Aftermath

Well, we did it - you'll have seen that from my earlier post - 20 hours 38, 61st team home, 10th vet team, job done.

James has written his usual superb account, do read it.

I'll try to live up to the event and commit to words my perspective - I will utterly fail to do it justice, of course, but if you really want to know what it's like, do it. Just train first, won't you? 

Low points

• My Blackberry not working. They don't like rain in the keyboard
• Wishing I'd brought a camera (not that it was photographic weather)
• Constantly stubbing my toes on flints down the narrow path from the gallops between CPs 8&9
• The last 5km feeling like 15....

That's about it

  

High points

• Heledd and hot soup at CP3 - taking a breather, nourishment and encouragement. The minestrone was worth a kmh on its own.
• Sam & Jack calling to say that in spite of being piss-wet through, they hadn't headed back to Hereford, as expected, but were waiting for us at CP5. Just getting that message was worth another kmh
• Oxfam cakes at CP4 - choc covered krispy cakes especially. and a hug from an Oxfam girl who must have spent all day standing in the rain, cheering.
• Sam & Jack at CP5 - surprise grub and motivation top-up
• Getting to the halfway point (CP5) in 9 hours - and the hope that we were on for a good time
• Sam & Jack again at CP7
• Emma & Bobby at CP8 with hot food and an enthusiasm injection
• The unexpected water stop between CPs 8&9 - a sudden tentful of Gurkhas in the middle of nowhere
• Smiling Gurkha faces everywhere
• The joys of a clean pair of socks - even if it does mean having to look your blisters in the eye
• Lightweight overtrousers - I am a convert
• Walking in pairs - one of us marking John to keep him in check, one of us chatting with James
• Calling Liz on James' phone, and her amazing enthusiasm 
• Being able to take the waterproofs off at last, late afternoon
• Just when the signage 'tailed off' coming out of Kingston (CP9) meeting 2 guys coming the other way who confirmed we were on the right route. phew
• Ditto between CPs 9&10 where signage stopped again and the path ran out - this time it was a team behind us who knew the way
• Gurkhas and Oxfam cheering us in at every CP - you can hear the team in front and know that you're getting close
• The Slaughter & May team - chatting about software IP and applications outsourcing passed the time!...
• ....and included "Hat Girl" who did the whole event in a Crocodile Dundee hat (and who completed the course just after us in spite of bad ankle damage - top effort!)
• T-shirt man, who did the entire event in a blue t-shirt. Neither wind nor rain could induce him to put a waterproof on, although we did see him later on with a sweatshirt on top, having slowed down. Perhaps the sweatshirt sapped his powers?
• Not stopping at CP10, but grabbing a cuppa in passing and bashing on
• Seeing the racecourse - oh you beautiful thing - rails, grass, furlong boards then floodlights and a funnel to the glorious end
• Running at the end - some nutter (James, who else?!) breaking into a run to goad us on, then the pain and miles slipping away as we realised that now, nothing, but nothing, would stop us
• Sam, Jack & Bobby at the finish, cheering along with the Gurkhas and Oxfam then the hugs and handshakes and tears and agonising climb onto a podium for medals and photos
• Curry and yet more hot, sweet tea
• Everyone being so, so gentle with us afterwards
• Getting a massage in a state of exhaustion

and then afterwards, finding out that we were 61st team home, 10th veterans team, and the only vets in front of us were serving soldiers. didn't expect that.

• Calling each other over the weekend and monday to compare injuries 
• James' blog in which he manages to nail it every time. Bastard.

There was one thing I really hadn't foreseen, let alone planned for. I've done similar distances before, usually wearing green, and they've all been about something other than the walk itself. In any case, completion was expected, a forgone conclusion. The task was the assault at the end, not the tab.

I did the Bogle Stroll, much the same distance, but my team jacked it in at the 40 mile point due to injury and I finished on my own. So I completely missed the thing that floored me at the racecourse.

I was totally unprepared for the overwhelming emotion that kicked in when we broke into a run. That simple act was, for me, the defining moment when we'd nailed it. All the way through, you think, you hope that you'll complete the task, and certainty increases with mileage, but it's never 100%. 

When James started to run, I knew, with absolute certainty, that we'd get there. That we'd get wherever we needed to get to. In that moment we were absolutely unstoppable, running together, pain left behind in the wind as the four machines crunched out the last six hundred metres or so to the end, to success and the joy and relief and, and, and

 

and sitting here on tuesday night, 60 hours later, I can just about recall the memory of that feeling without welling up. At the moment of victory, having beaten the weather and the distance and the sheer bloody hardness of the event, having accepted the pain for so long and beaten it too, why am I overcome by the simple act of walking a bloody long way?

 

It was more than a long sought-after objective achieved. No doubt a part was proving to myself that I am still the man I think I am - but I didn't have that reaction when I was on my own. 

 

It has to be the team - these three relative strangers I now call my friends, for whom I would now do anything. We'll get back to a state of healthy banter no doubt, but for these few post-op recovery days I'll take the risk of voicing my view of what's going on here. When we started running it wasn't the end I was celebrating. It was these three guys, and the bond of shared experience, shared pain and unbelievable respect I have for them, for us.  

Epilogue

What's next? Well probably not Trailwalker again - been there, done that, got the lower leg injuries to prove it. 

It seems a waste not to get the team together again though - good buddies are hard to come by - but maybe something with less impact - cycling has been mooted. 

 

Bike ride des sable anyone?