My connection to St Wilfrid’s Hospice is that they provided end-of-life care to both of my grandparents on my Mum’s side. First, it was hospice care to my grandad, and then a bit later on throughout Covid, my Nana needed in-home end-of-life care.

My mum joined her bubble during that time for 7 or 8 months and so when the Hospice stepped in, it was a massive alleviation for our family.

Photo of my family including my grandparents

I’d always seen things like the Moonlight Walk and other events advertised around Chichester for St Wilfrid’s Hospice. But it’s different when you have that first-hand experience where they actually provide expert care and take the stress off of that end-of-life period for someone you love. That’s when you realise and appreciate just how good the work that they do actually is.

It was really interesting to see the amount of people I’ve spoken to and mentioned that I’m fundraising for St Wilfrid’s Hospice, they have said “oh they looked after my grandparents / parents /auntie /uncle and they were just amazing”. I don’t think I realised just how many people and families they’ve had an impact on in this area.

The idea came when I was looking at a map of Europe. I knew I wanted to do a massive run (days, weeks, months) and I’d looked at a few different places. I looked far enough North, as I’m fair-skinned and I didn’t want to head South in the Summer, and there’s the Arctic Circle and North Cape, which is the Northern most point. To get back it totaled as 76 consecutive marathons, which sounds bonkers even now!

I knew that as I get older, the chance to take a few months out of work and do something massive both physically and fundraising-wise would be less and less as adult life and responsibilites take over. So I thought if not now then never. I picked a route on the map and rallied a support team and started planning!

There was only one charity I wanted to raise funds for and if I’m doing something this big I wanted to give back to a charity that helped our family.

Me, Tess and Dad at North Cape

It was such a strange routine we got into! First of all it was really nice to have my Dad and Sister, Tess. They had similar scenarios where they could make time over the Summer.

We had a campervan and were able to wild camp through Scandanavia, and then as we got further down we stayed in campsites. After the initial 4-day drive up, we basically turned around and I started the run!

I’d wake up at 6am, eat about 1,500 calories of cereal and have a really strong coffee to get me going for the day. Meanwhile my Dad and Tess would be packing up the van. Then about 7am we’d drive to where I finished my run the day before, I’d run the 30 miles with around 2 breaks inbetween. By mid-afternoon I’d be finishing for the day and we’d start looking at where to camp and then doing washing in rivers and making food for the evening. It was quite a logistical challenge as well as physical! It was almost like groundhog day for 2 months, except in a brand new location every day.

While I was out running, Tess and Dad formed their own routine. Dad would run the first 5 miles with me and then run back and that would leave Tess to enjoy some time to herself. By the time Dad got back, the first stopping point would be coming up. After they’d driven over and met me and we’d eaten, they’d either do a shopping run or start looking at places we could stay for the evening and the route for the next day. They would then go and relax there until I got to the final meeting spot. They were constantly doing their own jobs which was amazing as it took so much stress off me and allowed me to focus on the running.

Early on when I was running by myself I didn’t listen to anything as the experience was so interesting, looking around at this landscape I’d never seen before and just taking it all in. After my achilles went, I did start listening to some music and some great podcasts. Music was really handy for the later miles each day when my body was getting tired.

My diet was really strange too, lots of cereal and coffee in the morning, cheese and marmite wraps for each break, loads of sweets to keep my sugar and calories high and then massive dinners in the evening. I even started drinking double cream throughout the evenings as it was the easiest and quickest way to get the calories in.

Photo of my morning routine in the van

Photo of the van at a campsite

Me with my double cream drink

Early on there was the high of starting. There was ice on the hills, really nice coastlines and reindeer. It was all quite novel and my body felt good and fresh.

But then, quite quickly my left achilles started giving me some problems around day 4 or 5. On day 6 I had to wear Birkenstocks because the pressure from trainers on the back of my foot was too painful, so I had to walk for one of the days.

And then it got worse as my other achilles started hurting and I was having to walk quite a few of the early days which would take the whole day. I didn’t realise why, but it turned out that my feet had grown after 5 days of running, due to swelling. Once I realised this, we got in a bigger pair of shoes and the problems started to ease off. I went through about 7 or 8 pairs of shoes over the run. You can actually map out every 300 miles or so as you can see where we visited a sports shop to buy the next pair.

And then we got into mosquito territory, In the evenings they would find their way into the van and whenever I stopped during the day they’d be onto me. And then we got out of mosquito territory and my achilles started to heal but then I was on big motorways. So it was a trio of really tough things, all in the first 20 days and I just thought “what have I signed up for”.

But in amongst those days there were still some real highlights. We would play cards in the evenings and just have laughs about what how crazy it was and enjoy the incredible landscapes.

Around when we got to Sweden, the 30 miles started to become a bit more normal. My body had become almost accustomed to the running and the mosquitoes were way less and I was mostly running across quiet roads. We’d finish around 2pm in the afternoon and then enjoy some amazing camping spots next to lakes we could swim in. Sweden was such a highlight in general as we found a really great rhythm and it was beautiful scenery and villages.

I also had people come out to visit, so I had one friend who joined for 10 days and ran across Germany with me (around 300 miles) and to be able to share those miles with him was a great experience. From then on, I had friends and family visit for each place back. At one point we went from just me, Tess and Dad to around 13 of us!

Big group visit

Me and Tom in Netherlands

It was definitely tough to keep motivated and keep putting one foot in front of another as it’s so easy to just stop. But you think about why you signed up for it, you knew it would be hard and then also you know you’re raising funds for a charity you want to support.

One really helpful thing was having the fundraiser on my phone. My phone would buzz when a donation would come through and that got me through the bad days, knowing people back home were supporting me.

I took it a day at a time and never really “counted down” , I just did what I could each day.

It was such a nice feeling and is the first point that we actually had a little look at how many days out we were. It was a nice feeling to see the rolling hills and greenery.

Also knowing that I was only a few days out from not having to run this distance every day was a great feeling. Knowing that normal life would resume soon was a relief.

Crossing the finish line was such an amazing day. I’d been running about 30 miles every day and that final run was around 18 miles so I knew I’d be done by midday. I knew that people from St Wilfrid’s, my friends, family and even colleagues would be there and I was looking forward to seeing everyone. But I was also a bit nervous as I’d been in this crazy rhythm for so long and all of a sudden I was going to be in a big atmosphere.

It was really nice as I had people run with me that day, over the Trundle and on the South Downs Way before that, it was a really nice familiar route. Then coming down into Oaklands Park and seeing everyone, it was slowly sinking in that I would just stop running and not have to run the next day. I can just put my feet up and enjoy some normality. It was a really amazing day.

Me, Tess and Dad at the finish line

I’ve only ran once in the past 3 weeks, but I have been cycling to keep my legs moving as I think I need some sort of movement, but not 30 miles a day worth!

I’ve mostly chilled out, I’m still on sabbatical from work which has been nice. I’ve been tired in the mornings from just the exahustion of 2000 miles but I’m gradually feeling a lot better. I’m still processing the last 2 and a half months and also spending lots of time with friends and family as I’ve been gone the whole Summer so it’s nice to make up a bit of lost time.

I’ve also been enjoying having a hot shower and a coffee for enjoyment, just the simple things are so great.

I think I’m pretty happy to be done with the multi-month challenges. I’ve always had an adventurous nature where I need to balance my normal working life with outdoor adventures, so there’ll always be some events on weekends and holidays here and there. But I think in terms of high endurance running the boots might get hung up for a bit.

It’s such a great thing to set a goal where you’re giving back, especially if you’ve been supporterd first-hand by St Wilfrid’s, you know just how much care and effort they put in so it immediately gives you a level of motivation that is hard to have of your own accord.

I’d say, choose something that scares you a little bit, something a bit further outside your usual comfort zone. It’s good way to challenge yourself, and then once you tell people about it, it becomes easier to hold yourself accountable to see it through.