Off to a brilliant start. The rain stopped 20 minutes before we stepped out of the van. Unknown to me, John had been in touch with a local running club. The wonderful Alison Smith not only encouraged two of her friends, Jimmy and Sandy, to join her to see us off, but also arranged for Peter Dymond (the sign man) to arrive early enough for us to get away as close to 9.00 as possible. She also contacted James Mowat and his wife from the local Parkinson's group to come along too. So after dipping our fingers (we chose not to get our feet wet!) in the North Sea and picking up a pebble each (to throw in the sea at Land's End) we headed for the sign to have our photo take.
A few minutes later, with a countdown from our new friends and a loud blow of the horn from James - John and I were on our way (in different directions for a moment! And yes it's on video).
At last - after 3 years planning and 17 years training on my part, 30 years for John - we are on our way. All nerves gone, just the thrill of running now.
We enjoyed a good first day. 80% was uphill which was good because it helped to slow us down. We had sunshine, rain, a cold breeze and two downpours of hail, so Greg and the van were welcome sights at both our stops. Coffee and a change of clothes, something to eat and we were off again within the hour.
When we arrived at the 30 mile finish point we were greeted by two lovely ladies - Wendy and her mum, who had been following us on the blog and wanted to come out to support us and give us a donation. What a perfect way to end our first day.
A short drive to the campsite (which has the BEST showers in the world) and we are finally resting.
Can't thank you all enough for such a terrific day, and loving support. And thank you for all the donations received today.
As we travel around we are not always finding it possible to get phone or wifi connections so please be patient with us. We have a good connection tonight so I've made up for last night's very short blog. Apologies as well for the tracker which isn't working at the moment. This is being worked on and I gather it should be up and running by Wednesday. Sorry friends we're just runners!
Time to sort a few things out for tomorrow and then some sleep so we can attack a very hilly 30 miles tomorrow. Our running time for 30 miles today - 5:08:35
Do take a look at the pics we've posted, we will update these as much as possible... wifi permitting.