The Strawhouse 

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.

only 24 hours to go, so I am now planning on giving updates via my mobiile using twitter, so if you want to follow my slow and painfull progress the updates should appear here

Had a very giood day today with some very generous donations which meant i hit my £1,000 target, and also a sneaky donation for the last 5 miles only - which should keep me focussed.

So 2 days to go.....

I have tried to do a bit of research on WO Berry and find out where he went after Project 65 and did he survive the war.

It's not been that easy but this is what know, his initials were A.K. Berry and he was part of the Halifax 298 squadron, after releasing the gliders the rest of their mission that night was to bomb a cement factory near Caen.

I can find nothing further about him during the war, however, in 1947, 298 squadron was disbanded and sent overseas to Risalpur take part in Operation Tiger Force in India.  The RAF sent a lot of Tempests planes out as part of Tiger Force, there is a photo of Flt Lt Arthur Berry in Risalpur  instructing the IAF in the use of Tempests.  I am assuming this is the same man.  There are references to Arthur Berry on the web in relation to tempests in india with increasing rank up to Wing Commander throughout the 50's.  I have been able to trace him no further than that.

As far as my training goes, I have my final run with Ledbury Running club tonight (tues) and then I am all done.  I had a brilliant run on the white horse hill at uffington on Satiurday so am feeling pretty chipper.  Just some last minute items to get now:  vaseline, blister patches, zinc oxide tape, pedicure ( so indulgent) and passport.