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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