Picture the scene: it’s 4am and you are in a canoe somewhere on the Thames in the dark with nothing much more than a hat and waterproof jacket. You have been paddling nonstop for eighteen hours and have another six to go. It’s freezing cold. And then it starts to snow.

Whilst Easter Sunday for most of you will be a moment to have a lazy wake up three quarters of the way through a long weekend, with nothing but chocolate and roast dinners ahead of you, Phil and Dickon will have been paddling, non-stop, for over 20 hours in what is the longest continuous canoe race in the world.

"A good race usually ends with the paddlers unable to walk. Support crews should be ready to carry the paddlers up from the river into the army shower tents"

The Race in Numbers:

125 number of miles paddled 

100,000 average number of strokes paddled 

77 number of portages (stages where we have to get out and run with the kayak) 

1 mile - the longest portage

24 hours - the time we hope to achieve

51hr 36min slowest time in the past five years

Please sponsor us on this event - we all know someone who has been touched by cancer. The Institute of Cancer Research, in partnership with The Royal Marsden is working tirelessly so people can live their lives free from the fear of cancer as a life threatening disease. Please see www.icr.ac.uk for more info

Big and I are keen to support this research and treatment and appreciate whatever amount you can afford.