still working out. ..

Well now the dust has settled, the clarity of our injuries are becoming more real. Brunt is already seeing a specialist and I've been told my running days might not be as long as I'd hoped. Fingers crossed they can get us patched up for next year. We'll be announcing fully next years event when we know if I need an opt and the recovery times. Brunt is still fund raising like crazy and we'll keep pushing in these final stages of this years event. - darren

Recovery

Well, well, don't injuries take ages to heal?
Bryn is still feeling the pain in his legs and I'm on the X-ray route at the moment with waiting to find out if surgery is needed.

Thankfully I think we are thinking of Cycling next year, I think our poor knee joints might be thankful we are!
We are now totaling up the final funds for the event and completing some more fundraising days and selling off kit.
-darren

Thank you, Thank you...thanks

As the donations keep rolling in, we are a'blush with respect for all the people who kept emailing, twittering and facebooking us as we covered the the many roads of the UK.

It's sinking in now, not only all the pain but what we did and the money we are still raising.



We still have much to tie up and we'll be posting updates right up until the 11th September cut off for donations.
-darren

Done!

It was hard, much harder than we thought. 10 huge peaks in 5 days was a task and a half, just completing Ben Nevis and Ben MacDui in the first day was epic. We've received the greatest words of support from people who have walked some of our routes themselves. They've understood the enormity of getting up them quickly as we tried. We are not ultra athletes, just two normal guys that pushed ourselves to reach our goal this year. It was tough, the logistics of traveling 1350 miles around the UK, drying kit, eating at the right time, setting up camp, taking down camp, checking routes and blogging took up more time than the running/speed hiking did! Thankfully a good distraction from the growing injury list we amassed in the first few days...

29 hrs seems such a long time to complete just 122 km, but when I sit down and think, it was either up hill, over tough ground, broken paths and in possibly some of the worst out door weather I've be training in. We dodged and got caught in a few MET office weather warnings for heavy rain and windy conditions as we pushed on through the north of the country.

It's opened my eyes to the shear scale of organisation needed even for a smaller charity event like this one.

I think everyone expected me to be broken at the end, but strangely 48 hours on I'm moving around fine. I did some stretches today, my shoulders and left knee are healing nicely and the blisters are only a 3 or 4 days away from being able to take a light jog or bike ride. My IBD held up long enough to complete the event, a worry I managed to not have this time.

I've still much to add to the final blog entries with questions and information on what we got up to. I'll get these online shortly.
Thanks again for everyone's support, it's been both touching and humbling. Thank you.
-darren

Pen Y Fan

Pen Y Fan

Bryn Posey

Our final peak yahooooooooooooooooooooooo

Darren had worked so hard on all our routes his distances where spot on his timings we managed to beat, all apart from Scarfell Pike, and us getting lost didn’t help.
Our last peak we had ran quite recently and so Darrens route card was not quite as polished as it could have been well. It was meant to be approximately a two hour run with around eight point four kilometres. As we breezed past the eight kilometre point we realised we still had about another five kilometres to go!!!!!

Our run started in the same place we set off a few months ago passing cyclists, hikers and day back packers along the way. We turned the corner that is the beginning of the climb to Pen Y Fan and it lasted for what seemed forever. At some points the trail was paved beautifully at others it was treacherous and horrendous. We summated and for once enjoyed an amazing view the first in five days, we could see for miles upon miles. Our little trot down lasted forever it was almost like the mountains wanted to keep us there and wasn’t going to let us get off. The descent off of the ridge was an ice skating session on mud which when your shins hurt, your groin hurts, your knees hurt was so painful we where laughing. I managed to do a couple of spins landing on my hand s and toes body balanced above the ground praying to not land in the quagmire of dirt and filth that was our path.

The last part passes the end of the reservoir and then follows a tarmac road for about a mile before cutting down into the car park where we knew Tim our legend third team member would be. Tim has sorted our food every day, sorted our campsites ferried us between mountains, washed our kit, helped us to the point we are under no illusions this was definitely a three man event. Big big thank you to Tim for all his help and support. As we cut in to the bottom corner of the car park, out the corner of my eye I could see two girls and a dog crouching in the long grass, my initial though was what are they up to? Then it dawned on me it was our girlfriends Gemma & Lottie. I hugged my missus and tears welled in my eyes. It was over we had finished the challenge Darren had dreamt up fourteen months ago. Wow what a feeling over one hundred and twenty two kilometres and around nine thousand meters of ascent in five days. Awesome absolutely awesome.

I would say thank you to Darren to for inviting me to join him on this challenge, but right now I ache in oh so many places. Truly this was a brilliant idea, now all we have to do is finish getting the final donations in count it up and hand it out as this was all for charity.

Magic...that's all I can say.

35 mins ago we finished our mini adventure, 29 hrs to complete 122 km. I've been up some mountains and out in bad weather but not for 5 days and not when the MET office issue two bad weather warnings.

The last run in from Pen Y Fan is a 1 km run to the top car park, the tarmac felt like sponge or jelly. It was an epic week and I'll pour more out when I get back about the trip and all the good and bad.

So, for next year I was thinking of......
-darren