Charlie Steel
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Fundraising for James' Place Charity
Story
Lands End to John O’Groats LE-JOG – August 2010
After:
Thank you very much for kindly donating to the james wentworth stanley memorial fund, not only is it tremendous for the charity but it ensured that cameron and I kept moving even when we felt we could do no more.
Our first day saw us set off from Lands End at 7 in the morning, later than planned! We biked along the A30, a very busy road, and stopped just beyond Oakhampton in Devon, we were fortunate that the weather was on our side that day, as the long hills and traffic made it exhausting both physically and mentally. We managed 107 miles.
Our second day we left Oakhampton and it was to be a long day, setting off at 6.30 this time . We travelled over the Severn bridge up to Monmouth, it was 125 miles and we were lucky that the last hour was relatively down hill, as it wasnt until 8.30 we found ourselves in Monmouth. Food/recovery drinks and bed were our main priorities every night after finishing biking.
We did eat the most ridiculous amount of food, breakfast consisted of a big bowl of porridge. The first two hours up until 9.30 we ate about 5 flapjacks, which my mum had made. Then from 9 until 11 we would eat a few chocolate bars, to get sugar pumping through our systems. At 11 we had a box of pasta each. We ate a couple of bananas also to prevent our muscles cramping up. At about 1.30 we would either have another load of pasta or we would have pizza depending on whether we had more pasta on us. Up until we finished biking we kept eating flap jacks and chocolate bars every 20 minutes approximately whilst biking. Usually we would finish biking have a large protein recovery drink and a fish and chips, throughout the day we also had lucozade carbohydrate drinks. The last few days muffins, made by my cook of a cousin Emily Fortune, these took the place of some of the flap jacks and helped us greatly!
Day three we headed along the welsh border, and I learnt that Araf means slow in welsh, this is because on the road where slow is written araf is also written, not because we were speeding and were warned to slow down in welsh by car drivers who couldnt keep up! Wales was really nice and the views matched those in Devon. It was 110 miles and then we reached Whitchurch, a small town 15 miles from Warrington.
Day 4 made for in my eyes exciting bicycling, I say exciting because it was dangerous. It was urban and us rural lads werent experts at biking through cities at this stage! We went through Warrington and continued on through Wigan and Preston and Lancaster and up to Kendal where our biggest challenge yet faced us. We had to climb Shap and it was already 5 in the afternoon and this was 16 miles of constant steep up hill. Cameron had found this day very difficult and his knees were causing him excruciating pain, but the words of the great Lance Armstrong helped him get through “Pain is temporary, Quitting lasts for ever.” We continued up and up, until about half way I realised i had got a slow puncture, this was my fourth puncture of the trip. We fixed it up and whilst doing this we received a lot of concerned looks from drivers but most of them looked at us as if we were crazy! We stopped between Shap and Penrith. This was 127 miles and shattering. After getting off our bikes Camerons knees seized up to the extent he could not bend them, and so he was taken into A and E where he was assured he wasnt damaging himself and was given a load of heavy duty pain killers.
Day 5 we thought would be a walk in the park it was scheduled to be 90 miles, but we took a detour passed Dalton and Lochmaben, where we stopped to see friends and family for a couple of hours. The weather turned as soon as we got onto the service road alongside the A74(M), it was raining and cold and we had strong head winds. My jacket was quite baggy and this acted as a parachute with the wind, so I had to just stick with lycra, even down hills we were struggling to reach 10mph! Luckily Camerons uncle passed us after a couple of hours, and very little progress, he drove alongside us in a bid to protect us from the wind, it helped and I assure everyone although it was tempting we did not grab hold of the spoiler! We eventually made it to Strathaven it was 117 miles, and easily the hardest in my opinion, I was getting stomach cramps for the last 20 miles and didnt think I could get there.
On day 6 we had to travel through Glasgow from 8 until 10, made for a stop starty bit of biking although we managed to weave our way around many cars. We then travelled along loch lomond where I was forced off the road by a lorry and battered up the front tire and only just managed to avoid getting run over by the following three cars. We then had to travel over Glencoe and this was again a really hard long climb and then we headed to Fort William, again 120 miles.
Day 7 we headed across from Fort William to Golspie and it was over the course of this we realised we were getting close to achieving what we thought would never happen, we saw the first sign for John O Groats! But our first port of call was Inverness and this required a long ride along loch ness, we had assumed that being beside a lake this would be flat, we were wrong, no hills comparing to glencoe or shap but still zapped out a lot of energy. This was 120 miles, and we knew that would make our last day simply 73 miles. But we had to get through this day first and it was the day we became mentally crazy, I began talking to myself I believe the phrase was “bike through the pain barrier” and it became quite rhythmic and so I said it again and again, for 45 minutes. Then I decided I should try talk to Cameron as he was behind me and was struggling also, but I didnt get any response so it was as if I was talking to myself still! Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it we got a puncture 10 miles from golspie so we decided that it would be best that we stop there and fix up the puncture at the hotel. It just meant driving back 20 mins further in the morning in the car and an extra hour on the bikes.
Day 8 (we finished half way through it) the morning was tough for cameron as his knees were giving him grief, I was quite keen to get back to the hotel we were passing so kept up the pace. But after cameron had iced his knees at the hotel we set off and the pace generally picked up, adrenaline started pumping through, and despite some very steep hills we got through and we recorded our fastest speed on a down hill, which was 13% gradient I managed to reach 55 miles an hour, my bike was a bit more sturdy than camerons so he had to break a bit more than me because of his bike shaking from side to side. We reached John O Groats definitely a highlight of my life but not the type of place you expect to spend it! Very touristy, but we got our pictures taken and celebrated with the champagne. Relieved more than anything!
Thanks again for your support, Charlie
Before:
Cameron Burnett and I are going to attempt to do Lands End to John O’Groats in 8 days on a bicycle. We are going to start on 6th of august and aim to finish on the 13th. This means we will have to bicycle on average 113 miles a day, which is further than biking from London to Calais every day. Its over 900 miles in total.
Why? The reason we are doing this is to raise both money and awareness for a charity called the James Wentworth Stanley Memorial fund (JWSMF). It was set up by James’ parents a couple of months after James committed suicide. James had just ten days previously had a minor operation, this led to him becoming anxious, depressed and ultimately suicidal. James had no history of depression or any other mental illness, and everything happened without him giving off any signs to his parents.
Two facts which I believe many of us are unaware of:
Charlie
Thank you very much for kindly donating to the james wentworth stanley memorial fund, not only is it tremendous for the charity but it ensured that cameron and I kept moving even when we felt we could do no more.
Our first day saw us set off from Lands End at 7 in the morning, later than planned! We biked along the A30, a very busy road, and stopped just beyond Oakhampton in Devon, we were fortunate that the weather was on our side that day, as the long hills and traffic made it exhausting both physically and mentally. We managed 107 miles.
Our second day we left Oakhampton and it was to be a long day, setting off at 6.30 this time . We travelled over the Severn bridge up to Monmouth, it was 125 miles and we were lucky that the last hour was relatively down hill, as it wasnt until 8.30 we found ourselves in Monmouth. Food/recovery drinks and bed were our main priorities every night after finishing biking.
We did eat the most ridiculous amount of food, breakfast consisted of a big bowl of porridge. The first two hours up until 9.30 we ate about 5 flapjacks, which my mum had made. Then from 9 until 11 we would eat a few chocolate bars, to get sugar pumping through our systems. At 11 we had a box of pasta each. We ate a couple of bananas also to prevent our muscles cramping up. At about 1.30 we would either have another load of pasta or we would have pizza depending on whether we had more pasta on us. Up until we finished biking we kept eating flap jacks and chocolate bars every 20 minutes approximately whilst biking. Usually we would finish biking have a large protein recovery drink and a fish and chips, throughout the day we also had lucozade carbohydrate drinks. The last few days muffins, made by my cook of a cousin Emily Fortune, these took the place of some of the flap jacks and helped us greatly!
Day three we headed along the welsh border, and I learnt that Araf means slow in welsh, this is because on the road where slow is written araf is also written, not because we were speeding and were warned to slow down in welsh by car drivers who couldnt keep up! Wales was really nice and the views matched those in Devon. It was 110 miles and then we reached Whitchurch, a small town 15 miles from Warrington.
Day 4 made for in my eyes exciting bicycling, I say exciting because it was dangerous. It was urban and us rural lads werent experts at biking through cities at this stage! We went through Warrington and continued on through Wigan and Preston and Lancaster and up to Kendal where our biggest challenge yet faced us. We had to climb Shap and it was already 5 in the afternoon and this was 16 miles of constant steep up hill. Cameron had found this day very difficult and his knees were causing him excruciating pain, but the words of the great Lance Armstrong helped him get through “Pain is temporary, Quitting lasts for ever.” We continued up and up, until about half way I realised i had got a slow puncture, this was my fourth puncture of the trip. We fixed it up and whilst doing this we received a lot of concerned looks from drivers but most of them looked at us as if we were crazy! We stopped between Shap and Penrith. This was 127 miles and shattering. After getting off our bikes Camerons knees seized up to the extent he could not bend them, and so he was taken into A and E where he was assured he wasnt damaging himself and was given a load of heavy duty pain killers.
Day 5 we thought would be a walk in the park it was scheduled to be 90 miles, but we took a detour passed Dalton and Lochmaben, where we stopped to see friends and family for a couple of hours. The weather turned as soon as we got onto the service road alongside the A74(M), it was raining and cold and we had strong head winds. My jacket was quite baggy and this acted as a parachute with the wind, so I had to just stick with lycra, even down hills we were struggling to reach 10mph! Luckily Camerons uncle passed us after a couple of hours, and very little progress, he drove alongside us in a bid to protect us from the wind, it helped and I assure everyone although it was tempting we did not grab hold of the spoiler! We eventually made it to Strathaven it was 117 miles, and easily the hardest in my opinion, I was getting stomach cramps for the last 20 miles and didnt think I could get there.
On day 6 we had to travel through Glasgow from 8 until 10, made for a stop starty bit of biking although we managed to weave our way around many cars. We then travelled along loch lomond where I was forced off the road by a lorry and battered up the front tire and only just managed to avoid getting run over by the following three cars. We then had to travel over Glencoe and this was again a really hard long climb and then we headed to Fort William, again 120 miles.
Day 7 we headed across from Fort William to Golspie and it was over the course of this we realised we were getting close to achieving what we thought would never happen, we saw the first sign for John O Groats! But our first port of call was Inverness and this required a long ride along loch ness, we had assumed that being beside a lake this would be flat, we were wrong, no hills comparing to glencoe or shap but still zapped out a lot of energy. This was 120 miles, and we knew that would make our last day simply 73 miles. But we had to get through this day first and it was the day we became mentally crazy, I began talking to myself I believe the phrase was “bike through the pain barrier” and it became quite rhythmic and so I said it again and again, for 45 minutes. Then I decided I should try talk to Cameron as he was behind me and was struggling also, but I didnt get any response so it was as if I was talking to myself still! Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it we got a puncture 10 miles from golspie so we decided that it would be best that we stop there and fix up the puncture at the hotel. It just meant driving back 20 mins further in the morning in the car and an extra hour on the bikes.
Day 8 (we finished half way through it) the morning was tough for cameron as his knees were giving him grief, I was quite keen to get back to the hotel we were passing so kept up the pace. But after cameron had iced his knees at the hotel we set off and the pace generally picked up, adrenaline started pumping through, and despite some very steep hills we got through and we recorded our fastest speed on a down hill, which was 13% gradient I managed to reach 55 miles an hour, my bike was a bit more sturdy than camerons so he had to break a bit more than me because of his bike shaking from side to side. We reached John O Groats definitely a highlight of my life but not the type of place you expect to spend it! Very touristy, but we got our pictures taken and celebrated with the champagne. Relieved more than anything!
Thanks again for your support, Charlie
Before:
Cameron Burnett and I are going to attempt to do Lands End to John O’Groats in 8 days on a bicycle. We are going to start on 6th of august and aim to finish on the 13th. This means we will have to bicycle on average 113 miles a day, which is further than biking from London to Calais every day. Its over 900 miles in total.
Why? The reason we are doing this is to raise both money and awareness for a charity called the James Wentworth Stanley Memorial fund (JWSMF). It was set up by James’ parents a couple of months after James committed suicide. James had just ten days previously had a minor operation, this led to him becoming anxious, depressed and ultimately suicidal. James had no history of depression or any other mental illness, and everything happened without him giving off any signs to his parents.
Two facts which I believe many of us are unaware of:
- 1. Suicide is the second greatest cause of death amongst young men (15-44) in the UK as well as many young women too.
- 2. The World Health Organisation estimates that on average around 1 million people a year die by suicide; that is 1 death every 40 seconds and, for every person who succeeds, there are 20 more attempts.
Charlie
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