Overnight News Day 2/3

Steve, his sister Karen and her husband Dan Parker finished leg 5 to Hard Knott Pass, arriving there Sunday evening about 2200. Leg 6 saw Ryan Wood, Peter Murphy and Steph Scott running with Steve through to the Duddon Valley.

At Duddon Valley Steve arrived very late on Sunday night and was created by apoplectic scenes as the local midges did their best to eat everyone present. It was a case of cramming everyone into the camper van as quickly as possible.

Steve spirits are high. However, he does now have a blister on his little toe and was complaining that his knees had begun to ache. Steve knows that he is still not eating enough but does seem to be drinking better now.

Supported by Ryan Wood, Peter Murphy (who both also ran leg 6) and Chris Knowles, Steve set off on leg 7 at 0440 this morning, roughly 1:40 behind on his original schedule (the plan originally had been to leave Duddon at 0300).

Soon there was a drama with Emma (Steve’s wife – who was following his progress on the tracker from home) phoning the support team to say he’d missed out Dow Crag! Dow Crag was the first checkpoint and after some frantic phone calls to the support runners, it was established that they had all been there but the tracker had not recorded this.

Although it is obviously tiring for Steve, the support team is starting to tire as well and Jane Soul reckons none of them have had more than 1½ hours of sleep per night since the start. So, yesterday we were requesting a some additional support runners and today, we are requesting some help from anyone who can help at the support points (sorting gear, prepare food etc etc). If you think yon can help and have some free time this week please contact Jane on 07624417109 by TEXT.

Finally, we wanted to say a big thank you to Loweswater Village Hall who allowed the support team to set up in their car park yesterday.

I’ll be heading out to Rydal support point myself this evening and have been promised a load of photos that I’ll get onto the blog as soon as I can.