28 Mile Walk across the South Downs Way with the LDWA

On Sunday May 14, my friend Lou and I signed up to walk the South Downs Marathon with the Long Walkers Distance Association. We had to finish within 10 hours. Did we make it?

It was very tough! We started off in East Dean, climbed over the Seven Sisters through Rathfinny vineyard in Alfriston and across to Firle. We then hiked up Firle Beacon back through Alfriston again and across the Long Man and back down into East Dean. There were some beautiful views.

The first half we were storming through, at that rate we were going to finish within 8 hours, smashing it! 14 miles in, the sun was shining, it was so hot! We started to climb Firle Beacon, it was tough but we finally made it to the top!

We carried on but our pace rapidly slowed down. We hit the third checkpoint, 8 miles to go! We had a few biscuits for energy and carried on. People were overtaking us, we asked how they were doing, if they were aching, everyone was absolutely fine as they stormed past us!

5 miles to go and we were struggling! It wasn't just an achy pain, it was a pain pain! It was really challenging! We couldn't see anyone for miles. We started playing the playlist from Moulin Rouge which got our rhythm and pace going again!

We finally made it, the only thing keeping us going was we had booked to go for dinner at the pub and had a glass on wine waiting for us! We made it in 9 hrs 34 minutes!! We were so pleased and a bit sunburnt! Towards the end we were happy to just cross the line and not care about our time but we did it!!