I'll be running a Marathon.
It had been several days now in which I had been unable to run outside and on occasion unable to leave the house at all because of the heavy snow fall. The roads were compacted snow and ice and deadly. As I quickly ate my breakfast of porridge mixed with strawberry flavour protein shake and a dollop of honey, the radio informed me that my area was a road hazard no less than three times. I washed the remnants of my breakfast down with a protein carbohydrate drink and started putting together my kit.
I always run Marathons and long runs with a backpack called a Camelbak, it contains my water with electrolytes, I also carry some cereal bars to eat on the run and a couple of energy gels just in case I get in to problems. Part of the reason for carrying it is to get used to running with a weight on my back as in Namibia I will have to run 128 Km carrying all my kit on my back.
I say goodbye to Fi and head outside, once my GPS find the satellites I begin my run. Today I am running the Grand Canal Way, the white silent roads are deserted and as I turn in to the entrance of the Grand Canal I am met by pure soft virgin snow. No one has ventured along the canal path today. As I run the shin deep snow gathers in front of me as my feet rhythmically pushed down on the powered snow it replies with its own crump as it impacts below me. Soon the sound of the snow and the birds is all that can be heard. As I run I looked down at the snow and can see the tracks of all the different types of animals that live near the canal. Birds have hopped across the path and over the snow covered frozen canal, foxes had done the same. I run for a mile or two in the tracks of a fox and marvel at how ergonomically it had moved through the snow with its feet one behind the other to save energy as it ran through the snow. I come across the site of a kill where a fox had caught a pigeon, a few feathers and a couple of spots of bloody testament to the violence that had taken place. Occasionally as I run I surprise a black bird in the hedgerow or brambles along the side of the canal and they franticly try to get away singing loudly in their panic. Suddenly a pheasant breaks cover in front of me and takes off noisily and it is my turn to be surprised and startled.
As the miles pass I come across a group of brightly coloured boats, from the grey wood smoke curling in to the air from their chimneys the people inside are doing their best to keep warm. Some of the boats list in the frozen water at funny angles evidence that their upkeep had not been all that successful in some cases. I run on and it begins to snow, ice cold flakes fall in to the gap between my collor and my neck and melt upon my skin, the hair on my neck stands up as the freezing water trickles down my back. I look up at the sky, grey and pregnant above me. While I run I find myself thinking about things, sometimes silly things sometimes matters that were more serious. Eventually I land upon a thought that led to a question. As I run the snow against my feet and lower legs slowly feels heavier as I became tired from the running and trying to remain upright in places. Snow weighs a fair bit I thought, how many tons of snow is in the cloud above my head? More to the point how much does that great big grey cloud weigh…and what the hell keeps it up there?... and on I run.
I reach the half way point my feet are soaked through I became aware of the fact after mile eight, I am tired and in need of some energy so decide to have one of my cereal bars, as I opened it a couple of frozen looking hungry swans pushed their way through some broken ice to where I am standing. Taking pity on the swans I split the bar into three and share it with them. Once the last piece has gone the larger swan looks at me and hissed loudly, ‘well so much for being polite’ I say then realising that I am admonishing a swan decided to start running again.
The clouds above me block out what watery light the sun was giving earlier this morning and I can feel the temperature dropping fast, I don’t know exactly what the temperature is but I suspect its around the minus two mark. I start to feel the cold and decide to pick up the pace to warm myself up. Its difficult going, the stretch I am running on has had some 4x4’s diving on it since the morning and the snow is now compact ice below my feet. I find myself with the choice of either running in the virgin snow which is very tiring or in the tracks on the vehicles which is like trying to run down a toboggan run with no grips on your shoes. As the miles go on I find that my hips are in pain, for every step forward I am taking I’m also taking one side ways. A couple of times I slip and land heavily on the ice bellow. I am tired now but still have many miles to cover before I get home. This is the struggle. This is part of my training, not just the physical endurance that I’m building but the mental resilience to be able to cope with what awaits for me in the desert.
I push on, no one is around me now and the wind whistles as it blows through the giant snow covered bulrushes that grow along the side of the water. The winter scenes in the film Doctor Zhivago come to mind I smile and I push on ignoring the pain in my knee and hips. At times it is hard to tell where the edge of the path ends and the snow covered ice begins; other times the path seems to disappear and I push on over rough ground and water rushes every step taking me closer to home. I need to be able to run however I’m feeling, to just keep going.
I think briefly about tomorrow I am due to run another Marathon with my coach Rory Coleman but force the thought from my head and focus on the here and now.
Eventually I see the exit to the road that will take me back to home and I take it the ground on the road is sheet ice and slows me down but I only have to push on for another half hour and I am done. As I turn the corner into my road I pick up the pace a little and push on until I reach my house. I have done it, its been painful, cold and exhausting but I have done it; 26.2 miles in the snow at minus two.
To stop the pain in my legs I walk in to my front garden and lay down in the deep snow which I then use to bury my legs and then lay back in to the soft freezing snow until my legs go numb. After ten minutes I get up and open my door and fix myself a warm bath, I have another Marathon to do tomorrow, I need food and sleep, its going to be an early start.

The Santa run

In amongst all the training there is time for fun; although if I’m not working or training I’m most likely sleeping! Mid December saw Fi and I running together for the first time in a event, we had entered a 10K Santa run in aid of a local children’s charity with our friends Paul and Lesley. It was a cold day, the coldest of the year so far and on the way to the event the dash on Lesley’s car told us it was -2. Once we arrived at the site we were issued our Santa outfit, all runners had to dress in the Santa costume and a very strict marshal announced with a totally straight face that any runner crossing the line without their costume on would be disqualified ‘elite runners take note’ he added. I looked around but despite searching the crowd didn’t see Usain Bolt, I guess he must have gone to the loo at that moment, I hope someone passed on the message. When the race started Fi and I crossed the line along with about two hundred other Santas madly running through the Irish countryside red hats bobbing up and down as we went. Fi was great, she really dug deep and managed to do the first lap 5K without stopping, and then together we carried on until we crossed the finish line, I was very proud of her effort and determination.

Eddie Izzard

In December I met Eddie Izzard, he had come to Dublin as part of his Stripped tour, my sister was on tour with him and arranged VIP passes for Fi and I. After the show we went back stage to the green room for a chat. In 2009 Eddie ran 43 Marathons in 51 days across the UK. I wanted to know more about what had inspired him to do this, he told me that it had been a ambition of his for about 7 years to do a long run and when I asked he said that he could remember the exact moment that inspired him to do it but then just smiled and didn’t elaborate, fair enough some memories are best when they are quietly treasured. It turned out that we had a bit in common when it came to running; both interested in history and actively think about the people who have travelled the path that we run on. This was very much the case when I ran the military road in Wicklow, for Eddie it was the time he ran along Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland. ‘Maybe the last time that someone had run 500 meters along that part of the wall it was a Roman when they were pulling out’ he said. Fair play I’ll see your British army and raise you one Roman Empire!
He also just likes to run his own race and he doesn’t enter organised events, rather preferring to get his gear on and get out and run 26.2 Miles on his own. As he put it ‘I don’t feel I have to wait for someone else to organise a run for me, I like to just go myself’. Which is pretty much my take on things too, although I would and have run an organised Marathon it’s a very different experience when it’s just you running on your own; no crowd to hand to sweets and cheer you on. Running Marathons on your own is a very personal challenge with personal discipline required to push you on.

Running on the edge

It’s been a long month since I last wrote. In the intervening period I have run 210.2 miles and spent numerous hours in the gym. The weekend before Christmas saw me in Cornwall in England staying at my brother’s place. That weekend I ran 30 miles, I also had the ‘great idea’ of running a twenty miler along the rugged coastal path, actually the idea was my brother’s but I decided to do it so can’t blame him. Although being beautiful this was by far the most painful run I have made in two decades. If you are looking to blast your quads then this is the run for you. Thankfully the scenery is breathtaking but the path is covered in rocks, in some places it falls into the sea from the high cliffs above along which it runs. If you come off the very narrow path there is a real possibility of falling down a disused mine shaft. Most of them are covered and marked but not all of them, which made for an interesting discovery when I almost ran across what I thought was a small round depression in the grass only just managing to avoid plunging down a disused mine shaft.

It had never really struck me before just how hilly Cornwall is; it was a very tough workout as the hills seem to be at most every 500 meters apart. I expended a lot of energy running hundreds of feet up the side of a cliff to find I then had to cover a mile of rock covered ground only to loose the altitude again by running down to sea level to cross a beach before re climbing the cliff side path back up to the top of the cliffs to carry on.

After several hours of this I was in a fair bit of pain and the soles of my feet were bruised it felt as though they had been beaten with a rubber hose and I was running on white hot coals.

On the miles went and my legs felt hard as though they were about to burst from the constant running up and down the cliffs. The edge of the cliffs were shear and for the most part made of rock but in a couple of places they were earth and it had eroded, occasionally the path simply ceased to exist and had fallen hundreds of feet into the freezing sea crashing below. As I ran the wind would occasionally gust and knock me off balance; it was tough going. After about four hours of running I came across two men setting up their paragliders and I looked on as they ran off the cliffs to soar above me. By the time I returned from my run I had covered 20 miles of pain and beauty. I had learnt a bit about the ability (or lack of) of my running shoes to stop the rocks from bruising my feet, this was itself a valuable lesson as in Namibia there are parts of the desert that are gravel plains and covered in rocks.

As the pain increased and the miles wore on I found myself once again thinking of why I'm doing this and about the families and children I (and you who sponsor me) will help.

As I ran down one particularly high cliff across a frozen beach and to the base of the next cliff path I had to climb I found myself wondering about what I was putting myself through and then I looked up to see a sign, smiled and pushed on.