With the boost he had got from the Fireman's, Sam swept into that years PW with confidence of posting a pb but it would end at Hibernian (just beyond Maughold) after running out of steam. This setback made him even more determined for the rest of the year. He registered a 2nd place in the island's End to End race in September and earlier in that month had travelled to Guernsey to do the church to church race and won in style. It wouldn't be the only off island walking race the Manx would triumph in that year.....
The entry fee, flights and accommodation was booked for May's trip to Schiedam in the Netherlands for the Continental Centurions WandelWeekend. There was a variety of races from 24 hours, 100 miles, 100km, 50 miles and 50km which was held around a very picturesque Princess Beatrix Park. For support, I had my usual pairing of Hannah & Wendy plus the addition of Sean and Aunt Susie. They would take the opportunity to make it a short break and see some sights of Rotterdam which was just down the road on the Friday. Upon arriving on Thursday evening at the hotel, which was a stones throw from the park, we met a couple who introduced themselves to us after recognising our Manx accents! It was Simon and Maureen Cox and are undoubtedly one of the most warmest and encouraging couples in the walking scene. I spent the Friday afternoon chatting to them by the pool and was fascinated by their achievements in walking which spanned back to the early 90s. Maureen had won the women's race to Peel in the PW three years in a row, was the 11th woman in history to finish the whole PW, was a centurion, had taken part in the Roubaix 28 hour walk and finished with 112 miles. Simon who had been a fell & marathon runner was a multiple PW finisher plus after finishing the PW in 1998 continued up and down Douglas prom for a further 15 miles to gain centurion status - as the annual 100 mile event was incorporated into it that year. They did tell me their ages and I was taken aback. They looked 10 years younger than what they had said and told them. Simon was here in Schiedam to go for his continental centurion badge as well, while Maureen was here to support. Throughout Friday, more walkers turned up at the hotel and it felt like an old friends reunion. Myself? I didn't have a clue who the majority were. Robbie and the other "southerners" were in a different hotel down the road. There was one guy I had been looking out for and hoped he was staying in the same hotel - Richard McChesney. This Kiwi had produced a book on his ultra walking (Walk! Going the Distance) which I had downloaded via kindle a few months before. In short, he's the craziest Kiwi I know but to be fair to Richard he's the only Kiwi I know. Myself and Sam had our Epic walk but this guy is on a different level and has got a back catalogue of them. Click on this link for a taster of what he has achieved.... Richard McChesney walks 44 hours nonstop. So, in the Kiwi strolled with his mate from Australia, John Kilmartin. Was John your archetypal Aussie, weathered and hard as nails? You bet he was. John had gained his Australian centurion in April 2015 before heading to the Isle of Man and getting through the one I had done in Castletown in the August. He was now chasing his continental one. Doing some digging has unearthed this document on John which sums up his character.... John Kilmartin. John gave me the nickname "young Pete" as I was deemed a minor compared to the ones that were going to be walking the next day!
I had a decent nights kip and was up early next day. At breakfast, there was an excited atmosphere and a few walkers were eating fry ups to carb load. I can remember I couldn't stomach anything like that and stuck to a bowl of corn flakes! I was still feeling full from a bowl of pasta from the previous night. In the foyer, before heading over to the course, I met Lee Corkill. Lee was originally from Sulby and had relocated to the UK with his wife Kerry. His cousin was Karen Lawrie who is an exceptionally good endurance walker and he had supported her throughout the years. Now he wanted to get involved on the walking side. He looked nervous and I could sense he was going through exactly what I had been back in August before the Castletown 100. It is difficult to know what to say to people even though you have been through it before. Everyone reacts different and its one reason people enter these events to test themselves not only physically but mentally also. Walking across to the course the sun was shining but there was a chill in the air. We had a small two man tent to set up so the support had somewhere to kip if need be. The organisers had set up an "international tent" that we could use for supplies as well. As was in the Isle of Man, there was the official feeding area along the finishing straight and a drinks station a mile into the 2.5 mile course. I remember feeling a sense of pride being here amongst other Manx (+ based) walkers and it was like a band of brothers and sisters similar to that in the PW.
And on the other side, the all important supporters....
The 100 miler started at midday local time and there was a slightly longer lap to begin with before settling down into an approximate 2.5 mile course. The Dutch recorded it in kilometres so it was 160.934km that was required to achieve centurion status. I started the walk with Suzannah Corkill and we had done a few training walks together before hand. She was another experienced walker who had completed the PW a number of times and also the Castletown 100. She was the 5mph queen to me and could go for miles and miles and miles at this pace. I walked with her for the first 4-5 hours before she started to struggle with hay fever. The anti-clockwise course was a good one. Starting in a park you went straight up past some large trees on either side and then came out and was exposed to some wind coming at you, over past the lake and onto the main road which had a big pavement plus cycle lanes. Then back into the park via an estate, down over a footbridge (then the pollen hit you which Suzannah had struggled with) and around past a school before going over another footbridge. This headed onto a long cycle lane which skirted a motorway before turning back onto the finishing straight where the supporters were.
Coming up the finishing straight there was a woman who I think was called Veronica. She would take your orders for what you required and boom this over a microphone. All very efficient & all very continental. Veronica was a no nonsense type of character with a wicked sense of humour. During the late afternoon I could hear people calling for bouillon and decided to try it. It was essentially a stock cube which contained vitamins and most importantly salt which helps keep cramping at bay. I would ask her "bouillon" and she would shout down the microphone "soup!" and the next lap I would ask for "soup" she would shout "bouillon!". I think it was her way of finding the fun in a not too glamourous role. Anyhow, as the event wore on I would be thinking of different things to ask for which I knew were on offer but a different way to say it. "Pepsi" vs "Cola" that sort of thing. During the evening when it was starting to get dark I thought I needed to re-apply some cream to avoid chaffing. So when I came up to Veronica I asked for "chub rub!". She didn't have a clue what I was on about and I mentioned to my support what I needed on the next lap. Coming back around, I shouted to Veronica "chub rub!" again to see her quizzical face but she fired back with "bollocks cream!". I don't know who told her but I burst into laughter.
As this was another true international event there were the obvious communication problems and add to that us English speakers have the tendency to speak loud and slow to our continental cousins to get our side through to them. There were Manx, English, Australian, New Zealander, Catalonian's, Danish, Belgium, French, South African and of course Dutch walkers. The pair of Catalonian walkers were good fun. I came up to them in the night and they had been singing songs to help keep them going. I said "Hola!" and they replied "Hola amigo!" and in my best slow but loud speaking pointed at my chest and said "Isle of Man". "Si, si Barcelona" and they pointed to each other. The next thing I knew we were belting out Freddie Mercury's classic "Barcelona, it was the first time that we met, Barcelona, how can I forget, the moment you stepped into the room, You took my breath away! BarceloOona".
Another notable thing that sticks in my mind happened around 10pm as I was coming out of the estate and heading back into the park. It was well lit in the estate but the park was a little darker. As soon as I turned a corner 3 local kids jumped out on me. There's no other way to say this but I nearly shit a brick. Trying not to swear by gritting my teeth I could feel my nerves tingling as I carried on into the park - about a minute later I could hear another victim but heard a few shouted foreign words that could easily be interpreted.
It wasn't all fun and games though, far from it. As midnight hit I just thought right lets bed in and get through this. It was getting colder (down to 8 degrees from 20s during the day) and we were exposed to the wind once you got out of the protection from the trees. Each time I hit the wind head on I thought I need to ask for a snood when I go past the support. But by the lower part of the course I had warmed up a bit and never remembered to ask! Then the rain kicked in which made it more miserable. At least I was on schedule and walking ok..... That was until about 3am when I started to feel my right ankle starting to swell. Uh oh what was this. Never had this before. I tried untying my shoe and then some anti-inflammatories but it wasn't getting any better. I had enough time in the bank to see if I could get through it. The next four hours was probably the toughest I had ever walked in. I had to keep a bit of pace up otherwise it would be curtains for the finish in 24 hours. At one stage I remember getting some soup/bouillon (!) and keeping hold of the plastic cup and then getting another one on the next lap. I used these cups to squeeze each step I was taking to take my mind of the pain I was in. As daybreak was coming we eventually found the solution in using deep freeze which had done the trick and settled down the swelling. I still wasn't walking particularly quick but was getting through it. As I turned onto the main road at around 5am I could see a figure in the distance I recognised and they were staggering about. I caught up to them and it turned out to be Andrew Titley who was aiming for his 10th 100 finish. I nudged him and he looked at me over his sunglasses and I asked him whether he was f*cked or just sleepy. He said he was sleepy and so I walked with him back to the supporters and asked Hannah to get the Vicks vapor rub out and he stuck it on his top lip to give him "a wake up call". We then carried on walking together and it took us the whole of the next lap to work out how fast he needed to go to finish. He was 2 laps down on me as he had walked with Suzannah for a bit when she had been struggling earlier in the race. We worked out the pace he needed to do and with the help of my watch we paced it for about half a mile. It was quicker than I had been walking and I wasn't comfortable and I told him I had to hold back. He carried on at that pace and got in before the deadline. That's what multiple centurions do I thought. Grind when they need to.
I was assured I was going to finish and at the start of my last lap I asked one of the judges if it was okay if Sean walked it with me. As we strolled the circuit for the last time I thanked the lap markers, marshals and feed station supporters around the course. I eventually crossed the line in 23:08:27 and was rewarded with the following pin.
Now there was just one more hurdle to get over, to get back through customs at Amsterdam Airport looking like I haven't smuggled anything inside me...…
Next month the PW was upon us and Hannah was attempting to get around on her third attempt. After dropping off Sam, after he bowed out at Hibernian, I went to find Hannah and her support Wendy, who were at Lezayre, where she had come unstuck in the two previous years. I rolled up with a cappuccino from McDonalds for her and when I drove up by the side of her she gave a thumbs up. It was obvious she was in a far better place physically and mentally this year. What was different this time around? She had walked a fair chunk of it with Pauline Clague who was adopting a few stops strategy. This could account for not seizing up like in previous years. As we got past Maughold and the 18 mile to go marker I spotted Lee Corkill standing with his hands on the back of his car with his wife Kerry next to him. Lee had completed around 55 miles in Schiedam before having to call it a day with an injury. I stopped and went over to them and Kerry came up to me and said "his head's going & he's not listening to me, can you have a word?". Lee was struggling and in a massive dip and was ready to call it a day. I simply said to him "do you want to finish the PW in the future?" to which he replied yes of course with a nod. "Well the next time you do it you will have to get all the way around to this point again and you might feel even worse. 18 miles is a training walk for you". I wished him good luck and went back to my car and drove on to find Wendy. We parked up and waited for Hannah at Glen Mona and just like a phoenix rising from the ashes along comes Lee with the bit between his teeth. He was back on it and it made me punch the air. He went onto finish and thanked me afterwards but had also explained Kerry just drove off from him! Thinking about it, that probably did more for him than my words of wisdom!
Hannah was slowing coming into Laxey and crawling up to Lonan. My stomach was twisted in knots thinking she wasn't going to make it. I got up to her at Lonan and reset her watch and told her to keep at 3.5mph average over the next 6 miles to the finish to get in.
Did she make it? Of course she did.....her finishing time was 23:33:25 and as Wendy says "never in doubt!" 😃
A pivotal moment occurred on 9th October 2016. There was an one hour challenge around the outer ring at the NSC sponsored by the Welbeck Hotel. This race is aimed at the newcomer or novice race walker and the challenge is to cover as many laps of the 800m loop within the hour. A gun goes off to mark the end and the part laps are counted up and the novice with the most distance covered is deemed the winner.
I was starting to know a couple of the walkers now and thought it would be good to get a taster of doing some of the shorter quicker walks. The gun went off and away we went. However, it wasn't long until I got shown a yellow paddle with an arrowhead ^ on it from one of the judges. This was for bent knees. In other words, I was being told to slow down as I wasn't walking properly for this type of race. I came back around for another lap and another judge made a slow down motion with her hand. I was like a duck out of water here and when I got around to where the bridge which leads to the bowl, Steve Taylor the chief judge, walked in front of me and raised a hand, stopped me dead and said "that's not walking!". I could hear a couple of sniggers from some walkers behind me. I just wanted the tarmac to open up and swallow me. I carried on but slowed as instructed and lots of things raced through my head for the next hour. Do I just stick to the long distance and sack the shorter quicker distances off? Do I look for some help throughout the winter and go to the coaching sessions Sam had so often talked about? I would think about it, but first....
100 milers were accomplished at home and in Europe, how about the inaugural one in a different continent.....South Africa, Cape Town on Robben Island in October 2016?
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