The Challenge - COMPLETE
Hadrians Wall - 39 Hours 19 minutes and 40 seconds
The start......
Yes…the Young Bucks Team did it, and with over eight hours to spare for our 48 hour target, what's more the Old Bulls also finished with a total time of just 61 hours also making their target, of course that makes it sound quite easy……
Well not wishing things to go too easily for us, I managed to come down with food poisoning thanks to a rather dodgy meal from a well known US fast food chain that is named after a State and sells lots of chicken. Two hours to go and I'm laid out on a bed with cold wet towels wrapped around me to try to help the cocktail of drugs I had taken to get my temperature down sufficiently to start at noon. We reached a stage that I was able to stand and walk and so I decided to just give it a try on the do or die principle.
So off we went to the starting blocks, in what seemed like the wrong part of town next to a ship yard in Newcastle at a portacabin we had our obligatory 'before' photo taken Myself top left, Jim top right, TC bottom left and Luke our fantastic support driver (bottom right) and finally a little bit of Hadrians Wall far left.
Starting on the stroke of Noon we began at a blistering pace making the first 15 mile stretch through the centre of Newcastle and out into the country in a little over three hours and this despite my having to march my team along the river past quite a number of river front pubs that to them were a far better option than the 85 or so miles in front of us over the coming 30 odd hours.
Ouchhhhhhh!
Not being a drinker myself (honest) and as team leader I dragged them past and off into the rather quiet and for the most part pub-less but sadly not Hill-less reaches of far northern England. It was from this point onwards that my team referred to me (I like to think affectionately) as Sergeant Major Luetchford.
Any affection there was certainly wore off as time and distance grew and as we lost the sun mid way through the evening and at around the 30 mile mark TC now called Frodo Baggins developed what has now been coined 'Hobbit Foot'. Rather bizarrely his feet which are quite normal looking under more civilised circumstances began to look like this!! (apologies for those of you eating while reading this) If your feet look like this normally please consult a physician.
With this I managed to persuade (tell) them that by the time we stop we need to have made it to a place called Brocolitia Fort a further six miles away. What I didn't tell them was that it was pretty much all up hill!
An hour or so later that amidst the whinging came the vision of a well earned rest which included some freshly cooked pasta, a cup of hot coffee which would be followed by the luxury of a nice warm sleeping bag (it was only 5 degrees C at that point) for a whole 3 hours of sleep and our only sleep throughout the entire 90 mile challenge. It was at this point as the last remnants of whinging had been overtaken by the vision of hot food and a sleeping bag and things were looking rosy, that Luke the support driver called on the mobile from the stop point which is in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night with the worrying question….. "I've got the gas…does anybody know where the cooker is?"
As you can imagine this changed the mood somewhat as it then dawned on the three of us that our supper, much like our breakfast lunch and dinner was to consist of high energy bars, water and finally Lucozade! The only alternative being chewy cold pasta. TC at this point became rather displeased (edited version) and upon arrival at base camp some time later having slowed due to the sapped moral, simply crashed out in his sleeping bag, I did the same immediately after my Nutrigrain and Fruisli Bar supper!
A few seconds after nodding off I was awoken by the most annoying sound I've heard in some time… yes the alarm call to tell us we have to get up and walk for another 54 odd miles and this time non stop, unfortunately having got up it became clear that TC's Hobbit Foot which had worsened with rest would cause him to pull out. Most disappointing for all but good timing as we were about to cover the trickiest of the terrain over the pennies.
So with a hearty breakfast consisting of …..yes Nutrigrain, Fruisli and water we set off over the lumpy sections which I must tell you, are very picturesque and totally different to see from the wall than from any nearby road. We passed the Sycamore Gap immortalised by the Robin Hood movie…..
The very lumpy terrain really slowed our pace, taking about eight hours to cover under 18 miles which was due mainly to the roller coaster like path which in places was steeper than most roller coasters, the strain on the legs was softened though by the beautiful terrain and the fact that the support team now both TC and Luke had managed to find Hot Coffee and Hot Food…absolute heaven!!!!!
We finally saw the back of the roller coaster and began to get a really quick pace going, we were even talking about the end being in sight. At our pace then we could have finished well inside of the 36 hour mark a full 12 hours early.
Unfortunately it was a good 25 miles or so away and the worst of the pain barrier was still to come in fact it started getting worse from here. Jim then developed a shin splint problem painful if you've ever had it, and then I called the Old Bulls team to see how they were getting on with day three and the news was that they suffering didn't really help us much.
The shin splint really slowed our pace, in fact it looked like Jim was going to be the latest casualty however the re-addition of TC to put the team back at full strength lifted spirits as they were in about as much pain as each other and could now whinge together! Unfortunately the slow pace was becoming a problem and so setting a pace for them to keep made me immensely popular, I would love to share some of the kind and touching sentiments put to me by my team mates at this time however children may read this, suffice to say that this is how I gained the name Sergeant Major Luetchford!
Moral began sinking to new lows and to really help, the great British weather dealt us torrential rain which would be with us from this point all the way to the end. So as any good team leader would, in an attempt to boost moral I decided to lie to the team about how far they had come telling them that they had gone much farther than they had. This paid off, the pace picked up and we were back on track for a sub 40 hour finish, my only problem to come was telling them about my little white eight mile long lie I'd told them!
As the day grew longer and we had more and more comments from people on the way saying that to try to make it to Bowness on Salway (the end) that night was madness and that the causeway we have to cross at the Salway Firth would be flooded anyway. Not a great confidence booster this… in fact one guy we bumped into advised us strongly not to attempt the finish line, he then got into his car met us around two miles later to say the same again, he was quite insistent so I thanked him for his concern (trying to be polite but he really wasn't helping) and on we went. Around a mile further on we bump into guess who??? Again!!! Bless him!!!! They're very friendly people up north but this time I really did have use all my skills in diplomacy, we didn't see him again after this!!!!
As darkness fell TC suffered a very bad relapse in the 'Hobbit Foot' department and had to reluctantly pull out again, Jim and I were now crossing more fields of cows than I imagined existed, of course in the pitch darkness this can be a little disconcerting, at one stage we were surrounded by 50-60 hungry looking cows constantly treading in…well use your imagination! Bashing sticks together was an effective way to get them to part so we could get on.
The bashing of sticks went on for some time with field after field of cows, in one field there was a really stubborn cow lying down right in our way with no way around and it had its back to us. This one didn't respond to the bashing of sticks in fact I was just two or three feet away and eventually it got up, it was a little larger than the average cow, then as I was bashing the sticks together right in front of it, it then turned around to look at me, I then noticed it had a big ring in its nose and two rather sizable horns. Oh and did I mention that it didn't look too happy? I turned carefully to Jim to tell him.. "no sudden movements" all I saw was him jumping all three fences in one go ripping his trouser wide open in the process and leaving me on my own with the Bull…..what ever happened to team spirit???
We made a hasty retreat managing to circumnavigate the bull and eventually we made it to the last marker point before the final stretch of 9 miles, certainly the least enjoyable stretch which included a four mile long dead straight road with no features or lights, just rain, the sea and the odd cow which by now were most certainly off of the Christmas card list. The good news was that we were back to a team of three and now the end was just 5 miles away.
The last 2 ½ miles really were very long, with every half a mile feeling like ten and by now we had been going for a full 24 hours, nerves were frayed due to lack of sleep, we all just wanted to remember what it felt like to sit down and not have to move.
What seemed like hours later, the end was actually in sight and as we had agreed near the beginning, I began to run the last stretch, unfortunately more of those kind warm sentiments I mentioned earlier were hurled my way….so a walk to the finish it is then!!
We were greeted by a small wooden hut and a bottle of champagne from our devoted support team who were also there at 3.20 in the morning! The bubbly went down very well indeed, in fact considering our fairly exhausted state it went down brilliantly, I would not have I think we looked pretty good considering ……….. needed too many glasses to fall over!!!!!
So there we are, out tale of crossing the country is over, and with much pain and suffering left out…suffice to say that the blisters are now three weeks old and show few signs of leaving us just yet, the good news is that Jim can now walk almost properly again, sadly TC's feet will never recover, but hey! Its all in a good cause…oh, and on that note
Thanks for those of you that have already sent in your cheques 100% of which will go to where its needed, and for those of you that are sending a cheque in now that we have successfully completed the challenge thank you.
Finally for those that felt you couldn't support us with your money on this occasion we thank you for your moral support and good wishes.......Paul
Mission Complete!!!!!!!!
Original Challenge
The experts say, and I quote "This task is not impossible but extremely difficult and will require a dedicated band of brothers" what better group of lads could you think of? (See the Team page)
The challenge for the team is to walk the entire length of Hadrian's Wall (84 miles) from start to finish in a quite daunting timescale of 48 hours.
We will be having small rest stops along the way in order to aid the chances of success although these will be short and infrequent.
The challenge is due to take place on Friday 10 August 2007 and will start at Wallsend with a projected finish date of Sunday 12th August at Wigton.
With successful completion of the event the funds raised (Through various avenues) will go towards the building and equipping of a brand new malnutrition centre, this centre at full capacity can house 25 severely under nourished children who are often at deaths door, saving their life and restoring them to full health.
This centre, if we are successful, will be the 3rd of what we hope to become 14 Centre's across Nepal, the country is amongst the worst hit areas in the world when it comes to Child Mortality caused by Malnutrition. The centre is likely to save at least 250 innocent children’s lives every year, in fact the first of its type completed just two years ago has already saved over 1,000 lives.