Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
David (Aged 55) has been a long distance runner for much of his adult life but he nearly didn't make it that far! See below for David's Story....
For three years it has been David's dream to run the length of Britain.David hopes that in running from Lands End to John O'Groats for Meningitis Trust, he will not only raise money and awareness, but inspire others to follow their dreams.
The End by David.
Thank you to everyone for their sponsorship, encouragement and support: when the going gets really tough it does make a difference. When the aches and pains have subsided I will consider my next challenge, so watch this space!!
Day 16 Finished Total Mileage 864
At 4.30pm today David crossed the finish line! He ran 430 miles in 10 days and cycled the rest in 5 days. A fantastic acheivement!
Day 16 Total mileage 822 11.00am
Just passed Dunbeath. About 35 miles to go. Stopped in Golspie last night and enjoyed wonderful hospitality, thanks to Marion and Donald Sutherland. (Fellow participants in the Great Wilderness Challenge.) David was grateful to Sandra McInnes for the Bowen treatment and had he met her earlier he might still be running!
Day 15 Total mileage 725. 9.00am
Just reached Inverness! Plan to go through all the towns and villages on the A9 north including Beauly, Muir of Ord and Dingwall to raise as much money and awareness as possible. Good Luck Ross County today!! Hopefully there are some people left in Ross Shire!
Yesterday was the first day David could walk normally, he has been unable to weight bear or stand up on the pedals until now. His big fear was reaching a hill he could not cycle up because he knew he could not walk. But he has made it and is healing slowly as he goes! What a star!
Day 14 Total mileage 695 3.15pm
Just reached Aviemore where there is internet! Hooray.
Day 13 Total mileage 634
A long day over the wild hills, damp and rainy, but David still managed 102 miles. Reached Aberfeldy and all being well will arrive in John O'Groats on Sunday Evening. Good to be back in Scotland where we know where we are going and less reliant on maps and road signs!
Day 12 Total Mileage 532
David managed a stunning 102 miles on the bike today. He is using a Ladies leisure bike to complete the distance. Early on in the day he had the offer to borrow a “good bike” from a very generous spirited stranger who lived not far off the route. David declined on the basis that it was not in the spirit of the challenge. A decision he grew to regret when the saddle bolt suddenly sheared off and nearly caused a serious incident! (Try explaining that to the casualty staff!) The second bike was dismantled and saved the day.
Mileage
The figures being used come from the two GPS devices which David wears on his wrist throughout the day. There seems to be a discrepancy creeping in between what the route planner states is the distance and what the GPS measures. This means the total distance left to cover is uncertain, but is roughly between 350 and 400 miles.
Day 13. Update by friend - as we have no internet.
By the end of day 12 David completed 102 miles. As of 4.30pm on the 13th of May, David has completed 80 miles, and is planning to reach Aberfeldy tonight.
Day 11
Sadly this morning Davids shin was swollen and painful to such an extent that he couldn't weight-bear. So the running is over. But....
This afternoon he tried the bike. Getting on and off is difficult and as long as he remembers to fall off to the left he'll be ok. Above the knees everything is working fine and his energy levels are good so he has decided to continue and make it a duathlon.
This means the bike had a make over today with new kevlar tyres! (Karen, Dan - if you're reading hope you are impressed!) So tomorrow we hit the road again.
David anticipates pains in a slightly different area now as he is not a "hardened" cyclist!
Day 10 Total Mileage 430
Quick update as it is the end of the day and I am sat outside to get the campsite wifi and it's cold! A tough day but David is inspired to continue by all the support. He completed 40 yesterday and again today. It is now pain all the way, with occasional relief when the tablets are working at their best.
Kendal tonight and David finshed with a climb of about 2 miles as a head start towards Schap tomorrow, yugh!
Day 9 - 1.30pm Total Mileage 368
The euphoria of getting over the achilles problem has been wiped out this am by a painful right shin which developed yesterday and today is a handsome red lump. David walked the early part of the day and then realised it was no more painful to run so he is back to the running again. We think the new bionic leg has stressed out his other leg.
More later....IT permitting!
Day 8 Total Mileage 349
The achilles settled enough for David to clock up 49 miles and we have reached Warrington. Our campsite tonight is a by a beautiful river with geese and ducks roaming about the place and this all on the edge of the metropolis! David received lots of support again today and some stopped to give donations either at the van or to David himself.
The day started wet and miserable and David was cold, he thought he was getting confused and possibly hypothermic when he struggled to work out who the Prime Minister is!
Thank you so much to Mr and Mrs Done ( owners-Woodbine Cottage Caravan Park, Warrington) who kindly donated some anti-inflammatory gel to the cause when they saw David hobbling to the cold tap to douse his legs!!!
Day 7 6.15pm
Unfortunately today was an enforced rest day in Shrewsbury. David's achilles tendon was very tender so the day was spent applying ice. This means the sixteen day target is not acheivable (unless he sneaks on a bus!) but the GPS records will find him out. He is still determined to finish the job, which is kind of appropriate given that Shrewsbury is the birth place of Charles Darwin- "Survival of the fittest".
Todays pic is the offending achilles tendon undergoing "treatment"!
Day 6 9.30pm Total Mileage 300 1/3 way.
After a long slow day yesterday as David stocked up on calories he clocked up 41.7 miles and stopped between Hereford and Ludlow. Today he was back on form and reached the north side of Shrewsbury. So what does an Endurance runner do to chill out in the evenings? See pic. Here David is running ice cold water over his legs to speed recovery for the next days running, followed by a massage as instructed by Diane!
When the veil of the Endurance mindset lifts he is in good form still and is enjoying the culinary delights of each county. Cornish Pasties, Devonshire Custard and Double Gloucester cheese! But you can imagine the problem we had in the next county in trying to persuade a half ton Hereford Bull into the back of a camper van!
Thank you to all the supporters on the A49 yesterday who began to toot on a regular basis as they kept passing David when they went about their business!
Day 5 - 10 am Total Mileage 227- 1/4 way!
Beautiful morning in Monmouth and David has done 17 miles already! We are having trouble finding time for him to eat everything he needs to keep going! For those of you who know David well, you will know that this is not normally a problem!!! Yesterday he was so tired at the celebration photos at the Welsh Border that he forgot to stand in front of the sign! See Pics!
Many thanks to the Bowers family and the campsite Woodlands view, they allowed us to stay for free because it is for charity. We found them on UKCampsites.co.uk their postcode is GL16 8JA, a beautiful country village and we wish we could have seen more!
Day 4 Midday
Reached Bristol and will hopefully cross the Severn Road Bridge later today.
Later....Tough finish to the day across the Severn Bridge, 43 miles in total. Early finish as David a bit tired after yesterdays great effort!
Day 3
Today has been a good days running. 60 miles under the belt! Now approx 25 miles from Bristol. David is glad that so far Somerset seems flatter than Devon and Cornwall; "Now I know why they don't play cricket South West of Taunton (theres no where flat enough to cut a strip!)"
Its great to meet so many other "End to Enders", it's a bit like being in a secret endurance event! Today we were able to help out a cyclist in need of a screw driver, he was greatly missing the use of his lowest gear on all the hills!!!!
I thought the scenery today was very pretty with lots of thatched cottages but David didn't seem to notice!
Update!
Sorry for the news blackout! Having dongle problems and it's nothing to do with the running! 55 miles yesterday and 53 today. David still going strong, it's incredible to watch! He is filthy at the end of the day from road dirt and his voice is hoarse, so he can't boss me about too much now! Both the past two days have been grim runnnig on dual carriage way. Yesterday at the camp site we met some cyclists who kindly lent their massage expert (Diane) to David. They are cycling for Cancer Reseach and hope to finish the Friday before us. More tomorrow if the dongle permits. (I hear you can get a cream for that!)
Three sleeps to go.....
To get the best effect for the following, you need to imagine a speeded up film with the Benny Hill theme "yackety sax" playing in the background.
We spend all morning loading the van, in and out the house, ticking lists, getting mad asking have you got this? Have you done that? Finally it's time to go, we all get in the van and....... for a while nothing happens.
Then we all get out the van and into the small black car beside it. It races to tescos and everyone runs in and straight back out, into the car and speeds back to the house. The bonnets are lifted, everyone holds their breath... Then they shout "Hooray!" as the van fires into life with the aid of shiny new jump leads!
40 mins later we're off, if thats the height of our troubles then we've got it made.
Did I say three sleeps to go? Well we missed one because we drove through the night and arrived thursday lunch time. David says he's glad he doesnt have to drive back....talk about looking at the bright side of life.........
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. They’ll send your money directly to the charity and reclaim Gift Aid on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst cutting costs for the charity.
David's Story.......
"It was Crumlin, December 1954 and I was 3 months old. I had just been put down after my feed, when I was heard to give a little cry. As it was Saturday, daddy was there. He picked me up and I was promptly sick over his shoulder-nothing unusual there! After I had stopped crying, he put me down again. Sometime later I was heard to make a "strange-sounding cry". I was sick again, (more so this time) my eyes had rolled and I had a fever.
Suspecting there was something very wrong, daddy raced the half mile to the doctor's surgery. He banged on the door and Dr.Blair answered. Daddy briefly described my symptoms. The doctor's response was immediate-after apologising to his patient, (sadly I never found out who this was) he and daddy came round in the doctor's car. He could see that I was very ill, but wouldn't offer a diagnosis. To save time, he reckoned the best course of action would be to drive to straight to the Children's Hospital on the Falls Road. As my grandfather was the only one with a car, he was quickly sent for.
My mother and I were bundled into the car. As grandad was a fast driver anyway, I guess he would have covered the 14 miles or so pretty swiftly. After a quick examination at the hospital, it was thought that I may have some form of meningitis and I should go straight to the fever hospital at Purdysburn, some 5 miles away. The problem was that in those days, any form of meningitis was thought to be highly contagious and I couldn't be taken in one of their ambulances. (My mother was later reprimanded for not incinerating my clothes.) Rather than wait for a Purdysburn ambulance to come out, they said it would be quicker to go by car and in theory it would have been. Unfortunately my grandfather got slightly lost en route. (Sat Nav hadn't been invented!)
Eventually we got there and I was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis. I was placed in an isolation ward and given a lumbar puncture, then antibiotics. I appeared in the Belfast Telegraph's seriously ill register for 19 days. Then, as now, many of those lucky enough to survive are left with a variety of disabilities;- deafness, brain damage, epilepsy or loss of limbs. So to say that I feel fortunate to be able to undertake my current challenge is something of an understatement! I was home by Christmas and made a full recovery with no obvious side effects."
