“On leave” 8th
October – 10th December
INSTALLMENT 2: U.K. 18th October -9th November
Whenever I'm in the UK I
seem to be in a constant whirl wind of activity and this leave was no
exception.
I flew into Heathrow on the
evening of 18th October and was up early on the 19th
for the Marathon des Sables (MDS) exp in London where I learnt more
about kit requirements for the MDS and spoke with other
competitors.....It was useful, but terrifying seeing a room full of
very fit looking guys! I watched a talk given by
Felicity Aston who spoke about her expedition walking solo across
Antarctica and discussed the importance of mental resilience in
endurance events such as the MDS. She was so inspirational and I ran
to the Chiswick Lifeboat station for a night shift on the river
Thames ready to take on the world. Of course, doing the night shift worked really well with my jet lag but, as it happens, we had a very quiet night.
The
next few days allowed for a little bit of personal admin and
logistics as I moved into a room in London and did another lifeboat
night shift before travelling up to Edinburgh for a Ship mate's
wedding. Whilst I was there I saw a recommended podiatrist to try and
second guess what feet problems I might have in the Sahara
desert....basically, everything is probably going to go
wrong....Hmmm....
I
visited the Royal Yacht Britannia (to take my mind off my new worry
of foot preparation) and I nearly passed out when I saw how shiny the
engine room was kept!!! I don't know how they did it, but it
certainly raises the bar for my bilge cleaning efforts on the Lord
Nelson,
although I can't see me cracking out the tooth brush and brasso as we
cross the infamous Southern Horn of South America!?
On
returning to London I planned to finish October with a few days of
meeting friends, doing logistics and administration and running, but
the local yobs didn't have the same idea. I woke up one morning to
find the rear tyre of my motorbike had been slashed so I had to spend
one day disassembling my bike, getting the inner tyre replaced and
then re-assembling it! This would have been a lot quicker if I'd had
my tool box instead of just having a wrench that I bought at the
local hardware store! The bike saga didn't stop there as the next
morning I woke up to find my brake cable had been cut so I had to
spend another day getting parts and sitting in a side street, in the
rain, covered in oil, in a smurf suit (see pic).
 |
| Of course, I never need to work on my bike when I'm close to my tool box and coveralls- Surf suit and cheap wrench it is then! |
I
managed to get 5 (12 hour) lifeboat shifts into the first week of
November, which I thought was pretty good going and this included one
day shift where we had 3 jobs and took the total number of jobs this
year to 200!
 |
| Lifeboat shout to a submerged car on Putney hard which we tied up to prevent it from floating down the river Thames where it would become a hazard to other river users....Poor Mercedes! |
After
watching Rory Coleman give an inspirational talk on running, I took
the trip to Cardiff to do some training with him. Rory
helped me to see my strengths and weaknesses and develop a training
plan that I can do on board the SV
Lord Nelson.I know that I'm no
where near the level of fitness that I want to be for the MDS and
being at sea for 3 ½ months before the race is going to make it very
difficult for me to bring my “A game” to the Sahara....But I'm
going to do my best and hit the desert with all the effort I have!
A
good old National Express Coach was my steed to a B&B near
Stansted Airport where I stayed in readiness for an early morning
flight into Prague to begin the European stage of my leave....*watch
this space*
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