The Parish!

Returning from Kili the legs were feeling a little tight and with only 5 days of rest I knew everything I did in the next week would massively either help or hinder our chances of getting round! I therefore went spinning on Monday to keep the legs ticking over and played footy on Wednesday to run about a bit. Nothing too heavy though and with a week off work too I spent most of the week enjoying the summer and not doing too much of anything except making sure I was fully prepared and registered for the Parish!! I booked in for a sports massage on Friday which I found helped loosen the legs off, followed by a session in the Mount Murray hydropool and soaking the legs in their freezing cold plunge pool! Bring on the walk!

Got a fairly decent sleep on Friday night and woke early on walk day, after all the training we’ve put in now really is the time to deliver! I’ve known the Parish Walk is a big event on the Manx calendar, but not really appreciated the amount of people involved until we got down to the NSC for the start! My support car was loaded up with all sorts of goodies, including about 3 changes of clothes, 4 different pairs of trainers, first aid kit, chicken pasta, rice pudding, numerous energy bars & shakes, bananas, sandwiches and crates of water to name but a few things! Hopefully I won’t be needing much of it until at least Peel (32.5 miles) but fail to prepare etc! Slapped a couple of Compeeds on my feet for the start and where I predict blisters, put on my magic ‘double skin’ socks and I was off!

The first few miles of the walk the adrenalin takes over and to be honest I wasn’t feeling much in the legs. There were a fair few people about, along with Bratty & I, we had Corkey, Pasty and Steve Jackson who we’d trained with, along with Tom Sinden. The only slight issue I had was that I could already tell that my heels might be a problem, I had put the Compeeds on the wrong place! Still, with loads of people entered it was a great atmosphere and I was chatting away to fellow walkers, including Anna Q who is going up Kilimanjaro next week….great minds think alike! I made the first 19 miles down to Rushen fairly comfortably, walking with Pasty and a hockey player called Lorna. To be honest I was absolutely loving it, there was loads of people about, the amount of people who come out and support is incredible and the whole atmosphere of the day is fantastic…now for the Sloc! Headed up the Sloc (the steepest part of the walk) all the way to Peel and surprisingly didn’t find it too bad. It has featured heavily in our training and I found that having trained it so many times I knew what to expect and was still feeling fairly happy how everything was going, though it was hard to decline a beer at the top!

Heading into Peel was another fantastic experience, the amount of people everywhere cheering you across the line is ace…unfortunately as only about a third of the walkers carry on after Peel it gets a bit lonelier and a few less water stations etc! It was a real shame too that our training buddy and one fourth of the ‘Kili Climb and Parish Walk team’ Pasty pulled out at Peel due to severe blisters. Along with Tom pulling out at Rushen with back problems, it again came as a reminder that we can’t be too careful, anything can effect you on the day and a bit of luck is needed to get round the 85 miles. Still, we ploughed on, donned our high visibility jackets and headed towards Kirk Michael (39 miles).

I was struggling coming into Kirk Michael, the heat was stifling and it was getting tough, a little too early for my liking. Little did I know at this stage that it is such a mass of up and downs, when you’re down and struggling everything seems awful but then you pick up a head of steam and you feel so much more confident. Coming into Kirk Michael was my first down but I was just pleased to get there and head towards Ballaugh, just under half way round the course! Corky pulled out at Ballaugh and it again hit home what a massive challenge this walk was going to be, Steve had problems with blisters by now but after having them pop he plugged on and we were heading towards Jurby.

We had trained around Jurby and this again helped as the roads are seemingly endless! Not to be fooled by the roads this time, I knew that the stretch between Jurby and Bride (52.5 miles) was a tough stretch and I had prepared mentally that this was going to be tough. The road simply kept going and going and Bride seemed to simply never arrive, worrying about the time it was taking to get there (plus I thought Bride was only 51 miles) I was getting a bit concerned we weren’t going fast enough and I just badly wanted to get there. I think we were both struggling to Bride, which is the most northerly point, at least then you are heading in the right direction back towards Douglas. This was where the support cars really started kicking in, and we were grabbing lots of water and bananas to keep our energy up. Finally, after what seemed like forever we got to Bride, and I think at this point Mark was feeling a bit low. We stopped at Bride for 10 mins or so while Mark’s support patched up his feet and we re-hydrated and headed off. I think Bride was a turning point (literally…boom boom) because getting there was such a relief that I was in a good mood, and probably on an up while Mark was on a down. This is where having someone to walk with makes all the difference, you often find that while he was struggling I was getting a second wind, and vice versa, so we could almost drag each other along! The break helped and walking out of Bride as the sun disappeared I was feeling as confident as I could.

The other great thing that happened between Bride and Andreas was that we were caught by Steve, as we had left him popping a blister a while back. I think this lifted us too and I got to Andreas (55.5 miles) feeling ok. Only slight problem was that my shoes were feeling tight as my feet had swollen at least a shoe size so I swapped to a different bigger pair…not much better! The next section was Andreas down to Lezayre (61.5 miles) before a tough loop round Maughold that we knew was gonna be tough! Up to Lezayre was pretty tough as darkness fell but at least it was half interesting coming into Ramsey and again the support was out of the pubs and on the streets which was a great lift. I have to thank and apologise in equal measure to the kind lady who allowed us to use her house toilets in the absence of portaloos in Ramsey! Getting to Lezayre felt great but again I was a little worried about the pace and by the time we got there, despite being ahead of schedule I felt we needed to quicken slightly. Another massive advantage of walking with a partner was that we would regularly switch who was leading the pace. This helped because it just allows you to not concentrate on how fast you are going for approx half the route! I would simply follow Mark for a few miles and then I would keep the pace for a bit.

Leaving Lezayre we again left Steve sorting a blister, it sounds brutal to but you simply have to keep a consistent pace to give yourself the best chance you can. If I stopped for a toilet break or even to tie a shoelace and my fellow walkers waited then we would all lose time. If you keep plugging on then they speed up a little to catch you up (which is incredible how long it can take to catch just 30 seconds down the road) and no-one loses any vital minutes. The route from Lezayre down to Maughold (67 miles) went very fast in my opinion, which I was not expecting because I expected it to be the toughest section! Again, an example of how my expectations have a massive bearing on how difficult I find it.

This is where it went from a tough walk to incredibly draining, our support cars were going a mile at a time so that we knew how long there was to go, and the next section was definitely the toughest. You are so close to home (relatively at least) that you start thinking of the finish but equally there is 11 miles before the next checkpoint and this is the point at which the cut-off also became an issue. The support and donations I received from everybody has been overwhelming, but I just want to thank Pasty, Corke, Voirrey Samson, Lois, my sisters Fi and Beth, my cousin Mary Jane and ‘coach’ Jack for their kind words of support at this point, just knowing you were following us online made such a huge difference you wouldn’t even know and it really spurred us on at the most difficult point. I’m sure Marky B won’t mind me saying we both got a bit emotional reading Pasty’s text out of Maughold, just incredible support.

The next 10 miles there is not really much to say except it was pretty awful, by this time my feet has pretty much fallen apart, my blisters had got blisters and I was walking on them. I didn’t dare to even check my feet for fear of never getting my shoes back on so I ‘manned up’ and walked through the pain. Mark’s mum and sister Nikki was his support and Nikki became our guardian angel, every single mile she was asking if we wanted anything and it was a massive help, the hot chocolate was much appreciated! My mum and dad were also absolutely brilliant, with dad giving me the exact number of miles back so I could get my head round how far it was and they were just simply the best support I could have had. After 3 and a half hours of gruelling walking through the night, we arrived at Lonan church (78.5 miles) and the relief was extraordinary….there is no way I’m quitting now!

The 4.5 miles into Onchan (83 miles) I remember little about, the sun was coming up and there was fog everywhere so there wasn’t much to see, but I remember thinking we are going to do this and the pain my feet were causing me eased slightly. Purely running on adrenalin by this point, there was no way we were stopping as the finish approached and I tucked into what must have been my 10th banana to give me the energy for the home strait. Knowing the course now and how close we were we checked into Onchan church and headed down the prom for the finish. The support was great as we crossed the line and everybody was understandably emotional….we did it!!!! I was feeling pretty emotional but to be honest I was just too tired to feel anything, I was like a zombie and it couldn’t sink in we’d just walked 85 miles in a day, I was shattered but unashamedly amazingly proud of what we had achieved.

Time for a new challenge…..to be continued!

Dave.