2 weeks later

Sorry for the delay in updating the site after the run.

Despite my total lack of fitness and a worrying final run on the tuesday before where I scarcely had the energy to complete 4 miles, Hugh arrived at 5am on the thursday morning and we arrived in portsmouth, having stopped for a few coffees on the way, at about 8am.  I was glad to get out of the car as Hugh steadily and unashamedly polluted it for 3 hours blaming it on Pud's lasagne.

Once in Portsmouth we were ferried down to Tarrant Rushton by coach which took about 2 hours.  The coach was not a particularly jolly place, in part due to the nerves of the runners and also the fact they had been hydrating furiously and hadn't anticipated the coach driver wouldn;t stop until arriving at the airfield.  The brass band playing with all pomp and merriment on our arrival was somewhat startled to see the whole coach sprint into a nearby copse, this was definitely the fastest i moved over the whole run.

Tarrant Rushton airfield was lovely with a number of villagers who remembered the airfield in its heyday coming down to see the runners off.  After a flypast from two spitfires and a dakota the run started with a 3 mile loop round the airfield before the long trip to southampton.

The run (well mostly walk) went pretty well for me, I was startled to be the last runner for the first four hours and doggedly followed by a tempting minibus, as the evening progressed i started jogging (sporadically) and moved slowly up the field.  It took my 19 hours to reach portsmouth which included lots of highs and lows, such as blisters, bacon baps, getting lost, mcdonalds, sprinting the finish, forgetting my sunglasses, bed on the ferry, heckled by clubbing students, seeing hugh have a kebab in southampton, discovering portsmouth council had tidied up the signs.

The ferry crossing was very smooth and having booked a cabin Hugh and I slept most of the way and gorged ourselves on the massive picnic that ma and Bill had brought down to Portsmouth.  It was lovely to see them.

The final 3 miles to Pegasus Bridge became a long walk with most of the runners suffering with very sore and blistered feet.  We were greeted by a huge crowd and the army chief of staff on the bridge.  The following day we met veterans of the campaign at the opening of the memorial and generally had a great time on our "mini" break in France.

Thank you to everyone for the sponsorship the final total is someway over £2,000 which is double my target and extremely humbling.  Many of the runners were current and ex servicemen and it was very moving to spend time with such modest professionals who work so hard in the various terrifying conflcts around the world.  They fully deserve our respect and care.