The Weekend We Walked 100km Part 3

...continued from Part 2 (if you haven't read Part 2 yet, check it out here).

Off on our way out of CP9

We said our good byes to everyone for now and headed up the hill from Kingston. To keep themselves going, Julie and Jo came over all philosophical and tried to think of some inspirational quotes to keep the team going forwards.  Julie decided that our moto should now be...

'Pain is only temporary, but the achievement lasts forever'.


They shouted this back to the boys to give them an extra incentive to carry on up the big hill. Then disaster struck... Josh's other knee (the right one) gave way. He was swearing at himself. Not now, why now...

There were no more support crew checkpoints to pull out (though I doubt it even crossed his mind), and there was no way he'd turn back. It was just a case of getting through it.

Jo and Julie were in fine form (i.e. just had to keep powering on otherwise they would collapse in a heap and give up!) and were laying down some decent pace in front of Gubbs and Josh. They were getting cold when stopping so they headed on to a point where they had some shelter from the wind while they waited for the boys to catch up.

Once we were at the top of the hill we knew the worst of the stage was over and we made a good time into checkpoint 10 where we were met with a group of cheering Gurkhas supplying squash and crisps!

Josh spotted an ambulance and so went over to get his other knee bandaged up. When he returned the team downed their last energy shot of the day with a chaser of mini eggs supplied by Julie and set out on the very last stage of Trailwalker UK 2012... up another hill...

We took it nice and slow, Josh's knees allowed him to only have one gear now, but that was fine, we were going to make it to the finish before the 4pm cut off we had been warned about at the previous checkpoint.

Nearly there...

We met a couple of teams on the way in, one - the Walkie Talkies had knee injuries also so while Gubbs was Ice spraying Josh he offered it around the group. It turned out that one of this team went to school with Gem, small world ay!

At the car park at the end of the footpath part of the stage, Jo and Julie came across the sorry sight of two members of another team lying on the floor in agony.  They managed to get themselves to their feet again, but were bent in two with the pain in their knees and feet.  Jo offered them some of her pain killers, but they said they were already topped up to the max.  Julie overheard one of them mention that they wish they had brought walking poles with them.  The sight of two grown men, in agony, staggering hand in hand towards the final stage of this epic adventure brought tears to her eyes.  Julie asked the guy with no poles if he'd like to borrow one of hers to the finish.  His face lit up like a beacon and he gratefully accepted.  Jo and Julie gave guys some encouraging words and told them that they only had around another 20 minutes to walk until they reached the finish.  We didn't find out the name of this team, but we were very pleased to see them hobble across the finish line behind us a little while later.

Victory is ours!

We reached the start of the race course to much delight. This was now a time of getting the job done. As we came closer the emotion was high. Josh had a final spurt of energy to get himself closer to that finish line, which took the rest of us all by surprise. The 500m to the finish line sign had to be the best sight we had ever seen in our lives!! The bagpipes started up and so did the tears in the eyes. Jo was pleased to see that her father-in-law and his wife had made a suprise journey and were waiting at the finish line along with the rest of the support crew, friends and family

We made the line and fell into loved ones embraces. There wasn't a dry eye at that finish line.

The job was done, we had walked 100km and all we needed to do now was to walk up two steps to have some pictures taken. I think we could just about manage that!

Our finish time was 31 hours and 26 minutes. Just a shade over the 30 hours originally set, but we didn't care, it was about finishing the challenge. We didn't sleep or anything! All those hours were for walking. Minus the 4.5 hours that were spent at the checkpoints altogether, so 26 hours and 56 minutes of walking. Wow.

Julie & Jo sign the support crew up for next year.

Lots of hugs given around, popped opened a bottle of champers and then there was just one last thing to do... Eat some Gurkha curry!! Best part of the day by far! That's when we met the Blister Sisters who had come in just after us. Another team we had met prior to the event via twitter. Such a sociable event this! Then it was home to our beds via our baths.

So that's it. The last walk of the Hardcore Four that you, the reader, will have to endure.

Team with support crew
minus night support Tracy & Peter

If you have been a regular reader, thank you for sticking with us. If you are a sponsor, thank you for sponsoring, your donations have made this easier to do, believe it or not! It also goes to a great cause don't forget. Additional thanks need to go to the people who called, messaged, text and tweeted us throughout the event - that really helped, thank you.

Also thank you to Oxfam, the Gurkha Welfare Trust, the Queen's Gurkha Signals and the volunteers who made the event what it was.

But biggest thanks go to our long suffering support crew! Without you guys we would not have been able to complete it... and we would have also needed bigger backpacks.

Shorts in March?!?

Yesterday saw the team come together for a walk in East Sussex. Due to Julie & Jo being in Brighton already for a family meet up arranged for the Saturday, Julie & Jo suggested Gem & Gubbs met them on the Sunday to train the last couple of stages of Trailwalker, which of course finishes at Brighton Racecourse.

Kingston-near-Lewes from hilltop

Well prepared, after a night out which saw them dancing the night away in a classy "sticky floor" night club until the early hours, Julie and Jo managed to get to the meeting point early to meet Gem & Gubbs. The meeting point was at the before mentioned racecourse and it was our intention to walk the route backwards (in terms of the route rather than literally) from the end of the Trailwalker course to checkpoint 9 in a village called Kingston-near-Lewes, which as the name suggest rests just south east of Lewes.  We were then to turn around and return to the racecourse in Trailwalker mode taking in the landmarks and challenges along the way and storing them in our memories for July.

Walking on Sunshine!

This was Jo & Julie's first training outing on the Trailwalker route and we got started by walking along a track that took us along the back of houses with some great views of the South Downs on the left.

Talk started about 'The Call of Nature'. How frequent would bushes appear along the route if you were to receive one of these 'calls' while out on the trek? Would there be enough cover? What happens if there are lots of people?

With all three of the ladies agreeing that they will probably hate Gubbs after the event for being a man and apparently being able 'to go' anywhere, we made our way along the track further until we hit a busy road crossing. The track then went on further with a slight incline away from the houses, and any other signs of urban life, to the top of a track decline which would take us down to checkpoint 10. Though downhill now, it meant that this was going to be the last incline of note we would have on the way back and also when we return in July. 

Hmmm Jelly Babies

Checkpoint 10 is handily located near a derelict looking barn. We believe this is one checkpoint where the support crew will not be making an appearance, probably based on the very limited access. This was where we had the first treat of the day; a handful of jelly babies. The team then undertook some stretching exercises while Gubbs checked the map for the route to the next checkpoint.

We set off again following a track that took us meandering around the base of hills to a point where we made a relatively steep ascent to the top of one of them. The motivation here was lunch! Getting to the top meant we could open up our egg rolls as supplied by Gem. We were also treated to a new, and very tasty, variation of Julie's flapjack which really did wonders for the energy levels. Due to the unexpected spring heat, this was also the point where Julie and Jo decided to ditch the bottoms of their trousers legs to get the shorts working for them. 

With Gubbs polishing off his lunch before the rest of the team he decided to check the map board located at the top of the incline we just made our way up to, just to confirm that we were indeed where we should be.

Checkpoint 9

...Unfortunately for the second week in a row, we went the wrong way.  This time a little more dramatically... at checkpoint 10 where we went left, we should have gone right. That mistake took us the other side of Castle Hill National Nature Reserve and if we had kept along the route we would have found ourselves back at the Racecourse a little sooner than intended!

With new location and directions found, and whilst trying desperately to convince the team that this was the plan all along, Gubbs led the team along the hill top following Jugg's Road (which was not a road but actually just a track on the hill top).

Fortunately Jugg's Road took the team straight into Kingston-near-Lewes, down a relatively steep descent. On entering the outskirts of the village, the trail levelled out and we walked to where we assume checkpoint 9 will be on the day, an open field with a white building nearby which looked just like a windmill missing it's sails.

At this point we got out the chocolate mini eggs (the benefit of putting in the miles is that you can eat what you like!) We reset the watch and set back to Brighton in Trailwalker mode.

Check out those legs!

Stage 10 is a very small one at only 4km (a little under 2.5 miles), but it has a decent sized 125m incline in the middle of it. This is by no means as bad as say Beacon Hill tackled last week, but it stretched on much further than our legs would have liked. We can only imagine the pain you would be feeling at this point on the day itself after walking for 20 odd hours!

We got to the top at which point Gubbs decided to join the team in exposing some flesh and unzipped his trouser leg bottoms too. This was also when the team put on their sun glasses as we were now walking into the sun. In doing so Gubbs gave some advance warning to everyone that it was not the sunglasses, but rather his ears, that were wonky.

We continued, managing to follow the correct paths and field crossings back to the barn and checkpoint 10 passing fields of sheep with their lambs bleating at us as though we interrupted their peaceful Sunday afternoon.

We checked our watches for the time to complete the stage and we managed to complete this in 57 minutes,  which we were quite pleased with.  We then checked out the suggested Trailwalker time for a team looking to complete the challenge in 24 hours - 1 hour and 52 minutes... The 12 hour teams would apparently complete this in 56 minutes!  Either we have seriously upped our game, or this is a mistake in the map guide! We conceded that perhaps we were not elite athletes after all and carried on to the racecourse.

Almost there now...

After following the route back we decided to actually take the Trailwalker route into the grounds of the race course to simulate the finish as much as possible (with less aches and pains now I assume!). I have to say it took a lot longer to walk that racecourse then we had thought and it's worth keeping that in mind for July!

The last stage we completed in 1 hour and 15 minutes which is about 8 minutes faster than what the guide gives us for a 24 hour finish so we were pretty happy with that.

The stats for the full walk were 5 hours 7 minutes (including a 15 minute lunch break) taking in 13.3 miles (21.4km)... it would have been about a mile less if we followed the correct route...

Next time we are here it will be after 24 hours of walking!