We left the tent erected and went light to Lizard Point, the five mile burn was exhilerating both fast and furious and I enjoyed every minute of it. The view was staggering and we could see Land’s End from a vantage on the way through. It was a reality now, we were on our way home for sure today, I could run the distance if anything went wrong. We left Lizard Point and made our way back to camp, baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage would be waiting for us.

We arrived back to find that there were no baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage waiting for us, well thats a lie there were but only the baguette was cooked. I bought my baguette and munched my way through it, it was still delicious even if not stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage. The ironic thing was as we were leaving the site the woman said here boys what are you doing, we played our card and she said ‘oh, if I’d known I would have cooked you baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage’, I could have cried.

With a hole in my stomach we made our way directly north again towards Penzance, we passed through RNAS Culdrose and Helston and then headed north west to Goldsithney. I was storming until my left knee cap popped forwards on a hill just outside Helston, we only had twenty miles to go and I don’t know why it did it then, as my knee’s had ached since the first day, but now was the time and I was in excruciating pain. I tried to box the pain but it wouldn’t park and it just wouldn’t go away, I tried focussing on other things but found myself almost crying when thinking about my Nan, Nellie was the one I’d always called first when I’d done something stupid like this, she always liked my mad world. before I knew it we were on a flat stretch and I managed to hit Penzance without too much incident. We then tried to obtain some caffeine but the local tesco didn’t have a coffee shop, so we soldiered on without baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage, and now without coffee.

I started day dreaming more and found myself off the pace, struggling up mounds of dirt, thinking about the kids, my Fluffy and completely losing the plot, I had to focus and then we hit the seven mile marker. That was it, we were nearly home, David and Mark had stopped to talk to Claire and I asked to carry on, they caught up in no time and we were very shortly on our approach to Land’s End. Its a weird feeling on the run in, suddenly all the road signs are limited from three or four Towns either side, to one or two, and then just one – Land’s End. A mile out and we formed a chain and rode in together. We approached the gates at a gentle pace and saw the gang at the finishing post. For a moment we thought we’d have to divert or even stop, but the security guard made his way over to unlink a chain to allow us through, I blew him a kiss, don’t know why, and high fived him on the way through, he was chuffed to bits for some reason, and let out a whooah! May be he was American or just felt sorry for me, or may be it was the beard, anyway, in one long line we rode in together and let out our cheers, we’d done it and we were in the club.

We did some modeling for the camera’s and then Mike treated us to Cornish Pasties and coffee, they were delicious and cemented the event for me. We were then subjected to more modeling and then we signed our names in the club book before hitting the shops.

We were then escorted back to the car where we were forced to drink champagne, I love champagne, and then we had an emotional moment when we were each given a beautiful plaque marking the ocassion, it bowled us over completely, the generosity, the event and the pain all rolled into one, and even a hard nosed fat boy tree swinging rugby playing assassin like me had trouble hiding the tears, but the protective sun glasses had worked after all.

I have so many people to thank that I’d be here forever, and I can’t do that, you know who you all are, and yes thats everyone, I love you all and thanks for all your support.

All the best.

Ian.

Here’s to riding the three peak challenge…

Distance cycled 50 miles.

Time 3 hours 29 minutes.

Heart rate average 120 beats per minute.

Calorie expenditure 2,022.

Fat percentage of energy during exercise 55%.