Leg 5
“Yes.” Of course! You can’t get all that way and stop because of a little bit of thigh burn and chaffage. Once you’ve been on the go for 23hours, what’s the harm in 3 more? I was happy to see some more new faces on this leg, Kerry Pilkington, Nicky Butler and Rosie Fuller all took turns on placing their hand on my back up the hills to make me move faster. They swear I did all the work and they were just encouraging me, but if I ever do go for the proper 24hours I’d definitely need to do it without helping hands, however lovely it was! Sabs and Ben also came on this leg to carry on the motivation, and Lucy (with one hour’s sleep after her immense leg 3 graveyard shift) happily joined us to ensure we got the right bum slide off of final summit Robinson. Sabs and Lucy were very keen that I keep to the original schedule splits for this final section, which involved more pain, but was actually brilliant because it gave me something new to focus on and a feeling of being really proud of my efforts on the last leg. We reached the 24hour cut off at Dale Head, and descending, I realised it doesn’t really hurt that much more whether you leg it or go cautiously, in fact if you go slower it just prolongs the pain, so I whizzed down the hills very impressively and was soon round to Hindscarth. By now I’d well got the hang of just flinging my poles down when I didn’t want to use them on the descents, so my new support team had a giggle about the BG being the only time you can behave like a 5year old when I flung my poles down, stripped my windproof off, dropped it and demanded banana! At Hindscarth Ben Walker and Pete Robinson suddenly appeared out of the mist and Pete decided to video and chat to me looking my absolute worst in the world! So now I know how it feels! Sorry everyone I interview during/after races! At this point I was also becoming very painfully aware of my bum/upper thigh chaffing (I know, hideous, you didn’t want to know that), but I didn’t have any Vaseline, so I had to dig into a chapstick instead...Nicky says she’ll never look at them in the same light again! Pete didn’t video that bit, but he had the camera on forever on the final ascent up Robinson so as well as making a humungous effort I also had to hold my stomach in! This was soon forgotten when Ben handed me some amazing chocolatey marshmellowy tiffin type stuff, and I legged it down the ridge, climbing carefully down two slippery scrambles and very much enjoying the final bum slide to the valley floor and soft grassy path (with inquisitive/mental black horse running at us!) to the road where I knew my Dad would be waiting on his bike for the final run in.
I was semi-dreading this final hour on the road, and secretly a little bit glad that I was 2.5hours over because it meant not being beasted on it! Al was there with Dad, and they changed me into dry socks and slipped my feet into super-cushioned trainers which saved my knees from the impact of the road. I ran as best I could, just wanting to get there now, and taking the racing line down the road at each curve, Dad high-vizing the way ahead on his bike and making cars slow down – by now I was of the attitude that they should get out of my way, I’ve just run 65miles! One beeped his annoyance at me. Knob head!
After ages on the road, and a quick poo stop (again, you probably didn’t want to know this, I’d never normally poo by the side of a road in front of my Dad and a full cast of supporters, including one with a video camera but I was past caring! And I think you should know what this beast of a round is really like, warts and all) we were at Portinscale and Booch was there to run me in! Yessss! It was the last 10minutes!!!
I was getting all serious now because I just blimin’ well wanted to get there. Booch tried to point me round a puddle, I splashed straight through it; walkers were in front of me, I grunted to Booch to make them move! We even stopped a car mid-swing around the mini-roundabout by Booths! As we raced up Keswick high street Booch started yelling out to everyone in the street “My sister has just run 66miles!!!!” like a zillion times - she would never normally shout at people in the street unless drunk, which fully amused me. And then all of a sudden the Moot Hall was in full view, with a massive crowd of people all clapping and cheering, even though half of them had just come out of pubs and didn’t know why the hell this dishevelled, sweaty girl was thumping towards the Moot Hall with a look of intense pain and joy on her face. It was all surprisingly emotional and I let out a few little yelps of cry – not just because I could finally just friggin’ stop friggin’ running but because everyone was there cheering! Randoms from pubs, my truly amazing support team, and Daz the Slug’s support team who had now adopted me. Mum put a congratulations banner around me, Dad handed me a bottle of champagne, balloons were bobbing around, people were clapping and for a 5 whole minutes I knew what it was like to be an elite athlete and win a race. My own race, so I had to come first – cunning, see?

Continued...