Walk the Wight

After the mass of mountians last year i decided to arrange a weekend away to do a walking race on the Isle of wight which was from the east of the island finishing at the needles which was 26.5 miles, now if you havent walked then you dont know how tough this can be as we had every kind of weather imaginable, the weekend started off great with us getting rather drunk on the friday night and seeing the greatest dancer on earth who on his own manged to clear the dance floor by himself and kept on it for 3 whole hours much to the ricky martin impersonators annoyance have a look at the video feed in mark gregorys on the other blog titled Its him!! -made me chuckle for hours, so inevitably we got quite drunk and a good time was had by all. Saturday was a glorious sunny day in sandown and we all went to the beach to play with the kids and had a lunch at the oceana and did the usual seaside pics.

Then came the main event on sunday - the race - gulp. early start as we were up at 6 to drive to catch the coach to get us to the start, eventually after a long wait for the coach and brother marks bowels starting early instead of the usual 9.30 ( he's the only person i know that takes a toilet roll everywhere on a walk as a priority!!) It was cold and windy at the start and we had heard there was 15,000 people doing it, as we got closer we could see that this was true. so we started at 7.50am and as soon as we got to the 1st mile hill the heavens opened and all of us was soaked through, , now if you have walked in wet gear you will know what i mean that i was then dreading the next 25 miles in wet gear. All through the the weather was a mix of everything and the terrain was awful as it was muddy and heavy, by the time we got to halfaway we lost each other and had the solitude of my ipod ( i dont know how i managed without it ) we got to to 16 mile mark and my brother caught me up but the other mark was nowhere to be seen, we got to the 22 mile and i was suffering from cramp badly and then my brother informed me he had been taking this drink called Viper and he was like a rabbit after that, i never saw him till the finish, i got to the needles around 4.30ish seeing my brother came in about 30 mins ahead of me, it made me extremely proud of the the 3 of us that started it finishing it and especially my brother after the bad injury he had doing the 3 peaks last year. For all of us middle aged men who dont want to let go of their youth this was our day as Team Twat walked off into the sunset like Foggy, Compo and Clegg. But where was Fred? For those who dont know Fred, Fred is a prominant person i the community who i cannot reveal his real name as he is in a very public position but he is the pyschopath of our group and we call him Fred after Fred Astaire as you should see the way he runs down mountain dancing and skipping on the rocks and he also has no fear and regularly amazes me at his sheer bloody mindedness to succeed, if you know him you cannot help to be inspired by him and it was sad that he couldnt do this trip, check out my facebook albums and you will see him in action. When i look back on this walk, i now feel i can do anything as we walked 8 1/2 hours non stop with out breaks. So for all of you that want to feel fitter or just want to do somthing different, go and experience the fresh air on a dewy early morning when its quiet and hear nothing but yourself .