Terry the Mountain Goat, Part Five - Final Thoughts

On our way back down south on the train we were all awarded with medals for completing the challenge. I didn’t feel like wearing mine as I wasn’t feeling terribly proud of my efforts.

As the journey went on though I soon snapped out of this short spell of gloom and began, with the other teams on board, to enjoy what we’d done. Some would say this coincided with the bar on the train opening for the first time but I couldn’t possibly comment.

We had an enjoyable trip back on the whole. There was a lot of laughter and it reminded me of what had been good about this. The camaraderie amongst teams had been great, the mountains had been challenging, we’d all got soaked to our skin by disgusting weather but we’d all done it together.

In the days that have followed I still feel sad that I only made it to one summit, but immensely proud that I made it to the top of what I think was the worst one, Snowdon in the pitch darkness. If you asked me whether I would do it again I might say yes, providing I can climb all three in daylight. I wouldn’t look forward to another stumble up a mountain at night and in the driving rain.

I’m pleased I walked so far on the second day given my knackered leg and the weather conditions, and I’m delighted that I got so far up Ben Nevis. I would have been more disappointed had I not tried at all.

For some reason I have it in my head that people will judge me for not doing what I set out to do, that it will confirm their suspicions that I was incapable of it in the first place, but I know deep down that these are my own insecurities coming to the fore. I almost feel guilty collecting the sponsorship money for what turned out to be one peak and two half peaks.

However I hope everybody who sponsored me will appreciate how hard it was and I challenge any doubters to have a go themselves in the same conditions.

Anyway, enough of this wallowing in self-pity, regular readers of my blog know that this isn’t me at all. If you’ve read each one of these little missives from the mountains then thank you. They’ve sounded quite serious but it’s hard to capture everything from the trip and throw in my usual flippant remarks. Well OK, I’ve squeezed a few in.

So, it’s time for Terry’s final thoughts should you fancy having a go at this next year……

·      Firstly, ensure you get on with the team around you. I’ve concentrated so much on my own personal battles with these mountains that I haven’t said too much about Neil, Adam and Alan. What I can say is they were a great bunch of lads and we had such a laugh on the train. Those memories will stick with me.

·      Make sure you have plenty of dry clothes on the train. I really can’t stress enough how good it felt to get out of those dripping wet clothes and into something dry.

·      Also, take a towel. Anyone who’s read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will of course be aware of this advice already.

·      Take a headtorch with a bright light, the brighter the better, if you’re climbing a mountain at night.

·      Don’t look down.

·      Don’t look up.

·      Make sure you use plenty of insect repellent on Ben Nevis or, like me, you will still be scratching those midge bites for days afterwards.

·      Always accept whisky from a stranger from Derby. It’ll warm you up and your football club is probably doing better than his.

·      Don’t be modest. If you have to get stark bollock naked in front of a carriage full of strangers (including women) then so be it. It’s better than sitting in wet clothes and getting hypothermia.

·      Maybe don’t do the above when you’ve stopped at a station. Commuters tend to stare.

·      Don’t try to climb a mountain dressed as Scooby Doo, or any other cartoon character for that matter.

·      Don’t expect to get a bacon butty at the top of Ben Nevis.

I think that’s all.

NEXT TIME: Normal service will be resumed.

Terry the Mountain Goat, Part Four - Ben Nevis

On that second night I decided the floor wasn’t for me, it had been too cold down there the night before, and so I tried to sleep in my seat. This led to a fitful night of constant fidgeting to make myself comfortable and, before I knew it, we were being woken some time around 4am as we approached Fort William.

Looking out of the window there was at least one respite, it wasn’t raining. There was even some hopeful breaks in the cloud and you could sense the mood in the carriage brighten after the monsoon conditions of the past two days.

The night had given me a chance to re-evaluate things a little. Before I’d undertaken the challenge I hadn’t considered for a second that I wouldn’t be able to reach the summit of the three peaks. Now, with a bit of experience, and knowing that my leg hadn’t had the time to recover fully, I realised that it was irrelevant. It was a challenge, and that’s the point. If you don’t make it to the summit then, in some ways, so what? It’s always the goal, but isn’t the real challenge to have a go?

I had therefore decided that despite everything I just had to attempt Ben Nevis. The problem was, how do I break this to the rest of the team? In all likelihood I would be just as slow and ponderous as the day before. I decided that I had to have a plan.

I put it to the rest of the team that I come along with them but that they should go on ahead. The path up Ben Nevis is obvious, so we were told, and so I’d just go along at my own pace and give them the chance to get to the top. This wasn’t entirely the selfless gesture that it sounded. I found it hard to keep looking up the mountain to see that they’d stopped and were staring down at me, their eyes willing me to go faster. I felt that, on my own and at my own pace, it would be an easier task.

I have to stress that this is absolutely not the way that the organisers of the event would want teams to behave. Their role is to ensure we get up each mountain safely and put everything in place to ensure that we don’t end up on our own. At Snowdon and Scafell Pike I would agree with this, but Ben Nevis is a slightly different kettle of fish, at least for most of the way.

The rest of the team agreed to this and we prepared ourselves to get off the train at Fort William, donning clothes and boots that weren’t entirely dry.

Fort William is a small Scottish town surrounded by hills and, of course, Ben Nevis itself. It sits on the banks of Loch Linnhe and the centre seems to be dominated by a branch of Morrisons.

As we stood at the doors to the coach I surveyed the town and said “It’s really quiet here isn’t it?”

It was, there were no cars or people to be seen.

“That’s probably because it’s 5am” said Neil. 

“Oh yeah”.

The concept of time had been lost to me altogether since embarking upon this mission. 5am, 9pm, midday, who knew anymore?

We took the short journey to the base of Ben Nevis, went through the checkpoint, and up we went again. I sent the team on their way and I started quite sprightly, staying close behind them for quite some time. Soon though, we were back to the steps and loose rocks of the previous mountains, and that annoying pain in my leg decided to remind me that it was still there which meant that I began to drop back.

Unlike the previous day however I was fairly relaxed about it. I let other teams pass and I kept going. It wasn’t too bad just yet so I was keen to see how far I could get. As far as I was concerned nothing was going to stop me from trying to get to the top of this mountain.

After quite some time I saw Neil coming back down the mountain. He informed me that he’d heard via the radio that other teams were getting a bit of a bollocking for waylaying team members and suggested we stick together until the next checkpoint.

“How far away is that?” I asked.

“About an hour’s climb” he replied.

He may as well have said that it was on the moon. I carried on with Neil in front but progress was agonisingly slow. Before long however I spied Adam and Alan up ahead.

I realised that us sticking together when I was so slow wasn’t realistic, but I wasn’t ready to give up. Between us we hatched a plan. They would radio to say that I was going back down, but I wouldn’t. I would keep going and report into the next checkpoint when I got there and say that I’d decided to keep going.

Again I have to say that this was entirely the wrong thing to do but we had a clearly defined track ahead of us and conditions were good. Also, and this is the real crux of it, you have to define your own strategies for coping in life and for me I knew I would make steady progress on my own rather than constantly having to try and chase down my own team.

They moved on and I followed behind, but before long they were out of sight again. I kept going and even stopped to take a few photos for the first time on this trip. I chatted to other people and was relieved to see other people having as much difficulty as I.

My leg was sort of holding out and the clear visibility and dry path was making things considerably easier than the day before.

Eventually I found myself on a steep rocky path that seemed to ascend for as far as the eye could see. It was on this section that an elderly Scottish man appeared alongside me and asked how I was. I told him that I was having a bit of trouble and that my team had gone on ahead. He stuck with me and kept me motivated for quite some time.

He was an old hand at this mountain and knew that this was a tricky part, but explained that it evened out up ahead. He tried to point out where this would happen but I couldn’t really see where he was pointing to.

We talked about the weather and he gazed at the sky mystically and said “There’ll be rain before 9.30”.

I looked around at the comparatively clear skies and couldn’t see what had prompted this forecast of precipitation but he said it with such a tone of wisdom that I didn’t dare doubt him.

We stayed together for about half an hour but the steep ascent was, by now, playing havoc with my leg. I got to the point where I was stopping in pain after every two steps up and, at this pace, I had no chance of seeing the summit within the timescale.

After numerous attempts to try to ignore the pain and crack on with the climb, all observed passively and with great patience by my new companion, I finally stopped as I realised that I could go no further.

Unlike the day before I didn’t feel devastated. I felt quite calm acknowledging that I’d tried as hard as my body would allow. My companion agreed that going down now would probably be a good idea and told me not to worry, I’d already climbed over half way. He radioed back to base to tell them I was on my way, and they acknowledged that they knew about me already. Thankfully no further questions were asked.

We bade farewell and he headed upwards in a sprightly manner for a man in his 70s as I limped slowly back down.

I don’t know whether it was the change of weather or the fact that it was my decision but my spirits were high. I looked out at the valleys below, where houses were tiny dots and signs of life indistinct, and felt quite pleased that at least I’d tried, and was confident that if I’d not slipped on Snowdon that I could have made it. I decided that one day I would be back and this mountain would be mine.

By the time I was heading down it was approaching 9am and more and more teams, not part of our group, were busily ascending the mountain. There was quite a mix of people, some were proper mountain walkers all fully equipped and ready for whatever the mountain was going to throw at them, and some were in charity t-shirts looking as if they were out for a morning stroll.

For one moment I thought that the lack of sleep and painkillers had caused a hallucination as I could see a pack of Scooby Doos heading up the mountain towards me. Thankfully it was just a group of people in fancy dress.

I thought back to the past two mountains, and what I knew was ahead of them and wished them luck. At the end of the day, Ben Nevis is still a mountain, and there are numerous fatalities every year. Mind you, tumbling off a mountain dressed as Scooby Doo is as good a way to go as any other I suppose and may posthumously win you a Darwin Award, so at least you’ll be remembered.

Fellow climbers on their way up assumed I had been to the summit and were keen to ask me what it was like. Initially I told them the truth, that I hadn’t made it, but after a while I decided to amuse myself and starting telling people about how lovely and sunny it was up there, and how the café was open and serving breakfasts. Not one person appeared to doubt me and one group in particular were already planning what they were going to eat as they went on their way. It may sound a little cruel but I’m blaming the painkillers again.

I had a slow and painful trek back down but I eventually reached the first checkpoint at the base of the mountain. I was driven back into town with another chap who, when I’d got there had been suffering a bit and was wrapped in a foil blanket. We were dropped off at Fort William’s premier social spot, that branch of Morrisons, and went for a pot of tea.

It was whilst I was there that I started to feel a bit disconsolate. I didn’t feel happy about my achievement, just a bit sad that I hadn’t done as well as I’d hoped. It had genuinely been the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done. I firmly believe that I was fit enough to do it had I only stayed on my feet on that first mountain.

The sadness turned to amusement as we left the supermarket to head back to the railway station to catch up with the train. We had to climb a short bank to leave the car park and due to my leg I made quite a meal of it. It was one of those laugh or cry moments, I was in a lot of pain trying to climb something no higher than a metre which was massively ironic given what I’d just been doing for the past few days. I decided therefore to laugh.

Shortly after we got to the station the teams arrived to join us. I was glad to see my team back and triumphant, although it was mixed with regret that I couldn’t have enjoyed it with them.

I was flicking through my phone and could see that on Facebook some friends were looking for updates on my progress. I didn’t know what to say. Should I post that I feel like an abject failure because of my leg? Do I mention the hideous conditions on Scafell Pike?

I chose not to go into these details and posted a fairly light response explaining how we’d made it up and down each mountain. It wasn’t a lie as such as we had, just in my case not quite as far up as I’d intended.

It was there and then that I decided I would just have to go into the gory details via my blog, and here we are.

TOMORROW: THE FINAL CHAPTER (What do you mean, at last?)

Terry the Mountain Goat, Part Three - Scafell Pike

It had been a cold and short sleep on the floor of a moving train. We’d left Bangor station at around 4.30am but it had taken a long time to find a comfortable spot. By the time I’d just got comfortable, around 6.30am, the lights came on and an announcement of breakfast stirred us into life and back into our seats.

The weather outside had not improved. We stopped off at Carlisle whilst they changed engines on the train, much to the excitement of any on-board trainspotters, and we were served with a good old-fashioned fry-up to get us energised for the next leg.

Arriving at Ravenglass station in the Lake District, we quickly disembarked and were herded on to another train. I’d heard we were being transported via a steam railway but I’d imagined something a little more substantial than what we were presented with. This was one of those little locomotives that would normally chug around a Safari Park rather than a proper full-size train.

As I’d walked from our train to this one I realised the groin strain I picked up from the night before was more painful than I’d remembered, even when I was walking across a flat, tarmacked car park. I thought to myself that I just needed to warm up and then it would be fine.

I sat opposite Adam on the little open sided carriage, wedged in with a couple from another team. We were both cold and wet and barely spoke, other than to note the expression of the sheep in the fields as we slowly chugged past them. They seemed to be observing this gaggle of humans with some sort of curious amusement. It was if they were wondering what the hell we were doing. I’ve never felt as if I’ve been judged by an animal before, let alone a sheep, but if there are sheep words for ‘look at those bloody idiots’ then that was what they were bleeting to each other across the fields.

Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, but was probably about half an hour, we arrived at Brackenclose where we were to walk for two hours across hill and dale to the bottom of Scafell Pike. We set off via some roads and all was well. The rain was continuing to pound down on us but we were in reasonable spirits.

However we soon went off road and up a steep track. It was here that the pain at the top of my leg (I hesitate to keep using the word groin, it seems quite unsavoury) became more prominent. We clambered over a raging stream and then across an undulating and boggy expanse of land.

By this time I was suffering badly. I was becoming slower and slower in movement as each step became increasingly painful. Other teams would pass me and my own team frequently had to stop and wait for me to catch up. I told them what my problem was and Neil looked concerned.

“You can’t really walk off a groin strain” he observed as I gulped down some Ibuprofen.

I, however, felt that was an unnecessarily pessimistic point of view and was determined to soldier on.

As I dragged myself over the uneven hills I thought several times about the mountain ahead. I knew it was going to be hard, I knew I was in pain, but the worse thing as far as I was concerned was to give up.

I thought of all the people who had sponsored me. I thought of friends and family and having to go home and tell them that I’d failed. In the end I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t dragged myself through these conditions in this much pain to just go and look at Scafell Pike. I was going up it come hell or high water, the latter of which was looking more and more likely as the rain fell out of the sky like the last days before the Great Flood.

I have to pause a moment to say how beautiful the Lake District is. Unlike the night before we could see the terrain around us and as we came over the ridge of a hill the land fell away to a valley with a large lake. It was a magical sight compared to the miserable greyness above and was one of the few things so far that day that put a real smile on my face.

We arrived at the base of Scafell Pike and stopped to eat. As we did so the rain, which was already heavy, got even heavier, as if someone had flicked a switch to a ‘monsoon’ setting. I tried to eat my sandwich quickly before it became too soggy and Alan held his vertically in a bid to keep it dry for as long as possible.

I announced to the team I was coming up with them despite the pain I was in and I then avoided their gaze as they looked at me with worry in their eyes. We set off and from the outset I was slow and lagging well behind. The terrain was hard from the start and we were soon on similar rock steps as we had been the night before. This time I could see where I was going but it wasn’t making it any easier. Every step was so painful that I cursed under my breath so many times that I’d have filled up a ‘swear jar’ and now be entirely bankrupt.

After about half an hour I caught up with the rest of the team who, unusually, had all stopped to wait for me.

“How are you doing?” they asked. I considered my answer but decided I had to go for honesty.

“Not well” I replied.

They looked concerned and Neil quietly said, “The terrain’s like this all the way up, I’m worried you’re going to hurt yourself”.

I knew what he was saying and I knew he was right. With the heaviest of hearts I knew I had to stop.

“Go and rest”, said Alan, “then you’ll be able to have a go at Ben Nevis tomorrow”. I didn’t want to hear this and I quickly agreed and turned back down the mountain.

As I slowly and painfully headed my way back down to the check in point I was grateful for the driving rain as it was hiding the tears of frustration that by this time were rolling down my face as I passed other teams battling the elements as they made their way up. I was desperately upset and disappointed in myself and felt like a massive failure. Yet I knew it was right, there was no way I was going to get to the top given the timescale and I didn’t want to get us all stranded up there.

I made my way back down and through the medical tent, and was pointed towards a pub some 15 minutes walk away. There I was reassured to meet up with a whole load of teams, some who’d decided the conditions were far too treacherous to even attempt the mountain. I chatted to two women, one was limping after a trip and the other had nasty cuts and bruises on her face where she’d fell the night before. We bonded with tales of our various injuries and sat there with our clothes dripping whilst waiting for a coach to take us away.

As it turned out the rain then went from ‘monsoon’ to ‘armageddon’ and shortly after I had left Scafell Pike the decision was made to turn all the teams around as the weather was making the mountain deadly, with huge raging streams of water pouring off it.

We all ended up in ‘The Ratty Arms’ a nice little pub by Ravenglass station. As I arrived it resembled a refugee camp, full of soaking wet people huddled around a pile of rucksacks in the door. Some people were cloaked in those foil blankets to keep themselves warm. I went inside, found a seat, got myself a pint, sat down, and was shivering once again.

The train was delayed to pick us up so we had longer to enjoy there. I was joined by a large team from Derby and we sat and talked and laughed and drank whisky to warm ourselves up. Eventually Neil, Adam and Alan arrived, cold and wet but safe.

When we eventually got back on the train it was quite convivial, perhaps helped by the input of some alcohol. We all had tales to tell, and every single one of us had gained a new and deserving respect for the elements.

As we tried to sleep that night the train headed slowly north to our final mountain. Ben Nevis.


TOMORROW: BY THE FAIR BONNY BANKS OF, WELL, ER, LOCH LINNHE ACTUALLY.

Terry the Mountain Goat, Part Two - Mount Snowdon

The initial trek up Snowdon was via a reasonable path and I felt quite pleased with myself that this, as I had imagined, was just going to be a bit of a stroll. Twenty minutes later however, after encountering the first in a series of rocks and stones that acted as a semi-natural set of steps, I was panting like a Bullmastiff.

I knew that there were these type of steps but I had imagined a more uniform pattern, one in front of the other at roughly the same height. They weren’t. With each step you had to look and decide whether you wanted the steep one on the right or the slippery one on the left, like some extreme uphill version of Hopscotch. I made my decisions by watching whoever was in front of me, but it was hard going and I realised for the first time that this was not going to be quite as easy as I’d thought.

As well as this little problem I was also having a couple of other issues. The rain was blurring the view through my glasses and, with all the hot breath emanating from my open mouth, they were steaming up. This I solved simply by removing them and putting them in my rucksack. My vision without my glasses isn’t the best but enough, I thought, to get me by.

Issue number two was that I realised as the remainder of the light faded that I needed to rely on my borrowed head torch to shine the way forward. Unfortunately it wasn’t up to the job and only semi-illuminated the ground in front of me. These two things combined so that when I looked at the ground it was often hard to get any sense of how even or uneven the path was in front of me. I was relying on the lights of my team mates and watching where they trod.

We made our way up, crossing streams and encountering steeper and steeper sets of rocks to clamber up. To our left there was an ever growing void of blackness, but even with poor visibility we knew that was the valley below. One slip could lead us tumbling towards a substantial and life threatening drop. This was fine when the path was wide, but more and more we encountered parts of the route that involved clambering around a damp and slippery rock face, trying to find whatever footing was available.

It was long and arduous but it wasn’t too cold. The rain was keeping us nicely cool as we journeyed ever upwards. When we stopped for a breath we looked up and could see the long trail of little white lights of the teams ahead of us, and looking back, there was a longer snake of lights behind us. We were like a procession of Glow Worms heading up the mountain and it was a strange and eerie sight to behold in the middle of nowhere.

As we got higher the little radio we’d been given crackled into life every now and then with team after team reporting that they’d got to a checkpoint, or in some cases, to the summit itself.

Eventually, a very steep set of rocks turned us around to a new side of the mountain we’d not been on before and a viciously cold wind whipped around us. However, we knew we were near the top as we encountered more and more teams on their descent, so we didn’t want to stop to add more clothes.

Up and up the path went until finally we seemed to stop by a flat-topped stone plinth. I clung onto it in the freezing wind and increasing rain and watched as Neil brought out the radio to announce we’d got to the summit. I hadn’t realised.

I didn’t feel elated, I just felt cold and tired. We were there for just a few moments before descending.

If you’d asked me before I set off, I would have said that the trip down was going to be easy. Sadly I realised on the way up that it wasn’t going to be. For the most part you are heading down but the same problems around finding the right footing and scaling around rock faces were still ahead. If you built up speed and fell in the wrong place, you’d probably fall forwards and increase your chances of tumbling off the mountain.

As it was I slipped a few times as I gingerly made my way down. Every time I landed hard on my backside and fortunately each time on a flat, if wet, piece of rock.

Before long we were in a long line of other teams all heading the same way and we began to slow up, just as the rain began to pelt down harder and noisier than ever.

My light was as bad as ever and as the fatigue kicked in it was becoming harder to find the right footing with each step. I continued to fall on my arse a few times and I occasionally mis-judged the ground and stepped just that little bit further than I was expecting. On one of these occasions I felt a sharp and unexpected pain in my groin at the top of my right leg but the cold and the rain and the thought of being in the dry and the warm kept me going.

Eventually we saw the lights of the car park twinkling some distance below, but the agonisingly slow descent seemed to make our destination come no nearer, like we were trying to reach the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We got there eventually but it hadn’t been quick or easy. We were guided towards a packed café where other drenched individuals were huddling around in shock. It was 3am and all we wanted was to get somewhere warm and dry and sit down.

We found our way on to one of the coaches and sat in the dark, shivering. We listened to the rain beating heavily on the roof and knew that, in just a few hours, there was another mountain waiting for us.

Perhaps, we thought aloud, the rain won’t be as bad as this at Scafell Pike.

TOMORROW: RAIN, RAIN, AND MORE RAIN.

Terry the Mountain Goat, Part One - Run to the Hills

As I sat on a tightly packed coach, with my rucksack sat on my lap and gripping on to my borrowed walking poles, I looked out of the window at the rolling Welsh countryside and wondered how I’d got involved in all this in the first place.

It was, as I recalled, a simple exchange with a work colleague who, knowing I’d just completed a fun run, suggested I might like another challenge. How about climbing the Three Peaks of Snowdon, Scafell Pike, and Ben Nevis, over the course of a couple of days? The sensible part of my brain was shouted down by the more reckless part who was bellowing “How hard can it be?” in my ears.

As the coach weaved its way past little stone houses I looked on in envy at those occupants who hadn’t closed their curtains, who were bringing their evening to a close and were, most likely, looking forward to their bed. I, on the other hand, was about to climb my first mountain, in the dark.

Only six hours before I’d been standing on Platform 16 of Euston station, along with around 43 other teams all spending the next few hours living on a specially chartered train, watching the Rock Choir sing us off, much to the bemusement of the normal commuters arriving from Manchester and Milton Keynes.

I’d met my team, some of whom for the first time. Neil I knew from work, but Adam and Alan were unknown quantities.

Neil is a sensible type of guy and he was plainly going to be the Akela of the group. He had all the kit and could map read. He gave us a map-reading lesson on the journey up but I could tell that it wasn’t sinking in with any of us.

Adam looked the part with his bushy beard and Bear Grylls kit but in reality was a laid back guy with a very dry sense of humour. Alan on the other hand was louder and more brash, the kind of guy you don’t miss when you’re down the pub. A proper Marmite kind of guy, you either get him or you don’t and he wouldn’t give a damn either way. 

Fortunately we all clicked fairly quickly, probably because we knew that we were all going through this ordeal together. We shared a similar sense of humour and this was the thing that was going to get us through the next two days.

So as we arrived at the Pen Y Pas car park at the base of Snowdon there was a palpable sense of anticipation in the air. There was also quite a lot of rain sharing that space and so, with hoods and hats on, we left the coach, attached our head torches and, and made our way past the check point to the winding path up the mountain, hoping that we’d be back soon.

TOMORROW: MOUNT SNOWDON BY NIGHT

24 Hours from Snowdon

So, both my rucksacks (one for the mountain, one for all the rest of my kit) are packed and waiting for me. There's no going back now, the mountains await. In just 24 hours time I'll be stepping off the train in Bangor and, along with the rest of the team, be taken to the foot of Snowdon and sent forth to the peak under the cover of darkness.

Well I say darkness, we have head torches to light our way. I like the head torch, it makes me feel like I'm a robot.

Once Snowdon is accomplished we are taken to within a two hour trek of Scafell Pike the next morning, and then Ben Nevis in the wee small hours of Saturday morning, and be expected to conquer these as well. It's relentless.

I've probably overpacked whilst at the same time forgotten something vital. I do have wet weather gear and, given the forecast, I'm going to need it. We're expecting rain, and lots of it. Oh, and high winds, there's going to be a fair bit of that. Oh, and thunderstorms. 

So if I don't get hypothermia or pneumonia, or be blown off the mountain by a hurricane, I'll probably be struck by lightning whilst drinking from the metal water bottle the present Mrs Hayward bought me for Christmas. Maybe this is why she was so keen on me taking out some insurance for this event.

Weirdly though I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm going to get soaked, my feet will ache and by Saturday I'll probably smell a bit musty and my hair will be stuck to my head but at least I can look forward to returning to my own comfortable, warm bed in the early hours of Sunday morning.

As you may know I'm putting myself through this to support The Railway Children, and they in turn support homeless children who won't be going home to a warm bed tonight or any other night. 

I know there's always someone waving the tin around for a few quid but I think this is a very worthy charity. Just think back to your own childhood, or think of your own kids, or kids you know, and think about what it would have been like for you or for them to be living on the streets. 

Think about the fact that there are kids, perhaps the same age, sleeping rough somewhere tonight. Then think about my aching, bleeding, blister-ridden feet come Saturday and click on the link below, or drop me a text or an email, and donate some money to a worthy cause.

The Railway Children will be grateful for whatever you can spare, and so will I.

Thank you :-)

Please visit our fundraising site here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/noblewarriors