Post Parish Thoughts.....

17:58:06 and 18th overall, I am still totally shell shocked. I am absolutely delighted and will not go on without a few thanks to people. Firstly to Liz & Gordon Corran. I approached Liz a few weeks ago and asked her opinion about race strategy and how best I approach it. I said my real aim was to walk at appx 4.5 mph and look for a finish time of around 18:53 hours, Liz thought that sounded fair as she knew I had trained a lot harder than that speed for a long while. Her main suggestion was TO START THE PARISH SLOWLY something I will have etched in my brain forever. She then said, along with Gordon, see how the legs feel at Peel and then see if you want to up the speed a little there. That was the plan and I must admit I did struggle in the early stages letting so many people pass me but in the end I turned a blind eye to it and kept myself busy working out the times and distances done and to go in my head making sure I kept to my schedule. When I arrived at Peel the first person I saw was Gordon and he said hi and at the same moment glanced straight at his watch, looked back to me and nodded approvingly; I never looked back! I found the race was still hard, it is still an 85 mile endurance event but dare I say it I really found that I enjoyed it. What I still find incredible is the amount of encouragement that you receive not only from the great crowds that turn out from around the entire route but also from fellow walkers. My best memories this year came from the shouts and claps from the Andreas BBQ tent and the very kind little girl up north somewhere who gave me one of her home made iced fairy cakes, really delicious and it couldn't of come at a better time, thank you.

I am going to interject this with 3 songs tonight and here is the first of them, sort of walking related but more apt for this post parish blog!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91euxMQ0Zyg

My next thanks go to my support crew am and pm shift. My brother John Hempsall accompanied by my nephew Jacob who got very good at peeling my tangerines at the speed I was expecting them! They did the first section to Patrick where they changed with 2 friends of mine, Steve Hands and Kellie Haworth who had the misfortune of drawing the short end of the stick and doing the looooong shift! Steve and Kellie were great, always on hand for anything and always giving strong words of encouragement. I truly believe the better back up crews make the better walkers. So to both of my back ups a HUGE thanks to you all.

Next song,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdB7AOrBfPg  This one has to be dedicated to anyone with blisters at the moment, you will get what I mean.

My next thanks have to go to my long suffering, gorgeous wife and kids. It goes without saying that without their massive support and patience I would not have walked anywhere. I feel very lucky to have so many people around me who are prepared to give up so much so that I can try and do the training and everything else that is involved with this event. Thankyou. xxx

As for the rest of the race I have to admit I did just plough on. My legs felt really strong, I was in a nice groove and enjoying the feeling of still walking and being able to pass people. This now comes down to a couple of very important things; 1) Training, training and training  2) Not starting too quickly. The recipe is simple but it is hard to get right. I feel this year I got it right, last year I didn't, big difference in final result! Saying that though I will be honest here and say that at the very end of the race I did have a turn for the worse.

As I got to Royal Avenue Alan Cowin turned up to offer some encouragement, I felt great that Al turned up because he had only just got of a flight a few hours before so ty Al. Al did say at this rate I may break the 18 hour mark!!! I had not looked at my watch since Lezayre. I had absolutely no idea about time or pace at this stage because as I had said to Steve earlier I didn't care about all that, I just wanted to get to the end of the prom as fast as I could. Now As Al had said that I arrived on the Prom. and looked and saw that I had appx. 12 minutes to get the end, I have never walked faster anywhere in my life, I went flat out as fast as I could and fortunately I made it with even a minute to spare!

When I crossed the line I was in seventh heaven it was only then I realised I had cracked the 18 hour mark and beaten my old time by such a big amount. At that moment I did what I had promised myself I would do if I finished, 10 weeks prior to that moment, I had a beer. Well, lets be honest here, I had appx. 5 sips and stopped. I then went into the massage "room" said I don't feel to hot and promptly passed out! I asked Ben Scott later how much I had drunk from the bottle as he moved it away from me and he said there was still beer in the neck of the bottle! At this point I must point out that drinking any amount of alcohol after such a long event when the body is so dehydrated anyway is a very dangerous thing to do, and on hindsight is something I would never do again (but it did taste so GOOOD)!

So with that said a big thanks to Ben and Jenny who helped look after me, the ambulance crew and the staff at A & E. At one stage my blood pressure had dropped dangerously low, Kellie had said something like 44/40 and they were quite concerned, but very fortunately I did respond quite quickly to all the saline and glucose drips and after a night in Ward 6 I left the next day just after lunch. So a MASSIVE ty to all the Staff at Nobles especially S/N's Lisa Hall, Shellaine Lee and Brenda Voisey and I am sorry I didn't get any of the A & E names but ty to them all. Post thoughts on this are a massive part of what I am doing now. I have had a "de-brief" with Steve and we couldn't see where we could have got more fluids or sugars in. Steve got to a point where from Peel I was meeting up with him each mile to take bits on, then as the race went on his stops ultimately became every 400 yards or so. I can only think that I may change the proportions I used and make everything a lot more sugary next time, ugh I can't wait! I will also try other brands of things so hopefully this wont ever happen again.

As for my plans now. I am going to take a couple of weeks away from training. I will look forward to hopefully doing the Winter Walking league and the End to End this year. Next year I am going to take a break from the Parish Walk and help support my wife who wants to walk to Peel for her first time and then, I will drive to support Steve who will have a bash at it. I would like to do the WWL and the ETE again next year and work on some good speed work over the next year or so. I would then love to come back to the Parish Walk and have a crack at a 16 hour lap. Something that would be extremely hard to do and as Dermot O Toole pointed out in an instant when I said this to him, only 7 men have ever done that before. Who knows if I will or I wont, it is my plan now but plans can change- hey it wasn't too long ago that I said I would never walk the Parish Walk again! ;-)

As this is my last entry I have to say I hope that you have enjoyed reading my updates and following my ups and downs along the way. Whether you agree or disagree with things I have said or done, my hope is that I have said something that may of helped or been of some benefit to someone, somewhere. If that  is the case then I am happy. I will leave my blog on line for as long as I am able to and look forward to hopefully reading some more blogs next year. To my fellow bloggers Dave and Steve. I have really enjoyed reading about all your build ups and in moments when I struggled to think of anything to write, a quick read through some of yours really gave a lot of inspiration, ty. I think that is about it except for one more thing, my last song. This is a simple one. I dedicate this song to everyone past and present who has ever walked in the Parish Walk... no matter how far, one step or the whole thing. I hope you like it and I look forward to racing again soon.................. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn1w3kLoOuA