Monday 17th April, 2006


Uneventful flight back to Gatwick where I was nearly put on an electric trolley with some fat Americans. Said goodbye to a lot of great friends then a flight to Edinburgh. Elaine, my wife, greeted me in tears, which was not at all like her. She couldn’t be that upset that I was back.
She then told me that after learning of my finish, the family had celebrated with my mum. She had shed a few tears and had a sip of champagne but had slipped away later in the night. I was devastated but so pleased that she had held on till I had finished. It left me with very mixed feelings of both pride but also a fair amount of guilt for not being there at the end.



AFTERTHOUGHTS

The race was much harder than any of the participants had expected, mainly due to the extreme weather conditions of the first 3 days. Out of 731 starters 146 very fit competitors had to be pulled out and 3 nearly died. No sporting event is worth dying for. The organisers should have provided extra water at an earlier stage but overall the organisation and medical facilities were first class. I am very glad and proud to have completed the event but had I known just how hard it was going to be I wouldn’t have entered it.
Would I do it again? As commented on in the tent, ’I would rather nail my testicles to a plank of wood and hang from it for a week‘.

SPECIAL THANKS

There have been so many people that have helped me complete the event none more so than the 7 new friends I made in tent 87. I’d like to say a special thanks to everyone who made such generous donations whereby I raised over £4,500 for Marie Curie, everyone who e mailed me or sent messages of support , I’d like to say a special thanks to Elaine and all my family and friends for putting up with me talking about nothing but the MDS for the last 2 years and of course to my late mum for giving me that extra wee push when I needed it most