LA PETITE TROTTE A LEON (PTL)
I have just completed a momentous journey. The 14 steps from the bathroom took me nearly 3 minutes. Getting back to my bed really did feel like an achievement.
For those who don’t know, my friends, club colleagues, and fellow members of Team Cunning Runts, Andrew Nicoll and David Stephenson, finished the PTL at just before 10pm last night. They completed it, I didn’t. A journey of 299 Km and upwards of 75000mts of ascent, I was forced to retire after 175km. With my speed down to around 1km per hour due to badly blistered and swollen feet, reluctantly we all agreed that I had to pull out, as to continue would risk the whole team being timed out.
My fellow runts continued up and down gradients steeper than the Ben, over bolder fields, along rock ledges, day and night, with temperatures ranging from minus 9 to plus 29, and in some places snow over 1 meter deep this was an awesome achievement. It is hard to convey just how difficult the terrain actually was, indeed an American asked them how they could possibly train for such an event in Britain. To give you a picture of what this race was like try to think of the hardest or worst event you have ever done, the Bob Graham maybe, then imagine doing it for 5 days with less than one hours sleep per day. Now you are getting close to knowing what they have gone through.
A Frenchmen described them as warriors, to me they are hero’s. They will always have my utmost respect and I feel very privileged to have been here and to call them my friends.
As for me, well for the time being I am happy to be able to reach the bathroom unaided.
Stephen Fry
2nd September 2012