3 City Challenge 2010 Report: Part 3 – The Next 42 Miles
To read Part 2 of this report, click here.
At this point it hadn’t really hit home that instead of doing the norm – sleeping – we’d trekked through dark country roads avoiding rabid guard dogs and half-asleep drivers. We were behind time and in an effort to make up time, we decided the best choice was to pick up the pace. From Leicester to Birmingham, we walked approximately 85% of the way, mainly to ensure we were safe.
It almost seemed futile, after about 5 miles of a much faster pace in what seemed like the coldest point of the entire trip, our muscles began to seize and joints began to feel the pressure. A bridge collapsing caused one of the roads we should have took to be completely closed so we blindly followed the diversion and added another 2 miles onto the journey. Just what we needed.
It was time for the headphones to come out, we both plugged in and a sign for Coventry indicating only 15 miles to the next checkpoint gave us a major adrenalin boost – we ran for another 20 minutes at a blistering pace. Unfortunately, that pace caused a lot of pain in the joints and muscles. We stopped at a petrol station and stocked up on painkillers to alleviate the pain.
The roads from Solihull to Meriden were dual carriageways and we had to walk down them. There was no footpaths, no obvious side routes and no safe way to travel along them. What could we do? We jumped the middle barrier and ran along the middle of a busy A-road. The stinging nettles reached our knees but we put up with them for as long as possible – we knew it was safer than on the verge of the road. The nettles got higher and higher, we couldn’t carry on down the middle – we switched to the verge of the road with oncoming traffic going at least 70mph. The huge trucks passed us and the wind generated from the trucks was causing us to lose balance. The turning was in sight though, and for about a mile we sprinted to the safe turning to Meriden.
The fluctuating pace was taking its toll however and Jabu thought it was all over. We’d already ditched the challenges because stopping to get them done caused us to move slower and it was increasingly difficult to start going again after stopping. A sign saying we’d officially entered Coventry came after Meriden and it gave us a boost. It dawned on us at this point that a 3 City Challenge should really just be 3 cities, why didn’t we start in Birmingham or call it a 4 City Challenge? Nonetheless, our support car was waiting in Coventry and a mini-downpour of rain didn’t hold us back. We kicked on and reached Coventry at 2pm bringing the total journey time to 21 hours. Only 25 miles to go!
We got rid of the non-essentials in another effort to speed up our completion time, we knew that we were going to be back later than our target 24 hours but there was so much we didn’t consider, the most important thing was finishing.
We were back to a blistering pace and covered just over 5 miles in the next hour to reach Bulkington – remember when I say blistering, it’s used in context.
By this time, I was strapped up on both knees and both ankles. Jabu was popping painkillers like sweets. At the 24 hour point, we were in Rugby with just 16 or so miles left to go.
We realised that we carrying plenty of non-essentials and we really only needed water from this point on, so we arranged a third and final support stop in Wigston Parva to ditch the extra weight and make it back ASAP. We didn’t want to be running in the dark, again!
The sign for Leicestershire was most welcome and for the first time in 70 miles we recognised most places on the road signs. Through Sharnford, which desperately needs some sort of traffic calming measures, and it could have all gone wrong here. Jabu was struggling to continue, it was more mental than physical and the overdose in painkillers probably caused it – but we had to stop for 10 minutes and sit on a wall to gather our thoughts and prepare for the last part. My knees were threatening to buckle with each step so I didn’t argue with stopping. A passer-by asked us if we were alright, Jabu replied probably instinctively, “No, we’ve just ran to Birmingham and Coventry”. Quite amused, the villager chuckled and walked on.
We ran for as long and hard as we could along Narborough Road into Leicester, but it was getting harder with each step. A friend who happened to be driving by, stopped and asked us if he could walk with us for a little while – of course we didn’t mind, the distraction from actually moving spurred us on and we were back to a good pace. The friend said goodbye and we were on our own from Fosse Park (much like the previous 75 miles).
It was at this point the lack of sleep and fatigue was accumulating, Jabu’s hamstrings had almost gone so he was walking at a slow pace. I became frustrated at him and actually thought he was faking it. I mean seriously – 80 miles without sleep and your hamstrings hurt? I’ve of course since apologised.
We got word that a group of people were waiting at the Walkers Stadium for our arrival, it was 10.30pm on Sunday night. A group of about 20 Deaf Community members knew about our challenge and came to support us.
It was all too real at this point, nearly 31 hours on the road without sleeping or stopping for any prolonged period and we were walking down Upperton Road knowing that the end was just around the corner.
We turned the corner to the Walkers Stadium and there they were! Shouting us home! It was incredible. We looked at each other and forget the pain. We ran the last 100 metres, laughing to ourselves. We had reached the finishing point. WE DID IT!
31 hours and 5 minutes we were on the road. Probably minutes away from a muscle tear or a hallucination, but it was all over. We hung around for some photos and off we went.
Click here for the image gallery of the 3 City Challenge.
To read Part 2 of this report, click here.
At this point it hadn’t really hit home that instead of doing the norm – sleeping – we’d trekked through dark country roads avoiding rabid guard dogs and half-asleep drivers. We were behind time and in an effort to make up time, we decided the best choice was to pick up the pace. From Leicester to Birmingham, we walked approximately 85% of the way, mainly to ensure we were safe.
It almost seemed futile, after about 5 miles of a much faster pace in what seemed like the coldest point of the entire trip, our muscles began to seize and joints began to feel the pressure. A bridge collapsing caused one of the roads we should have took to be completely closed so we blindly followed the diversion and added another 2 miles onto the journey. Just what we needed.
It was time for the headphones to come out, we both plugged in and a sign for Coventry indicating only 15 miles to the next checkpoint gave us a major adrenalin boost – we ran for another 20 minutes at a blistering pace. Unfortunately, that pace caused a lot of pain in the joints and muscles. We stopped at a petrol station and stocked up on painkillers to alleviate the pain.
The roads from Solihull to Meriden were dual carriageways and we had to walk down them. There was no footpaths, no obvious side routes and no safe way to travel along them. What could we do? We jumped the middle barrier and ran along the middle of a busy A-road. The stinging nettles reached our knees but we put up with them for as long as possible – we knew it was safer than on the verge of the road. The nettles got higher and higher, we couldn’t carry on down the middle – we switched to the verge of the road with oncoming traffic going at least 70mph. The huge trucks passed us and the wind generated from the trucks was causing us to lose balance. The turning was in sight though, and for about a mile we sprinted to the safe turning to Meriden.
The fluctuating pace was taking its toll however and Jabu thought it was all over. We’d already ditched the challenges because stopping to get them done caused us to move slower and it was increasingly difficult to start going again after stopping. A sign saying we’d officially entered Coventry came after Meriden and it gave us a boost. It dawned on us at this point that a 3 City Challenge should really just be 3 cities, why didn’t we start in Birmingham or call it a 4 City Challenge? Nonetheless, our support car was waiting in Coventry and a mini-downpour of rain didn’t hold us back. We kicked on and reached Coventry at 2pm bringing the total journey time to 21 hours. Only 25 miles to go!
We got rid of the non-essentials in another effort to speed up our completion time, we knew that we were going to be back later than our target 24 hours but there was so much we didn’t consider, the most important thing was finishing.
We were back to a blistering pace and covered just over 5 miles in the next hour to reach Bulkington – remember when I say blistering, it’s used in context.
By this time, I was strapped up on both knees and both ankles. Jabu was popping painkillers like sweets. At the 24 hour point, we were in Rugby with just 16 or so miles left to go.
We realised that we carrying plenty of non-essentials and we really only needed water from this point on, so we arranged a third and final support stop in Wigston Parva to ditch the extra weight and make it back ASAP. We didn’t want to be running in the dark, again!
The sign for Leicestershire was most welcome and for the first time in 70 miles we recognised most places on the road signs. Through Sharnford, which desperately needs some sort of traffic calming measures, and it could have all gone wrong here. Jabu was struggling to continue, it was more mental than physical and the overdose in painkillers probably caused it – but we had to stop for 10 minutes and sit on a wall to gather our thoughts and prepare for the last part. My knees were threatening to buckle with each step so I didn’t argue with stopping. A passer-by asked us if we were alright, Jabu replied probably instinctively, “No, we’ve just ran to Birmingham and Coventry”. Quite amused, the villager chuckled and walked on.
We ran for as long and hard as we could along Narborough Road into Leicester, but it was getting harder with each step. A friend who happened to be driving by, stopped and asked us if he could walk with us for a little while – of course we didn’t mind, the distraction from actually moving spurred us on and we were back to a good pace. The friend said goodbye and we were on our own from Fosse Park (much like the previous 75 miles).
It was at this point the lack of sleep and fatigue was accumulating, Jabu’s hamstrings had almost gone so he was walking at a slow pace. I became frustrated at him and actually thought he was faking it. I mean seriously – 80 miles without sleep and your hamstrings hurt? I’ve of course since apologised.
We got word that a group of people were waiting at the Walkers Stadium for our arrival, it was 10.30pm on Sunday night. A group of about 20 Deaf Community members knew about our challenge and came to support us.
It was all too real at this point, nearly 31 hours on the road without sleeping or stopping for any prolonged period and we were walking down Upperton Road knowing that the end was just around the corner.
We turned the corner to the Walkers Stadium and there they were! Shouting us home! It was incredible. We looked at each other and forget the pain. We ran the last 100 metres, laughing to ourselves. We had reached the finishing point. WE DID IT!
31 hours and 5 minutes we were on the road. Probably minutes away from a muscle tear or a hallucination, but it was all over. We hung around for some photos and off we went.
Click here for the image gallery of the 3 City Challenge.
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