Final day : Close House hotel to Newcastle

So it arrived, our final run, our 5th Marathon in 5 days. Staying at our final destination,Close House we had had a good night's rest. A few new runners joined us for a sunny riverside jog down the Tyne river to the centre of town.

Our halfway stop at Newcastle's Monument created an attention gaining PR event for the charity, and also a final rub down stretch for those in need.

Lots of runners joined us for a 10m run to the coast @ Whitley Bay. On route we were joined by 6 cyclist who'd come 405m in 5days from Ivan's home town in Essex. We all gathered on the cliffs above the beecha before dropping down passed TV cameras to an awaiting arrival party of some 500 cheering people.

At last the sea, and a well earned beer!

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Day6 to Hexham

A overcast start with a gut busting 1m steady climb back up onto Hadrian's military road.

The clouds darkened, the rain came & slowly increased in intensity. A stop at Homestead (a roman garrison ruin) saw us huddling in the cafe scoffing pasties and warm tea. 30mins of waiting for the rain to ease we gave up resumed a soggy jog. The weather decided we'd not had enough wet stuff; it turned up the dial. Visabilty dropped to a few 100m, the splashes bounced 3" back off the road & soon formed rivers 2" deep running down the hills we climbed and 6-8" deep in the dips. Unreal is the only way to describe the feeling; we were laughing & shouting at the clouds; and were then cover in spray from passing cars and trucks (crazy)

5m outside Hexham, our penultimate town, we meet up with Olympic 800 & 1500m runner Steve Cram (pic to come). We jogged on with him and then had a race around the 400m track with his partner Alison.

To wrap up a surreal day, a music and dance troop gave us a masked performance of a dream like circus, trackside: all quite bizarre, but great all the same. (Pic to come).

(No pic yet due to the rain)

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Day5 to Hadrian's Wall

Typical northern goodbye, drizzle and grey sky gave way to full on rain and black clouds. 5m of drenched running along an A road finally passed and winding country lanes toward Hadrian's Wall.

We've run as a tight group this morning, but with the pace too slow for some legs a few stretched out to ease the stiffness. We're running 4.40hr pace but with stops, completing our runs in about 6.

Feet are fine but the left knee is struggling after a day1 incidence!

Finish 3.30ish today (hopefully)!!

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Day4 - Keswick to Carlise

A leisurely start for our 28m run gradually changed to a hard day as we got no closer than 14m from Carlisle for over 8 long hot extra miles.

The scenery remained breath taking despite the cool morning giving way to a sweaty 21C

After 24m we reached a sign saying Carlisle 12m!! Our head dropped a little and we started to walk. Word come that there was a massive reception awaiting us, so we engineered a rapid lift to 2m outside the city.

We arrived to a huge crowd and dancing girls!!

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Day 3 Whitehaven to Keswick

A massive breakfast to kick us off, then Eastward bound. My first marathon run started and then finished with a long hard climb. The final Winlatter pass was a constant 3 mile hill followed by an equally thigh shredding 2mile decline - a few beers were very much needed to cool us down :)

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Day2 -arriving into Whitehaven

150miles counting a 10mile wrong turn. Sore legs but big smiles :) the old dis-used railway line created the prefect guide, off road and away from traffic. A hard 2nd day now we turn tail

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Keswick bound

100miles done & everyone's feeling the legs burn. Fortunately the amount on down hill now outweighs the up.

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Over the top

5miles climb to the summit - Penrith next stop

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End of Day1

Who needs socks? Glorious sunshine on departure quickly gave way to full on rain! Despite that, some extremely challenging hill climbs everyone's still smiling - 65miles done

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TV cameras & everything at the start

Tynemouth Day 1
275 miles to go
Sunshine & smiles

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My feet pre challenge

1 day & counting before 275miles of pain !

Here comes the biggest single physical challenge of my life - so I thought I'd remind myself what they looked like before I tear them to pieces over the Pennines

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Belize - Cave tubing & ATV (Quad biking)

Unable to spend more than one day chilling out, we took an early water taxi back to the mainland for some real tourist 'tours'

We had picked a big firm but without a cruise ship in port we were greeted by a guide in his beaten up old car & informed it would be just the 3 of us all day - result!
We drove up into the surrounding hills & hoped on some quad bikes 

then headed deeper into the jungle to the limestone caves for a Mayan journey called Xibalba - or to hell & back.

We walked for 25minutes through the jungle armed with just rubber tubes & head lights. With no idea how we were going to get we left the rest of our kit locked in the car so I've stolen these images off the Interne. We drifted down stream on cool, crystal clear water through the underground caves; stopping to view an underground waterfall at a halfway sink hole, before popping out the other side.

Belize bound...

A misty cool morning departure from Belize. Some were more tired than others !!

The road bounced us for 3 hrs before we arrived at the Belize border.

You could immediately tell there was increased wealth. Improved infrastructure, housing in better keep & a warm greeting by customs when you arrive.

Belize City (is not the Capital of Belize, Belmopan is in fact), lies on the coast & is the commercial centre & jump off point for most tourists to the Caye islands just on the horizon. We'd arrived into the port area a day early so it was a pleasant surprise that on a speculative call the 1st person I spoke to told us to get a taxi to the airport & we'd be on the 1st flight.  

15minuts later we were out in Sam Pedro walking along the shore looking for our hotel to see if we could check in early.

The January temperature in Ambergris has been lower than normal, the cold snap hitting America has circulated south & the wind is strong but warm.... not stinking hot as we'd expected. We therefore didn't need a fully a/c flat so traded down into a semi a/c'd condo (just bedroom). Karina's expert haggling enabled us to a room rate that meant our additional night was for free, result :)

Having settled in we strolled up the beach & found a bar serving refreshing fizzy amber-yellow liquid it had all the signs of a well used watering hole!

Tikal

A misty cool Jungle morning saw a group of us trudge up Jungle enclosed paths with mini van sore bums & cameras at the ready. The excitement of finally arriving at Tikal was clear on all faces.

What soon became clear was the before & after restoration work that has happened since re-discovery of Tikal. The Jungle had quickly reclaimed the temples & structures since the city's abandonment in 900AD

We set off on our own to see & listen to the Jungle by ourselves (animals & birds we saw shown below).

To bring the city to life a scale model recreated the the entire site. Grand Plaza photographed above only.

Animals & Birds of Tikal.