... in Sardinia

Adventures of the Anonymous Four in Sardinia

 

 

The alarm went off at 3am. Husband and I, having got back from seeing Robbie Williams at Knebworth at 4am only 23 hours earlier, were starting to appreciate the full meaning of tired. I crept around the bed in the dark with a sudden yelp of ‘ouch’ as I stubbed my toe on the suitcase that we had put by the bedroom door. Husband started chuckling as I limped off to turn on the light in the girls’ room, both of whom briskly and uncomplainingly got up and dressed, perhaps too sleepy and dazed to bother moaning. 

We drove to the airport – Child the Elder and Child the Younger managing to get some sleep during the drive. When they woke I was able to shift some the of the breakfast snacks in the foot well by my feet. 

We arrived at the airport, queued to check in, queued for passport control, had no time to spare airside, and headed off for the boarding gate with barely time to buy a sandwich before getting on the plane. As soon as the air hostesses came round Husband and I got a much needed coffee, but still slept for much of the flight. 

As we left the plane at Sardinia the heat was oppressive. We walked to the terminal building, passed heavily armed soldiers, and collected our bags – which were processed remarkably quickly. But then there are very few flights in and out of Alghero, so the baggage handlers probably get quite excited when they actually have something to do. 

Husband had arranged to hire a car, and went to collect the keys for this. We wandered to where the hire cars were parked, and walked around the whole car park before finding our allotted vehicle – an Opal Signum. Air conditioned. Fortunately the air conditioning converted the car from an incinerator to a fridge within seconds, and we were barely conscious of the temperatures outside – which were in the upper 30’s. 

There are two airports in Sardinia, Alghero at the northern end of the island, and Cágliari on the south coast of the island. We landed at Alghero, and were staying just outside Cágliari. Hey – we booked it only a few days ago having seen Ryan Air doing flights to Alghero from £17.00. We did intend to stay at the north of the island, but after a few days of internet searching hotels Husband had found nowhere. After five minutes of searching the internet for hotels I found several that could take us – we went for the first one to confirm they could accommodate us, who also happened to be the cheapest, and could give us a suite which consisted of a room for Husband and I and a second room for the girls both of which had a balcony, and we shared a bathroom. 

This is of course the up side to the three hour drive to the south coast of the island. Another upside was getting to fully appreciate the island as a whole. Sardinia is surprisingly big and the landscape is harsh and inhospitable, dry and arid. The soil dries to dust that is never moved on as the burning air hangs heavily over it, without any suggestion of a breeze. 

Sardinia is not mountainous by European standards, but it is satisfactorily hilly. Rolling slopes of the central ring of Gennargentu Mountains intermingled with sharp, spiky edges; flat topped hills slopping down to huge dry plains, the heat shimmering above the scalding surface. You can see for miles across the awesome and forbidding terrain. 

The road snakes through the plains or hugs the steep mountain edges. As a measure of the heat and dryness we passed a forest fire on a hill that the road curled around. Dark orange flames devoured the stunted trees while a helicopter flew to and fro, ferrying hopelessly small buckets of water in an attempt to quench the flames. 

The buildings are utterly uninteresting. Beige. Low. Square. Monotonous. Despite the heat and dusty soil there are several sprouts of green in the form of small stunted bushes rising from the burnt, golden ground and acres of vineyards bulging with bright green crops. 

To break the journey, we had planned to stop off at Tharros on the way. This is about half way down the island on the west coast and the site of a Roman settlement that rivals anything found on mainland Italy. It also made a convenient lunch stop.

I should perhaps mention that Husband had bought a Rough Guide to Sardinia which we were heavily relying on. In this it stated that you should not under any circumstances visit Sardinia in August due to the intense heat as well as the massive influx of tourists. What it failed to mention was that these tourists were primarily Italian. Very few English seem to venture much beyond Alghero, and other ‘hot spots’ on the northern coast. Consequently, in restaurants the staff speak very little English and there are no English translations on menus.

Personally I prefer this. If I wanted to be surrounded by English people, and select meals from menus all beautifully written in English then I would holiday in England. It also gave Husband and I the change to brush up on our Italian. As Child the Elder was remarkably good at languages I passed her the Italian phrasebook and she busied herself learning a few phrases. The plot thickened slightly as the language spoken in Sardinia is a variant of mainland Italian. 

Another indication of how Sardinia is unprepared for non Italian tourists is the very limited signposting. Tharros is an ancient, well preserved site and yet there is very little assistance to get the traveller there who will have difficulty asking for directions. Actually that isn’t strictly true – we could quite easily ask how to find it (dov’è Tharros), but wouldn’t necessarily understand much of the answer. There were signposts off the main dual carriage way taking us onto the smaller roads heading out west. But these signposts rapidly dry up and our excuse for a map did not mark all the tiny tracks that we started to follow. We picked another place near to Tharros and followed signs to that instead. Once we are almost there, the signs for Tharros again appeared.

Tharros is right on the coast at the end of a peninsular. We drove down this and parked above the beach at the end, not understanding what the car park signs said but decided to eat first – cafes conveniently lined the edge of the car park - and worry about that later. 

Husband ordered our drinks – in Italian of course but made slightly easier by the international understanding of Coca Cola and Sprite, and we set to trying to identify things off the menu. As Husband are and I hugely adventurous, particularly when abroad, we tend to take the ‘close your eyes and randomly point at the menu’ approach to select things. Child the Elder is also happy to try most things that Husband and I end up with, but we needed to ensure that she and Child the Younger had meals that they would actually eat. Fortunately there was something along the lines of bolognaise that fitted the bill perfectly.

We made use of the toilet, paid the bill and headed to the car to establish the procedure. No sooner had we arrived at the car when a car park attendant came over and with the few words of Italian we knew, the few words of English she knew and the occasional use of sign language we got a ticket for 2 hours – this was a bargain as we had already been there for well over an hour completely free of charge.

We walked along the spit of land to the Tharros site.  The spit lies in the Golfo di Oristano and ends at Capo San Marco. It is the perfect vantage point for a military installation as well as providing safe anchorage on either side in the calm, turquoise sea. On one side the sea lapped up onto golden white sands that rose to dunes, peppered with grass rushes that led up the car park. On the other side, there was not only the unblemished sand, but also outcrops of rocks.

The Phoenicians settled on the site around 800 BC and it was still used following Carthaginian occupation. The Romans maintained its importance after 238 BC building baths and streets in the form that are still visible now. It was finally abandoned in 1070 in favour of Oristano, a little further in land, which was considered to be more secure. 

The site is remarkably well preserved, and apparently much of it is submerged beneath the sea. The grid of streets is still clearly defined as is the deep open sewer which runs from the main street at the top of the hill, through the town and down to the sea – clearly designed before the days when pumping raw sewerage into the sea was an issue. There are remains of houses, as well as remnants of a Roman amphitheatre up the hill, overlooking the sea.  

Due to the variety of people who inhabited the site there are a mixture of ruins which include a burial ground from the earlier Punic settlement, a Carthaginian acropolis, remnants of a Roman temple of which two Corinthian columns still stand as well as the Roman bath house and thermal complex. 

At the top of the hill above the site, over looking the sea and bays either side, are the ruins of a Spanish watchtower. 

 

We strolled relatively quickly around the site as the soaring temperatures prohibited a long and involved exploration, and there was no relief or shelter from the remorseless sun. 

Child the Elder maintained an interest in the site until the heat became too much to bear. However, her excitement was maintained when she found a lump of marble – which we let her keep. Child the Younger was enchanted by the lizards scurrying along the scalding stones, and went in and out of the crumbling ruins pretending to be going shopping – just like Roman women would have done centuries earlier. 

We headed back to the car to start the remaining leg of the journey. Child the Younger needed another visit to the toilet, and I was starting to realise what it meant to be in the company of children having never in my adult life been with children for the length of time I was about to spend with Child the Elder and Child the Younger. 

We drove south and after another hour and half of driving we passed Cágliari and stumbled upon the hotel completely accidentally. Unsure if we really had found the right one, Husband went in to check if they had a booking for us.

After very quickly unpacking we headed off for the hotel pool where we spent a few minutes swimming, and about an hour playing around.  

The hotel suite was air conditioned and in the interests of keeping heat out as much as possible the bedrooms had black out curtains, and a thick blind outside the balcony doors controlled by a pulley cord inside. Both bedrooms had TV’s which did include some English things if you could be bothered to search the channels looking for it. Child the Younger wanted to watch her favourite cartoons – in Italian, and hence incomprehensible, but she enjoyed them nonetheless, while Child the Elder preferred the music channel which played several UK hits. 

As it had been a long day with much of it spent in the car we decided to have dinner in the hotel and an early night.

The menu was helpfully semi translated into English – but we still ordered in a state of almost virtual ignorance about what was actually going to appear. What did in fact show up was not too bad, and Child the Elder and Child the Younger bravely tried some of just about everything that we were served, which included clams in some sort of pasta arrangement.

They tried the pasta rather than the clams themselves. Although the pasta did have the clam flavour. They didn’t like it. I’m not totally sure I did either, not being a massive fish eater. Husband, however, can always be relied on to finish things off and didn’t let us down on this occasion. 

For main course I had raw beef, thinly sliced. Being someone who likes my steak only just this side of still alive I choose raw beef whenever I can – it is not commonly served in England. Husband opted for a whole sea bass. When the waiter brought it out there was a small incident of being lingually challenged – Husband thought he was asking who the fish was for, I realised (but not quickly enough) that he was asking if Husband wanted the waiter to fillet it for him. As Husband kept frantically pointing to himself the waiter therefore gave him the fish and a side plate for bones and left with the appearance of a disgruntled, unwanted man. 

For dessert we had what the menu described as seasonal fruits. I had expected some sort of fruit salad. Instead we were each brought a plate and knife, and a huge bowl of fruit was put on the table. This contained grapes, peaches, plums, oranges, pears and apples. 

We slept like logs that night, but the next day Husband and I were still tired.  

Breakfast was from 7 – 9.30am. We decided to go down at about 9.25am, which seemed perfectly reasonable given that we were on holiday and had been up ridiculously early the day before. 

Italians often breakfast in cafes and the event usually consists of strong coffee and a sweet pastry. I was not disappointed. We had jam filled croissants, bread rolls with every flavour of jam imaginable, and the added extras of banana yoghurt and peaches in syrup. There was also the expected coffee – disappointingly weak. Although Child the Elder rather liked the croissant there was initially nothing that Child the Younger liked. Until we found the chocolate spread. There were only a couple of sachets left, but Child the Elder asked the waiter – who was a quieter version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers – for some more. He brought a whole bowl. There was chocolate spread everywhere. Mainly on them. 

To keep the hotel room cool during the day, we turned up the air conditioning, shut the external blinds and closed the curtains.

I let down the blind in the girls’ room, but it seemed to come down quicker than the one in our room, and before I knew it the blind plummeted to the ground while the pulley rope had completely disappeared inside the mechanism somewhere. I called Husband to let him know that something was amiss. 

As we left the hotel he explained at reception that the blind in the girls’ room appeared to be broken, and pointed at Child the Elder and Child the Younger in order to make himself understood. The staff of course assumed that Child the Elder and Child the Younger were the culprits. 

Our plan for the day was simple – find shop, buy water, find beach, lie on it. 

We stumbled across a small supermarket. The entrance took us to a lift. Bemused, we got in. It was a two storey shop. You have to start on the top level – which had the water, and then got the lift down to the ground floor level. We bought some Cheese flavoured Pringles which were apparently a delicacy still unknown in England. Child the Elder and Child the Younger seemed to be Pringles connoisseurs, so we took their word for it.  

Although a small shop, the fruit and vegetables rivalled anything you would find in Waitrose. The peaches and plums still had leaves on them. 

Then we found the CD’s. The car we had hired had a CD player – but we had no CD’s. You can therefore imagine our excitement at the prospect of finding some half decent music to listen to. I’m not suggesting that the Sardinian radio stations were less than half decent. Well actually, yes I am. There were several UK albums – all wonderfully re-recorded by Studio 99 as cover versions. We found only two genuine albums – Tony Sheridan with the Beatles and Rock Classics. Armed with our supplies, we paid the fastest checkout lady in the West and made for the beach. 

Unsure about where to go we decided to head out towards Villasimius on the south east tip of the island which apparently contained some fantastic beaches, with our rock CD playing full blast. It was the perfect music for the roads and the weather. Nothing beats a bit of Radar Love. 

The road to Villasimius has to be seen to be believed. Lets just say that if you think Italian job (the end part, in the bus) crossed with Monaco you are kind of getting there. There are stunning views at every turn of turquoise sea lapping against white sanded beaches curling around the bays. The road s-bends forever around the coves. We then saw a sign warning of sharp bends for 3 kilometres. Although the road had been anything but straight until then, it now hairpinned its way up the sides of the hills, rising above the sea, with sheer drops away to the side, then hairpinned back down, passed the bay at the bottom before zig zagging up another slope.

 

We passed cactus plants covered with prickly pears. I was interested to see a prickly pear. Once upon a time, many years ago when I was at University, one of our assignments was to prepare an authentic foreign meal. One girl chose somewhere Mediterranean, and her meal required prickly pears for dessert. However, despite searching London high and low – for about 2 hours – she could not find prickly pears anywhere. Ever resourceful, she used normal pears instead. During the discussion afterwards the lecturer asked about the differences between prickly pears and ordinary ones. Oh, she said, they’re almost exactly the same. Now looking at a prickly pear for the first time since then I could clearly see that are not the same at all. I have yet to try one, however I have a suspicion that the lecturer was not fooled  

But I digress.

Having passed dozens of stunning beaches we finally settled on one that we could park near, along the Golfo di Carbonara. 

It was then that we realised we had no sun shade. There were trees at the top end of the beach, so we established base camp there and all liberally applied factor 45 sun cream. I was determined not to end up silly colours – in sun my shoulders will turn slightly brown, but the rest of me is liable to burn. Except my legs, which stay completely white. So I end up looking like a Neapolitan ice cream in wedges of brown, pink and white. 

As we walked down to the sea we discovered that the sand was burning hot. Seriously take the skin off the soles of your feet kind of hot. And being at the top end of the beach, we had a lot of sand to cover. The Mediterranean sea, in contrast, was wonderfully cool.  

Some of the beaches we had passed had people in the sea, some way out, only waist deep. At this beach however the sea quite quickly got deeper, which was preferable all round. The sea was very salty, so we avoided too much splashing in our play so as to reduce contact between sea water and eyes.  

We hadn’t been in the sea long before Husband mentioned that something was biting him. This immediately panicked the girls. And then I got bitten. It was like a gentle pin prick on my shins. We all stood still and looked down. The sea was perfectly clear, so once we stopped kicking up the sand we could see a sandy coloured fish swimming around at shin level. We decided that it was this ‘biting’ us, and it was probably something prickly on it touching us rather than actual bites. Neither of us were marked in any way, or suffered any subsequent ill effects. 

It was still enough to worry the girls, and we realised that if you kept moving, the fish stayed away. 

The girls wanted to pretend to be our dogs for reasons which it is best not to even start thinking about, and brought us stones to throw to the shallow end for them to find and bring back again. Child the Younger started collecting together several stones, and the only way I could keep them all without dropping them was to use the space in my bikini top that wasn’t required by my breasts – that is of course quite a lot of space. Child the Younger even remembered which stones were which side, even though this changed every time she ‘fetched’ them.

During this game Husband showed Child the Younger that if you bang two stones together under the water this could be heard some way away – provided the listener was also under water. After several minutes of experimenting with this we saw dozens of small fish, near the surface, swimming all round us. Husband surmised that the rock banging must have ‘called’ them. They were a non bitey variety and therefore we were quite happy to swim amongst them. 

We went to the café on the beach for lunch and sat in its balmy cool, overlooking the sand and sea. Again we had the ‘pick something at random and hope for the best’ situation. We got the girls spaghetti with tomato sauce (useful words to know – pomodoro and formaggio). It was a safe bet, and it paid off. Husband and I shared a tuna salad and spaghetti al ricci. Even having eaten it, neither of us could tell you what al ricci is. It was garlicy and nice – if that helps. Bear in mind that this a country that eats donkeys – sometime it’s best not to analyse your lunch in too much detail. 

Feeling an urgent need for dessert we had ice cream, all of us opting for tiramisu flavour, although Child the Younger left the sponge base. As she put it, she didn’t like the soggy bottom – and, after all, who does like a soggy bottom.  

 

We went back into the sea for more frolicking after lunch. This time we wore shoes down to the shore. Husband went back in after a while, leaving me with Child the Elder and Child the Younger, who refused to let me escape, and announced that they liked me because I was a good climbing frame. And because I played with them a lot, spinning them around in the sea until I was dizzy. But still they wanted more. Exhausted, I finally joined Husband on the sand for a few moments peace and quiet. 

Before heading homeward we drove a little further out to Capa Carbonara just to marvel at the views. 

Back at the hotel we were relieved to find that the blind had been mended. The plan for the evening was to shower, dress, go forth and eat. During the showering process, for reasons which I don’t fully understand, more water ended up on the floor of the bathroom than down the plughole so lots of the towels were used to dry the floor. As the balcony was overwhelmed with wet swimming stuff I had the cunning plan of draping towels over the shower rail to dry them. 

No sooner had I started to effect this plan than I plaintively called out to Husband, and he came into the bathroom to see me standing there holding the shower rail in my hand. It wasn’t as bad as the blind issue – the shower rail was of the spring loaded variety and could quite easily be put back into position, while I found other places to hang towels. 

As I was getting ready Child the Elder came into our room and said ‘you’ll never guess what Dad has just done’. Oh no, I thought, and went into the girls room to see Husband standing there holding the blind pulley rope. I felt vindicated. It wasn’t just me who seemed to have trouble with their blind.  

Deciding not to worry about it further, we sallied forth to dinner. There was a pizzeria opposite the hotel and that was the intended destination. It did involve crossing roads, and Child the Elder and Child the Younger were not totally happy with the Italian way of pedestrian crossings. The system is quite simple. Cars don’t stop. You walk across and cars will adjust their speed so as not to hit you, but may pass in front of or behind you during your crossing.

 

That ordeal done, we arrived at the restaurant. The only English our waiter spoke was ‘I don’t speak English’. We could match this with ‘mi dispiace, non parlo Italiano’. The menu was of course all in Italian and Husband and I did our best to fathom out what various things were.  

As we were choosing, a waitress walked passed with pizzas for another table. They were enormous. Bigger than the plate. We then slightly changed tack and decided to share an antipasto starter between us as we were all planning to have pizza. Husband and I bravely selected pizzas with toppings that meant nothing to us while ordering a quattro formaggi for the girls to share. 

Mine appeared – and included a fried egg in the middle. Never before have I seen a fried egg on a pizza. And it wasn’t that bad. There was also dozens of olives, ham and artichokes. It was called capricciosa which I now know literally translates as capricious, and is topped with whatever they have in the kitchen. Presumably then, you may not get the same toppings twice.

 

Husband’s pizza was folded in half with a huge bulge in the middle. I have no idea what was in it but it was very tasty, all washed down with Sardinian red wine. The wine is nothing to write home about – although I am of course doing exactly that – but, like most Italian wine, it is easy drinking quaffable stuff. And it was nice to be drinking something locally produced. 

Our plan for the morrow was pool, go and see something, more pool. As the pool didn’t open until 10.00am we went down for breakfast at the last minute. Manuel – the highly strung but very quiet waiter – panicked. He quickly set a table up for us as we gathered together all the various elements of breakfast from the tables round the room. Disastrously there was no chocolate spread. However, Manuel remembered us – or rather Child the Elder and Child the Younger – and came scuttling out with a multitude of chocolate spread sachets. They were delighted. 

As promised, we then headed off for a couple of hours in the pool. Husband was by now wearing considerably amount of sun cream on his face, as he had the crumbliest flakiest forehead in the world. This was mainly due to the sun it got at Knebworth.

 

Half a dozen slim built, well tanned Italian men were already there, playing a form of water volleyball – minus any rules. Husband threw the ball back to them on one occasion, and this seemed to mean that he was now officially involved in the game. Soon after, Child the Elder and Child the Younger were also part of it. 

On the way out Husband again informed reception that the blind in the girls’ room was broken.  

Our thing to see for the day was Su Nuraxi, which is at the bottom end of the island, but inland. As we drove there – having had an interesting time trying to find the right road, again, signposting was of limited use, and our map of slightly less use - the outside temperature was approaching 40ºC. Off the main road, we drove through wild, dusty country side, with barely any other traffic in sight. 

Amongst all the brown and orange, there were occasional fields of green, mercilessly watered. We passed a supermarket, unfortunately named Grim Supermarket and the Fanny Regali restaurant. The road took us through a couple of nondescript villages that were small and seemingly uninhabited. It was siesta time, but everything looked as though it had been shut up and abandoned years ago. 

The road curled round some hills that had clearly been the site of a forest fire. New shoots were forging their way through the blackened earth and charcoaled remains of bushes and trees. There were telegraph poles running across the area, one of which was a short charred remain, still hanging from the wires, the bottom part completely burnt away.

 

On the way we passed the conical hill of Las Plassas with fragments of the 12^th century castello di Marmilla sticking up like broken teeth on it round pinnacle, before arriving at Barúmini, just outside of which was Su Nuraxi. It was like a town from a Western movie. Dry, dead, empty, quiet. 

We found a café and decided to have lunch there. Inside was the local population of the town, smoking like chimneys, enjoying the air conditioned cool. Quickly weighing up smoke versus heat, we decided to sit in the shade outside to eat our paninis (which we could have caldo or freddo). During this time, crowds of people materialised and disappeared inside the café before melting back out into the town and disappearing like cockroaches. Satisfactorily filled, we ventured on to Su Nuraxi. The car showed a temperature of 43ºC. 

To escape from the heat a flock of sheep in a field next to the road were huddled beneath the few skeletal trees, several layers deep, piled up like dead carcasses. 

Su Nuraxi is nuraghic settlement dating from around 1500 BC. The Nuraghic civilisation is unique to Sardinia, existing prior to the days of invasion and conquest. Their culture existed on the island for well over a millennium, some areas continuing until the Roman invasion of 238 BC. 

Like Tharros, it was inhabited over several hundred years and the site has visible evidence of improvements and changes to building techniques. An enormous quantity of the site exists in almost perfect condition, the dark grey stone of the imposing central structure surrounded by a tight mesh of stone huts separated by a web of lanes.. The central fortress is a labyrinth of internal passages, tunnels, alcoves that were once lined with cork and fearsomely steep steps. The site includes two wells which still contain water. 

The area is believed to have been covered with earth by the Carthaginians at the time of the Roman conquest accounting for its excellent state of preservation. 

 

While we were there it started to rain – which was wonderfully refreshing, huge drops of water started to fall thicker and faster through the burning air.  

On the way back we needed to try and find a petrol station and bank and thought that the larger town of Sanluri, which we would have to pass anyway, would be our best bet. We were slightly wrong in this assumption. After several minutes of driving around we did happen across a petrol station where Husband, in his very best Italian, asked where the bank was. However he said ‘due’ rather than ‘dov’è’ and was indeed told where two were. 

I gave him my credit card to get some Euro from the cashpoint – which miraculously worked – and we headed back to the hotel for some more pool time. Not without incident however. We managed to take a wrong turn somewhere, and rather than taking the ring road around Cágliari found ourselves heading into the city. Like most cities, Cágliari has a small, interesting centre and then large quantities of non descript spreading and housing and industry all around it.  

Not really sure of what we needed to head for to get out of the city we double backed on ourselves a couple of times by taking wrong turnings. The upside of the experience was that we identified where in Cágliari we wanted to head for the next day for our visit to the city. We did eventually arrive at the hotel. The blind had again been mended, and I decided not to touch it anymore. 

As it was near and convenient we decided to go to the same place again for dinner, but to try something different. There was an insalata that involved mare which seemed to imply sea, and knowing my limited fish preferences I opted for the other insalata, which claimed to contain di polpo. Whatever that might be. 

The starters arrived. A dish was put down next to me. I looked at it. Husband looked at it. My face fell. Husband laughed. Di polpo, for those who don’t know and might one day need to, means squid. Tentacles, suckers and all. Beautifully dressed in olive oil and garlic. 

I ate it the less tentacly parts, and could only manage that by not looking at it and not thinking about it. It was delicious. I have it on good authority that squid can be quite rubbery, but this was wonderfully tender and unchewy. Not delicious enough however, for me to be able to eat the bits that were obviously its legs, or arms, or both. 

My main course was slightly less disastrous – steak. They hadn’t asked how I wanted it cooked – I wouldn’t have understood even they had, and almost certainly would not have been able to answer, but it was cooked to perfection. Or rather uncooked to perfection, being very blue. 

The next, and final day, we intended to go into Cágliari for a wander, buy presents, post postcards and so on and so forth. We tried to get down to breakfast a little earlier – but failed dismally, and watched our high blood pressured waiter fret and panic in silence as several more groups of people appeared after us. 

We parked next to the obligatory McDonalds at the end of the Via Roma, in the middle of which were men picking dates off the date palms, and walked into town. Here the road crossing was considerably more involved, and therefore considerably more scary for the girls, as the roads were a lot bigger. 

As we were passing the terminal station Husband suggested we go in and have a look, to show the girls a Sardinian station. Little did he know that the centre piece of the concourse was a large old steam train. Out came the camera, as Husband bobbed about like an excited six year old. 

 

Once more outside, and now heading up the hill we found a Tabacchi (which is where you get stamps from – other than the post office of course, which is also a fairly reliable stamp source) and settled ourselves in an outside café to write postcards and send them off. 

Italians like their horns, and all around us cars were constantly beeping each other for no apparent reason. Ambulances hurtled up and down the street with their sirens on, not obviously going anywhere at all. We then deduced that having a siren was like having your horn on all the time, and therefore gave more street cred.

 

The postcard duty done we began our exploration of the city in earnest. Cágliari is a coastal city with a large port, and it rises up the hill above the sea. Once off the main road there are no pavements. 

Determined to get into the old town we headed for the Bastione San Remy on Piazza Costituzione, the southern spur of the defensive walls. On the way we passed the world’s laziest beggar. There was the sympathy note, the expected dog, a cap for collection change and a filthy piece of cloth to sit on – but no sign of the beggar at all.  

As a major port Cágliari was heavily bombed during World War II and much of this devastation is still very visible. We passed a monument from the 1800’s that was clearly one of many war time casualties. 

Above the Piazza Constituzione was a spider web of low cables. We assumed these were for the trolley buses that we had already seen, although most of the buses were of the normal variety. 

The huge, marble, curved stairway up to the Bastione was massively graffiti'd, and once at the top we realised that this entrance was blocked off. We walked around the side and found that a cunningly designed glass sided lift breached these ancient defences with ease and quite brilliantly lifted us above the wall. From here we could see the entrance we had first tried. This led to a huge two layered terrace that was once used for the occasional flea market. We were on the upper of the two layers. The rest was all now closed off in a state of Italian repair.

 

 

From where we stood we had fantastic views across the city to the sea beyond while low flying planes from the nearby airport soared through the hazy skies above.

 

The old town consists of narrow, winding streets lined with shabby exterior apartments, washing hanging out like bunting above and a central, cobbled gutter and a constant low hum of activity. When the occasional car did come alone, we had to press ourselves into doorways to let them by. 

We wandered passed the open doors of buildings in narrow urban streets and inhaled wafts of smells only familiar to Italy. 

Child the Elder thoroughly enjoyed absorbing another country’s culture. Child the Younger endured our wandering about with remarkable fortitude, only complaining now and then due to the heat. 

The old town is very small and we soon found ourselves back outside the walls looking back to the Torre dell’Elefante, and strolled back down the hill to the main street to hunt out lunch. We also bought some paninis to take home so that we could have dinner in our hotel room and an early night in preparation for the early morning departure. 

 

As we sat having lunch we saw pigeons drinking from the water fountain, and cooling themselves in the water splashed underneath it. 

After lunch we went to a gelateria for an ice cream. Husband had been wandering around taking pictures and said that this shop had to be seen to be believed. The inside was decorated like an ice grotto. Part of the floor had been replaced with huge perspex tiles, under which was a fountain of water running down to a palm tree several feet beneath.  

There were 4 display cases of ice cream each containing 16 flavours. These ranged from every type of chocolate imaginable to melon, apple, peach, pineapple, lemon, to pina colada, tiramisu to bubble gum and smurf. Smurfs – for anyone who is interested – taste minty. 

 

We each had a pot with three different flavours in and tried each others opting to sit inside to eat them to prevent them melting too quickly, and watched a lady bring out new trays of freshly made ice cream. 

We bought a couple more bits and pieces and in one shop both the girls said grázie to the young man behind the counter. Unused to English tourists, and particularly unused to English tourists making an effort to speak his language, he beamed from ear to ear. Arrivederci, he called out after them where previously he would have said nothing. 

Once back at the hotel we had some more pool time, packed and ate our paninis on the balcony. 

We would be leaving early the next morning so an early night was called for. 

The alarm went at off 5.00am. It was dark – the first time we had seen it dark the whole holiday. I went out onto the balcony to collect up the now dry swimming things from the previous afternoon and saw the flickering lights all along the coast of Cágliari. 

As we started the long drive back up north I looked over the purple mountains against a pink background, rising to skies already blue above, with glittering towns nestled beneath. The towns we passed were more interesting in this half light, randomly lit by occasional street lights, the houses huddled together in their dull monotony and simple design.  

The orange sun appeared behind the mountains, rising in a hurry as though late from setting over somewhere thousands of miles away only a few minutes earlier. It had barely risen before it looked soiled and tired, having to preside over another boiling day. 

The colour of the land seemed somehow fresher, with hints of orange and green and animals grazing quickly before the heat of the day. In the morning light there were also a multitude of shadows on the hillsides, every small dip and gulley now showing up. 

Following the signs to Alghero, we were directed off the main road onto small, side roads winding through the hillsides, passed lakes that surprised us with their presence. The road sank to the level of these lakes and then climbed again up the hills in a series of back to back S bends above the steep sided valley, running through the hills to the plains beyond. 

The hills here consisted of rocky outcrops on the top, sloped sides leading to sheer rock sided drops, then more slopes tumbling downwards. We passed through the tiny village of Itteri, through its cobbled streets where an old man had assumed his seat on a bench for the day. The road ahead snaked back down the hill, one side of which was peppered with stunted trees and fields of bamboo plants while on the other side things were trying to grow through the burnt land amongst dry, dead bushes with browned leaves. 

At the airport we bought a couple more presents, which included a bottle for Husband’s parents. This was encased in cork – which seemed to be local to Sardinia, and we assumed it was wine. When we tried it back in England we found that it was a clear liquid, 40% proof, distilled from grapes that had no taste at all, but burnt your throat and made your eyes sting. We are none the wiser about what it is. 

On the flight home the girls insisted that I sat next to them where I was left with the exhausting task of keeping them under some form of control.  

We arrived home to an England only fractionally cooler than Sardinia, a car with inadequate air conditioning and no CD player and a Burger King for lunch. Quality of life had suddenly resumed normal levels again.

NOTES
At the time of writing, Child the Younger was 10 and Child the Elder was 12. The above is a true story. Some of the information about places visited is sourced from tourist information. All other content is the property of the author.

... on the Royal Marine Commando Challenge

The Adventures of the Anonymous One on the Royal Marine Commando Challenge

I distinctly remember the exact moment of impulse last year when I phoned the British Military Fitness office and paid my deposit for the Commando Challenge and believe myself to have been in sound mind at the time – but in hindsight was clearly deranged.

The Commando Challenge involves training three times a week for three months (totalling a mere 37 hours of instructor led training, plus 2 training weekends on Dartmoor) at the end of which you do the Royal Marines Commando Tests, which consist of:

Day 1:              twice round the Okehampton assault course in 13 minutes. This is followed by the endurance course (6 miles long, first 1.5 miles involves going through tunnels, lakes and running up several very steep hills, followed by a 4.5 mile run at the end. One tunnel near the beginning is completely submerged in water so you do most of the thing soaked to the skin. To be completed in 72 minutes.

Day 2:              9 mile run to be completed in 90 minutes.

Day 3:              30 mile self navigated yomp across Dartmoor to be completed in 8

hours. (NB Dartmoor is hilly).

Oh and did I mention that all of the above is to be done with 30lbs on your back, which is approximately 24% of my total body weight, and about 16% of the body weight of an average man. What’s more, I was going to travel an hour and a half each way to do this, arriving home at 9.45pm after evening training sessions.

In the two to three months between then and the start of the Challenge the enormity of what I was doing gradually started to sink in, tinged with a degree of nervousness.

So it was nice on the first session to discover that the other victims not only included other girls, but also contained men who seemed quite nice and normal chaps. The first difference between the Challengers and other British Military  Fitness (BMF) members was that we didn’t wear numbered bibs. Our initial sessions involved a basic fitness test along the lines of how many press-ups, sit-ups and burpees we could do, timed sprints and such like. We also met the Marines who would work us to death, Monty and Keith overseen by the eagle eyes of Kev.

The information handed out at the first session gave us various facts about the training which included the comment that at the end of the training we would have less body fat than an Olympic rower. Yipee thought I. Less body fat = smaller bum.

We all had our own reasons for attempting the Challenge. My reason was simple -  and slightly less shallow than just the smaller bum. I have been made aware of my own mortality at a young age having had two separate occasions in the last 11 years where my body has tried to grow cancer, and being screened to this day more rigorously than is medically required, such is my GP’s concern that it may happen again. However this also serves as a constant reminder to me of how short life can be.

This has made me want to live life to the full and do extreme things. (This year alone I am paragliding, parachute jumping, tank driving, travelling to Italy, Bavaria, Islay and China - SARS or not, as well as Escaping & Evading on the very same Dartmoor). I wanted to push myself to my mental and physical limits that the Challenge seemed to offer.

The first few weeks of the Challenge certainly lulled us into a false sense of security by being relatively ‘easy’ i.e. wearing trainers, carrying no weight and just being given a general thrashing and practising the finer art of speed marching.

But it was enough to make us ache, and we were doing the next session still aching from the previous one. It gradually dawned on us that we would not stop aching now for three months.

The first training session with Keith was introduced by him along the lines of ‘let’s go and get fit’ with ominous instructions to ‘just keep up’ as he motored off round Hyde Park stopping here and there for jumping lunges, press-ups and lying on our backs with our feet 6 inches off the ground. For the men in the group, this meant that their feet were considerably higher above the ground than the girls. We finished off sprinting between lamp posts and having the joy of burpees with a press up. Keith graciously admitted that the last one we would not sprint as we would be crawling by then.

We also discovered quite quickly Keith’s penchant for press-ups. The first press up set we did with him involved starting at 20 and working down to two sets of 2 (apparently Marines never do only 1 press up). We quickly totted up that we had just done 211 press-ups – which made our efforts in the initial fit tests seem a tragically poor effort. What was particularly galling was that Keith knocked them out with us, considerably quicker and without even breaking a sweat.

Monty by comparison was relatively gentle with us. He liked joining in with whatever he was making us do and had the decency to sweat as much as the best of us. But his press-up and sit-up sets would start at 15 and work up to 23 – psychologically more difficult.

For one of his sessions we actually chose how many of each exercise we would do during the hour and somehow decided on:

200 press-ups

10 sprints
200 sit-ups
200 tricep dips
150 burpees
20 pull ups

We all did them, but realised the next day why doing 150 burpees is just plain foolish.

 Monty also introduced us to The House of Pain (the place where your upper body will learn to hurt) and The Valley of Death (the place where your legs will be worked to the point of collapse). Although Keith seemed familiar with the name of The House of Pain, he was more than a little amused by The Valley of Death.

In one session, to assist with increasing our leg strength, we ran 4 miles round Hyde Park in the horse track – which is all sand. As we circled back round the Serpentine we were once again on tarmac – until Sally Gunnell pointed out the sand track alongside us and asked Monty if we could run in that instead, and Monty all too willingly obliged. She was nearly thrown into the Serpentine for that idea.

We had been given a programme at the start outlining what each and every training session would involve. So the first session with boots on came as no surprise - a gentle speed march round Hyde Park to identify any potential boots problems. Although not massively painful, running with boots certainly makes some legs muscles hurt that never hurt before. And most our muscles had hurt by then.

 

The shorter legged among us also found keeping up with Keith’s immense walking stride somewhat difficult – so the walking part of the speed march ended up being just as difficult as the running part.

This rapidly progressed to sessions with boots and weight, and all the horrors that involved. It also quickly developed the team spirit. Monty and Keith both often said that our group was notably faster and fitter than the group last year.

Kelly Holmes and I, who regularly trailed behind the rest of the group, were slightly comforted by the fact that had we done the Challenge last time, we would have been comfortably in the middle of the group ability, with others trailing behind us.

The group were particularly good at encouraging each other and trying to keep everyone going, but ultimately if someone struggled then the rest of the group had to keep going without them. Christopher Dean would drop back for a while to run with any stragglers to keep them going. Steve Redgrave and Tom Daly would shout out encouragement, and Steve Redgrave would also hang back a little to keep egging on anyone behind. Steve Cram favoured the ‘grab hold of shoulder of said person and just drag them back into the fold’ approach. Another method was the lads putting their hands on your bergan and just pushing you along.

Tagging along at the end is a very dark place to be and a small number of us were there. It is to our credit that we kept going under those circumstances and sometimes even caught up the main body of the group again.

We were starting to find that we were becoming much more tired and much more hungry. Steve Redgrave found that he would wake up at about 4am starving hungry after a session the previous evening, and would have to get up to eat. Other people had stopped drinking alcohol, Steve Redgrave amongst them, and Friday night activities were now determined by what session was due on the Saturday morning. Tom Daly found that the best way to stop himself from being tempted by a Friday night glass of wine was to clean his bathroom instead. I would sometimes struggle to stay awake on my drive home and arrived back torn between eating and falling asleep. There was one occasion when I fell asleep in the hallway while in the process of taking my boots off.

We had also started doing things in our own time including cycling, swimming, running with weight, finding hills to run up and monkey bars to play on with our weight on. The Commando Challenge had surreptitiously taken over our lives and only the most supporting of partners and families could deal with this new found obsessive behaviour. Steve Redgrave had started cycling to improve his leg strength and Monty showed him that if he wore his cycling helmet back to front, the plastic loops would circle his eyes goggle style and that this was definitely the way forward.

Steve Redgrave also started to develop an unhealthy interest in all things involving a physical challenge and e-mailed the group with details of a triathlon for beginners. The web site included handy hints for beginners, such as ‘how to get out of your wetsuit quickly’ and ‘how to find your bicycle’.

Group e-mails had become quite common by then and the conversations we had were nothing short of truly bizarre.

 Fairly early on in the course Chris Akabusi’s knee started to give him trouble and he eventually had to gracefully retire shortly before the first weekend away, his knee having (as he put it) internally exploded, requiring surgery. In his resignation e-mail he did point out though that he wanted to give us a chance as he had been finding Keith’s sessions a bit easy, and didn’t want to show us up with his gazelle like running.

Monty soon realised that we viewed Keith’s sessions with trepidation, especially when we asked who was due to take the next one and all visibly gave sighs of relief or squeals of worry depending on his response. Monty also rather liked showing off to other BMF members. As we came crawling in from a particularly gruelling session which had involved large amounts of ‘gurning’ he would tell us to get it together as we came into the car park, all speed marching in perfect time, heads high, chests out, to show how nails we were.

NB Gurning = physical effort and determination to keep going as hard as you can, that exceeds the call of duty.

The first weekend away was an eye opener. The joining instructions promised that we would come back a bit more nails and with more hair on our arses. It was a 10lb weekend – which meant that we would carry 10lbs for everything we did.

Marines are obviously very nails. Monty built himself a basha – of sorts – to sleep under, as did Kev, while a huge, waterproof, windproof tent was erected to keep the food in! Steve Redgrave had a fantastic tent, which seemed to include a foyer and servants quarters.

The first night was freezing. Steve Redgrave was particularly cold and the next morning discovered that his sleeping bag was in fact designed for one balmy night in the Caribbean, provided he slept inside. It said so on the label. And even then you might be a little chilly.

We breakfasted on curious combinations of pocket pasties, Nutrigrain, crisps, bread, cereal and tea with grass in it.

 

On Saturday morning, after map reading and first aid training came team-building exercises in which Monty considered we had all made a ‘hoofing’ effort. Roughly translated this means we all gave it a jolly good go.

The First Aid training was not without amusement as we were told that telling a casualty you were a first aider has been proven to increase their stress levels.

Keith, now fondly known as psychotic Keith, then led us off for a 1.5k run – up a tor, into the wind. It is fair to say that most of us experienced pain that truly surpassed any pain that had even been felt before.

Steve Redgrave’s back was giving him a little trouble (something to do with unnecessary aggression during the team building games which had involved building a rope swing). I remember seeing him half way up the hill, lying on his back, daring to take it easy for a minute or two. Rest at the top? Oh no, Keith felt that some press-ups and sit-ups were much more the order of the day.

Followed by a run back down, made more alarming by have the wind pushing us down the hill, and 100 press-ups and sit-ups once we got back to the campsite.

The afternoon was spent practising navigating, and going for a short self navigated yomp in which we discovered the following:

1)      Dartmoor is criss crossed with marshes and streams and therefore getting wet feet is a foregone certainty, even with the most expert of stream crossing ability.

2)      Dartmoor has lots of barbed wire fences. Until then, all we had worried about in the downstairs area was chafing.

3)      Dartmoor is covered in lots of prickly things that get stuck in your legs and hurt

4)      Dartmoor has some seriously steep hills.

 Having returned from this, all feeling generally exhausted we retired to the pub for drinks and dinner. Unless of course we had fallen for Monty’s most hilarious joke whereby we were all to sleep on top of a tor, with a mere 2 sleeping bags and 2 ponchos, and catch our own dinner.

The evening was rounded off nicely with beer, hot dinner and pear and ginger crumble.

Over dinner Keith and Monty enlightened us with tales of Marine life, such as the time when Monty was seen by the world’s press having a crap. Monty also told us how he came up with the idea of the Commando Challenge while sitting in the bath. Keith also told us about a half marathon he ran (the morning after a night of drinking). At the start he was asked what his strategy was – which consisted of ‘run it as fast as you can because it’s going to hurt so the sooner you get it over with the sooner it stops hurting’ and he completed the run in what the group generally considered to be a ridiculous time. Suddenly, so many things about Keith’s sessions fell into place.

Those whose drinking had ceased for a while experienced all sorts of problems when they drank again, but by then had learnt to work through the pain. Although Steve Redgrave did mention that drinking was now giving him new experiences, such as being on the verge of blacking out after about 2 pints.

We learnt new (marine) words: wet = drink (relatively obvious) and scran = food (not so obvious). We also started to realise what an exercise maniac Sally Gunnell was as she cart wheeled her way to the pub, grinning like a Cheshire cat and asking all and sundry if they wanted to go for a run with her. It just wasn’t normal.

Having learnt from the previous night, I went to sleep that night wearing all the clothes I had brought with me. This included 5 tops, 3 pairs of trousers and 4 pairs of socks. I would have worn more socks but couldn’t fit any more on.

The following morning I got up early to attend to a call of nature and it was an amazing morning. It was only slightly starting to get light and the moon was bright orange and low in the sky, which was a dark, inky blue. Tom Daly was also up and about, wandering around in his pants looking as though he had escaped from a local home for the bewildered. ‘It’s going to be another beautiful day’ I said. ‘No’ he replied. ‘What you mean is, the weather is going to be nice’.

Normally at 7.15 on a Sunday morning I would be in bed – which seems eminently sensible. However, on this particularly Sunday at 7.15am the whole group was up, dressed, washed (after a fashion) and breakfasting on Nutrigrain bars (I think it’s safe to say that we all now hate Nutrigrain bars) just about to set off for our 4 mile timed test run along the Dartmoor loop to earn our Commando Challenge T-Shirt – wanted by many, owned by few. And we all earned ours that day. There’s nothing quite like running along the hills with snot from the person next to you blowing into your face.

After the run we were briefly shown the assault course at Okehampton Camp that we would be using in the tests. Daly Thomson had a go on the monkey bars for us, but Monty advised us not to go on any other of the obstacles in case someone saw and got a bit emotional about it.

We were shown the zigzag wall (which is several feet high and has gaps between the zigs and zags – you’re meant to run the wall and jump the gaps) and Daly Thomson asked ‘if you fall off, do you just go back and do it again’. ‘No’, replied Monty. ‘If you fall off, you go to hospital’.

 

 This was followed by another and much longer yomp which we did on little more than a pocket pasty and some god awful chicken soup.

Just when we thought it was all over, one of the group had to pretend to be a casualty, and the team then had to run with them back to camp – including getting them over a gate.

After this we turned homewards. We also had the added entertainment at the end of the weekend of watching Daly Thomson take down his tent.

Weekend top tip: don’t use the hot water to make your tea until you have established whether someone has already been waiting half an hour for it to boil.

The session immediately after our weekend away was meant to be ‘gentle’. However, after a most monstrous, dangerous and thoroughly aggressive cone game Monty decided to stuff the gently idea and just thrash us anyway as we clearly had too much energy.

The scuffle in the Middle East impacted on our training sessions in two ways. Firstly, as Monty worked for the MOD he wasn’t able to take all the sessions he had intended to, and some had to be re-scheduled. Secondly, peace marches in Hyde Park meant we had to re-locate some of our sessions and try to look a bit less military. As Monty put it in one of his e-mails to the group, speed marching round Hyde Park in combats, boots, with Commando Challenge T shirts and back packs might result in us being beaten to death with ‘Not in My Name’ banners.

Also, due to the MOD’s greater need of Monty we were getting more sessions taken by Keith and by now his opening comment had progressed from ‘let’s get fit’ to ‘let’s work so hard your eyes bleed’. And he wasn’t joking. Lots of press-ups with 20lbs on your back is a whole new world of pain. But he was usually rather impressed with gurning groans that such press-up sets induced.

On one particular Saturday we turned out and no instructor did. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. A measure of the mindset we had now reached was that we actually took ourselves for the session – and worked ourselves reasonably hard, making sure we all looked in fine form as we speed marched passed the green bib BMF group (BMF has colour coded bibs and Green was for the fittest and fastest). Colin Jackson primarily led the session and I think we have found his true vocation.

Monty apologised profusely for this confusion but commented that there is a war on, which we are winning due solely to his efforts at the MOD.

This was soon followed by a few of us (Jonathan Edwards, Steve Redgrave, Sally Gunnell, Kelly Holmes and me) volunteering to go to Dartmoor for an extra weekend. The group travelling down from London (driven by Jonathan Edwards) managed to go via Portsmouth, working on the principle of ‘we’ll just set off and see what happens’. I began to feel sorry for whoever else was in their team for the self-navigated 30 miler. I came down in the morning instead, leaving home at 4.30am to meet the group emerging from their tents, consuming large quantities of the dreaded Nutrigrain bars. The original plan had been to sleep in the bunkhouse but it was felt that this would not be in the true spirit of things. Their tent had been pitched slightly further out into the field than when we were all here on the weekend away, and had been considerably less cold.

Given Jonathan Edwards’s navigational challenges I led the way to the Dartmoor loop. There wasn’t enough room in Jonathan Edwards’s car for all of us anyway – it seemed to have been taken over by Sally Gunnell’s kit. Sally Gunnell had also filled my car with boulders and rocks to put in her bergan for the run.

Keith decided we were all ‘billy bonkers’ for doing this extra training weekend. And half way through our self appointed nine mile run (along a route which Monty had most accurately described as heinous) I agreed with Keith. We damn nearly did 18 miles had Steve Redgrave not realised in the nick of time that if we parked and ran 9 miles away from the car, we would have to come back! Sally Gunnell and I drove out 4.5 miles marking each mile point with duct tape. The intention was that we would pick up the tape on the way back. Which we completely forgot to do. Steve Redgrave commented that we weren’t proper marines. A real marine leaves nothing behind. He also pointed out that crowds of sheep would gather at each bit of tape looking at it, wondering what it was.

As Kelly Holmes and I came in from the run I could feel the skin leaving my toes. I took my boots off at the end and saw the blood on my socks that had soaked through two pairs.

The 9 miler then became the foundation for all sort of civil rights, such as, no member of the public should be allowed to drive back on the A303 unless they had done the 9 miler. And Ken Livingstone may get a letter or two suggesting that people’s rights in London should be dependent on whether they have done the 9 miler.

We also all agreed that, despite being civilians ourselves, we had developed contempt for all civilians as being wasters.

 We also were getting a little concerned about life after the Commando Challenge – BMF classes would never be the same. The intensity of training, and group aim for a single goal would actually be missed. We knew we would feel a little bit lost.

During lunch we discussed Sally Gunnell’s eating habits. If I remember correctly, it’s something along the lines of this: she only eats organic, living, uncooked things. When a fly got stuck in Steve Redgrave’s mash he offered it to Sally Gunnell on the grounds that it was alive, but she declined his kind offer.

We nobly tried some of the food she prepares for herself and generally agreed that it was revolting.

That afternoon we had intended to go for a hearty yomp, but a combination of the effect of the 9 miler on our feet, a big lunch (inclusive of pear and ginger crumble) and in some cases a couple of beers, reduced it to a much shorter walk. An addition to the group suggested we walk up to Widgery Cross. Steve Redgrave pointed out that it looked so nice from down here it seemed a shame to spoil it by seeing it close up.

While resting in the sun up on the hills that afternoon we commented on the fact that some of the sessions had mentioned the inclusion of fireman’s carry, yet this had not yet been included. I made the observation that this might have been there more for variety and fun than being a vital skill for the Challenge. This was met with Steve Redgrave crying ‘Fun! Oh yes, pick up your mate and run for two miles just for fun. That’s the sort of thing Keith would do!’  At which point he picked up Sally Gunnell, and with both her and his kit, ran for a little bit up the hill just to show how fun it was.

Steve Redgrave also started to become a bit of a bergan hugger and repeating mantra type phrases of ‘my bag is my weapon and my weapon is my friend’ and ‘ be nice to your weapon and it will be nice to you’.

We came back from that extra weekend even more nails than we had been before, but, speaking for myself, still with a marked absence of hairy arse.

By this stage most Challengers has also noticed changes to their body. Mine included an increase of 2 inches to my upper body girth due to the increase in muscles down my back. This rather brilliantly meant that none of my bras would fit any more (not helped by simultaneous shrinkage in breast size), and along with the enormous shoulders I had developed, the whole look was becoming decidedly unfeminine. However, bum was stubbornly remaining the same. During our extra weekend away it had been suggested that I had misunderstood the information given and that actually the Challenge had promised hairy arse, not smaller arse.

As well as changing your lifestyle and body shape, the Commando Challenge also teaches you a lot about yourself. To stand any chance of even getting through the tests, irrespective of the timings, you have to utterly commit to the Challenge and push yourself beyond all limits of physical and mental ability.

You soon learn that your mind gives up long before your body does, and the training starts to become a battle of wills, bloody-minded determination and the ability to keep going through the pain. You learn a lot about your own personal limits and attitudes as well your ability to overcome the mental fatigue and nagging message in your head telling you that you can’t do it. The effort is totally individual. The instructors will not shout at you to keep up, or gently encourage you. You keep going if you want to. If you don’t, then you’re on your own. No one else will do the motivation thing on your behalf.

The second weekend was fast upon us – a 25lb weekend.

By now we were old hands. Except Daly Thomson that is, who was the first to start putting up his tent – and the last to finish putting up his tent, and then found that he had pitched it on the lumpiest part of the campsite. Keith had a tent bought in a mega sale that was utterly impractical (it did not condense to a shape that could be carried on/in a rucksack) but had a massive novelty factor. Basically it was like a slinky. Compressed = no tent, stretched out = tent. Daly Thomson rather amusingly pointed at one of the basha’s and commented that he never intended to sleep under one of them (for those who don’t know, Daly Thomson is planning to join the Royal Marines). After everyone had put up their tents Jonathan Edwards and Steve Redgrave announced their discovery that the edge of the campsite (where everyone was, except them) seemed to have a microclimate whereby your tent was covered with icicles at around 2am, and that it was much warmer where they were.

Despite this, most people were actually warm that night.

Daly Thomson, who had been having trouble getting comfortable boots had yet another pair of new boots for the weekend. Kev advised him to wear them for the gentler activities to limit the damage to his feet and swap to his other pair for the more involved and arduous events.

Saturday involved hurling ourselves round the assault course an unnecessary number of times, both with weight and without. The first obstacle is a water jump (which had been full of frogspawn when we saw it on the first weekend, and was now full of tadpoles). On the first lap we all tried to jump this but second time round almost everyone, in absolute absence of energy, just jumped straight in without even the slightest attempt to jump over it.

As the girls struggled to get over the 6 foot wall (obstacle 2) the men kneeled down, lined up against the wall like a row of suitors, for us to climb on. Three of us set off together. Three of us jumped straight into the water (with a 2 footed landing of course), thereby causing extra splashage. Three men visibly shrank back into the wall with a look on their face of ‘they’re wet, they’re covered in tadpoles and they’re going to climb on us’.

The assault course also caused a damage toll. Linford Christie’s shoulder dislocated while on the monkey bars. Miraculously he held on single handed for a couple of minutes while Kev and Keith lifted him off. (Jonathan Edwards brilliantly did not notice this drama as he came swinging along the same row of bars that Linford Christie has come asunder on. Only once there it did start to occur to him that he might now experience a little difficulty getting past). Colin Jackson fell from the 30-foot high rope. Sally Gunnell tried the rope and on her second go managed to get caught as she pulled herself out onto the rope. Initially Keith wasn’t sure what to do, or where to put his hands. The view from the ground as he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her back, bum in the air, was nothing short of amusing. He then shouted to the rest of us that she was wearing sexy bondage knickers with whips and ties all over them that had got caught. It was in fact the tie on her trousers. (This event was taken out of the final challenge due to safety concerns, and replaced with the practice runs on the similar obstacle a mere 2 foot off the ground).

 

Kelly Holmes fell off the monkey bars when she had the weight on, and Jonathan Edwards, who at that moment had camera control, felt unable to take a picture. It was not, he thought, a Kodak moment.

It was more than a little alarming for Kelly Holmes. Firstly, the water was very cold, and secondly her head was completely submerged for a moment or two and as she is not a swimmer this was particularly unnerving.

 

In true nails style she got up and carried on to the zigzag wall. However, after jumping off awkwardly and spraining her ankle very badly, this marked the end of weekend activities for her. She decided that on the real thing she would just climb over the rails around the monkey bars, and walk through the water rather than risk another fall.

Getting over the walls with weight became a massive teamwork event, with people rushing over and pushing every part of you over. Having a big arse became an advantage to accommodate the number of hands that were on it to get you over the walls.

 

The assault course is not long, but we were all surprised as how utterly exhausted we were at the end of it. Crawling through the tunnels at the end, many of us had lost our lungs.

I had been having trouble with my shins, momentarily in most sessions of the course, but more significantly over the previous week. Although I tried to climb off obstacles rather than jump, the assault course did them no favours. Very early on into the 12k yomp back to camp I reluctantly conceded defeat, along with Colin Jackson. My legs just wouldn’t move. No matter how much I wanted them to. And that was the end of our weekend activity. It was a difficult decision to make.

It was made harder in that I had taken a lot of ibuprofen and had put ibuprofen gel all over my shins. Therefore, as Roger Bannister pointed out I didn’t really know how much damage I was causing myself. Roger Bannister admired my wanting to continue, but also considered it to be foolish when considering the longer-term implications. I could have continued, albeit in pain, but at the risk of causing such an extent of damage that I actually ended up putting myself out of the game. With only three weeks to go, discretion had to be the better part of valour. It was hard to know the best thing to do. The problem was being exacerbated in that my body was trying to compensate for the damage to my shins by putting other parts of my legs under additional strain, and my knees and hamstrings were feeling this extra burden.

There were again more tales told over our Saturday evening pints. Steve Redgrave discussed the finer art of cooking crabs. The usual way involves putting the crab in a pot of water, which is then gently heated. Apparently the crab initially is ok. As the water warms it finds it rather cosy and as it starts to get very hot then it runs around and around the pot in increasing discomfort until if finally dies. Steve Redgrave had read that putting a screwdriver between their eyes and giving one hard tap with a hammer killed the crab outright. Considering this to be a much more humane way of killing the crab he proceeded with this course of action. As soon as he hit the screwdriver in, the crab’s claws circled up to its head and grabbed the screwdriver. There was then a wrestling match between Steve Redgrave and the crab in which the crab did lose but also became quite mutilated. During the attack, when there was sight of blood and shell everywhere, his girlfriend had come in and he explained to her that he was just humanely killing the crab. Now he just puts them in the pot alive, puts a lid on and leaves the room.

Tragically there was no pear and ginger crumble. Instead it became crumble surprise as they did not have enough of any flavour for all of us.

We further discussed Sally Gunnell and her food, and she had more living delights for us to try. After it had been passed round and generally disliked she informed us that it might actually have gone off.
 

Keith, in further demonstration of how nails he was, told us that the previous weekend he had gone to Estonia for a rugby match. There was deep snow and a blizzard so naturally the decision was made to leave the changing room completely naked. We also found out the Estonian for 12 months.

That night I was kept awake for hours by the constant ache in my legs. I tossed and turned trying to find a position where there was no pain, but only ended up tying my sleeping bag in knots which pinned my legs together requiring manual assistance. Also I was boiling hot.

During the night Christopher Dean and Steve Cram appeared having spent Saturday doing phys with the Royal Marine Recruits on the South Downs.

As we breakfasted in the rain Christopher Dean told us he had only ever seen Dartmoor when it was raining. It therefore seemed natural to assume that is was his fault that it had started raining in the night, as we had had beautiful weather prior to this when he had not attended.

Sunday involved the 6-mile run, the first two miles of which were very unpleasantly up hill.

We wondered if our duct tape would still be there. I pointed out that some sheep may have eaten it and choked, and that each mile might now be marked by a dead sheep instead.

By now, many of us were unable to be part of this run, and could only offer support from the minibus as it followed.

We stopped at the half way point to put up a water stop. As the minibus continued along the road, Steve Redgrave pointed out that the sheep would probably pollute the mugs and water knowing that we were the one who put the duct tape down.

Sally Gunnell fell behind for the first time ever in the course and Kev got out to run with her and keep her going. At the water stop he grabbed some dreaded Nutrigrain bars from the minibus to give to her. Such was her hunger that she would have wrestled him to the ground for it. He then fed her bite size chunks of it as they continued to run along. One bit she dropped, and stopped running to pick it up and eat it. We then realised why Nutrigrain tasted so bad. If Sally Gunnell would eat them, they must be made of organic living things. Kev later apologised saying that had he known she had eating preferences (he damn nearly said eating disorder), he would have picked some weeds or something for her instead.

In the distance we had also watched the group and seen Tom Daly fall off the end and catch up again on two separate occasions. The run had been heroic.

Monty had been unable to come on this weekend, so Keith had taken the speed march. Through his gasps for breath at the end Steve Redgrave said ‘he ran up the hills and walked down them. That’s not my kind of speed march. What sort of sense does that make. We like Monty’s. He walks up the hills and runs down’. Apparently Keith had also laughed for most of the final mile.

As we drove to Waitrose to top up on food Kev gave us all a well earned telling off for not eating and drinking anywhere near enough for the activities we were undertaking. Sally Gunnell followed this by eating a couple of bags of organic crisps. In one weekend, we had ruined her dietary standards.

After this we had a walk through of the endurance course. Although my shins would never have coped with the 6-mile run (running on hard surfaces, downhill, with the added issue of boots and weight all combines to equal pain) I had hoped to have a go at the endurance course.

However, as it involved getting wet, and as the weather was cool, in order to prevent anyone getting too cold the course was run rather than walked. Daly Thomson had also joined the wounded by this stage due to absence of skin on his feet. He had indeed swapped boots – but had failed to mention that the second pair were also brand new.

We walked round the course, taking short cuts. And that was enough to get my legs hurting – so the run round would have been very much out of the question.

While packing up I noticed that Tom Daly had brought a crossword puzzle book. ‘Well’ he said ‘it creates conversation during the long runs. I’m stuck on 4 down – the clue is fucking hard and eight more of them to go’.

 

I left the weekend thoroughly disheartened and very unsure about what to do given the state of my legs.

It seems that injury was also of concern to Monty and Kev who each sent e-mails of encouragement, pointing out that our bodies were being taken to places they hadn’t been before and injuries were inevitable.

I went to a physio and explained to her that in just less than three weeks my legs needed to be able to do the Commando tests. She diagnosed Compartment Syndrome the definition of which is: A syndrome of compression of the nerves and blood vessels in an anatomic compartment leading to impaired blood flow and nerve damage. If this pressure is high enough, blood flow to the compartment will be blocked which can lead to permanent injury to the muscle and nerves. If the pressure lasts long enough, the limb may even need to be amputated.

I was also diagnosed as having shin splints: A shin splint is essentially an inflammatory reaction involving the deep tissues of the lower leg and may involve tendons & muscles. The inflammatory reaction occurs at the point where the deep tissues insert into the inside (medial) or front (anterior) aspect of the leg bone (tibia), and the bone itself can become tender.

Despite this, my physio initially felt that she could get my legs to a state where they should hold up for the Challenge. However, this would mean that I could do no running in the meantime. This would not have been an option anyway as the physio treatment was so intense and painful that it was difficult to walk for the rest of the day that I had treatment. It also meant that I had to wear leg supports continually until some time after the tests, with additional bandaging being needed while actually doing the tests.

After much gnashing of teeth and overuse of swear words I made the decision that despite being unable to do any high impact training for the remainder of the course, I would proceed with the Commando Tests. I was therefore now going to do a 13 week course with only 10 weeks of training.

I e-mailed the group to let them know that they wouldn’t be seeing me, but that I hadn’t dropped out. I received several e-mails of support. Colin Jackson wished me happy healing and exchanged notes on how his physio was going. Kev congratulated my fighting spirit and my mind’s determination to go on, even if my body was failing me. Chris Akabusi was stunned at the terrible health toll the course was taking, and took avid interest in how everyone was doing. But I think my personal favourite came from Jonathan Edwards who simply said:

‘You are completely nails and hairy of derriere for going ahead with the tests in the circumstances! RESPECT. Take it easy and see you on the hills’.

 With one week and 3 physio sessions to go before the tests the plot thickened when my physio advised me that she suspected that I may also have stress fractures. A stress fracture is an overuse injury. It occurs when muscles become fatigued and are unable to absorb added shock. Eventually, the fatigued muscle transfers the overload of stress to the bone causing a tiny crack called a stress fracture.

Stress fractures often are the result of increasing the amount or intensity of an activity too rapidly. They also can be caused by the impact of an unfamiliar surface (Dartmoor); improper equipment, i.e. a runner using worn or less flexible shoes (boots); and increased physical stress (30lbs bergan).

We receive our joining instructions for the test weekend, which began ‘Dear flinty eyed fast moving hard hitting dealers of messy amphibious death’ and included a strong recommendation to take out personal accident insurance.

I drove down to Okehampton camp on Thursday night, unsure about how far through the weekend I would be able to get. Kev was already there with Mat (another ex-marine who was helping out for the weekend) and Linford Christie had only recently arrived. We retired to the NAAFI for a drink where unsurprisingly I was the only girl. The group gradually gathered throughout the evening and we settled in to our grots (rooms).

Monty and the group he was bringing arrived last – partly because Monty usually talks for the entire journey, driving slower as a result and partly because they stopped off for a slap up dinner.

Due to shortage of rooms in the male block, Tom Daly was given a room with the girls, and was honoury girl for the remainder of the weekend. Sally Gunnell had a room to herself – which was fortunate as within seconds every bit of the floor and beds were covered in her kit.

 

That evening Daly Thomson walked into Kelly Holmes and my room terribly confused about what block he was meant to be in.

The following morning, after scran (Linford Christie was missing the crisp sandwich breakfasts of previous weekends), we had a briefing in the instructors’ rooms and each of us commented, as we trooped in, that they had carpets and we didn’t. It was also noticed that there was a strong smell of crap that Kev proudly owned up to. Tom Daly mentioned that the smell of food generally makes you hungry and he was finding that the smell of shit was making him need a dump.

During the briefing Monty took out his green beret to re-iterate what these tests were all about and said that if anyone passed, they would be allowed to touch it. Kev informed us that the Green Beret was either £6.99 from forces surplus stores or 2000 lbs of blood and sweat. This was followed by a Royal Marines Commando Recruitment video with some footage of the tests we were to undertake – and a starring role by Kev, who had hair then. Kev told us that this was the time to set out stall out about what we wanted to achieve.

We also had to sign a two page disclaimer which basically confirmed that we understood the extreme nature of what we were about to undertake and promised to obey our instructors at all times.

Some of us, anticipating the water involvement of Day 1 had gaffa taped our bergans to make them both compact for the tunnels and slightly more water resistant. Having not weighed them with the official Commando Challenge scales, when underweight we simply gaffa taped cast iron discs and stones to the outside of our bergans.

Shortly after this we trundled down to the assault course. Christopher Dean was there so it was raining and we were all accepting that this would mean coming off the monkey bars as the bars would be slippery.

 

On our quick reminder walk around the obstacles we noticed that the tadpoles in the water jump were considerably bigger and insisted on swimming right at the edge – where we were most likely to land. I was pleased they weren’t frogs yet. Jumping on frogs would have been horrible. You can’t get emotional about a tadpole.

The water under the monkey bars had been drained and therefore this obstacle was out of bounds and an alternative was devised. Also the swing bridge had been condemned.

 

As we had no intention of doing the 30 foot high rope we instead had to leopard crawl through the gravel beneath it.

We were set off for two laps of the assault course in pairs, with an instructor accompanying each person. Kev came round with me and kept going on about racing lines. On the run back down the road to start again he seemed to think that I would hurtle along as fast as I could. My plan, in fact, was to use this as my recovery time before going through the whole thing again.

 To assist our monkey bar replacement (moving sideways along a straight bar) Monty continually removed his T-shirt to dry the bars off. We also made use of the instructors to dry our hands on before getting on the bars. We had 13 minutes to get round and many people did indeed pass the event.

Both Steve Redgrave and Monty had brought video cameras and over the next hour or so they gathered footage of heroic effort and gurning. It is impossible to explain just how exhausting the assault course is.

The tadpole massacre was immense.

 

Christopher Dean – our Royal Marine Reservist – failed, despite two attempts as he could not master the replacement monkey bars.

After a shower and scran we headed off to Lympstone for the endurance course. On the drive down Daly Thomson asked Monty if he could take his shirt off to go through Pete’s pool. Monty answered simply by saying ‘Daly Thomson, note to self. Do not ask that question once you have joined as a recruit’.

Kelly Holmes and I set off first accompanied by Kev and Monty. We trotted down and up and into the first of five tunnels. Inside the tunnels it is completely black. They have been brilliantly designed to go deep and turn such that the light at the end is barely visible until you’re there.

Due to the recent wet weather it was also about a foot deep in freezing water.

Emerging at the end, somewhat bedraggled we then headed down to Pete’s pool. Basically this involves walking through a pool of again, freezing water. There is a rope through the middle to pull yourself along with. The water went almost up to my neck and the shock of the cold made breathing difficult. Sometimes the uneven footing meant that I sank a little deeper.

We clambered out at the other end, aware that our rucksacks were a fraction heavier and ran, after a fashion, up the hill the other side and down a deep, well worn gulley, through a stream to the sheep dip. This is tunnel two and is completely submerged in water. It’s not very long and the basic principle is that one person pushes you in and another pulls you out. Kev pushed Kelly Holmes through and I pulled her out then Monty pushed me though and Kev pulled me out at the other end.

 

Despite sounding unpleasant most people found this tunnel presented them with no problems at all. After this, naturally, there was a run up hill and a welcome bit of flat before dropping down to an area of unprecedented bog.

 

 

I managed to step in one of many areas of this where your leg rapidly sank to the groin, and in an effort to extricate myself, fell flat on my face into the mud – which smelt unbelievably awful.

 

 

After running through some trees and puddles and mud we then got to an area of wet red clay, ending in a pit that you needed to climb out of. While running through the knee deep water some dog walkers were on the path alongside, looking at us with sheer amazement. As well they might. Kev led me out of the clay at the side where the bank was small and therefore easier to get out from. Daly Thomson ran straight on towards a six foot ‘wall’ of wet clay that he was intending to climb out from. He never had the chance as instead he sank to his chest in the wet clay. His voice rose several decibels as he shrieked ‘Help! Get me out of here! I’m sinking!’ and frantically waved his arms about demanding rescue.

 

 

Steve Redgrave held Mat’s feet while Mat leaned over and over a period of a few minutes managed to pull Daly Thomson free. He continued the course additionally heavy due to the clay he was now carrying.

Up and down a few more hills and through another tunnel at least a foot deep in water. This one went up at the end into shingle and I struggled horribly to get out, trying to claw my way through the shingle with Colin Jackson behind me pushing my feet.

 

By now knees and elbows were bruised and battered. The tunnels are floored by stones.

In one of the remaining tunnels it was particularly dark and bendy. I could hear Tom Daly ahead of me and kept calling out to him to find out which way the tunnel turned to avoid banging my head on the corrugated iron sides. But he never heard me. I could also hear Jonathan Edwards splashing through the tunnel behind me. Aware that I was going slowly I became concerned that he would come hurtling into my bum. Finally the light at the end appeared and we all emerged, better people for the experience.

In the final tunnel I could was aware that I wanted to cry. Every muscle in me hurt. My knees and elbows were in tatters. I could hardly breathe. My back was bruised from the 30lbs rucksack. In the mile or so of leafy lane (pretty wooded path before getting to the road) I could barely breathe at all. I kept manipulating my throat desperately trying to get air in. I couldn’t speak so was unable to call out to anyone that I was having a problem. I tried to control the rising panic, aware that this would not help.

 

By the time I reached the road I had managed to bring my breathing back down to panting. All I now had to do was run for approximately 4 miles along country lanes. Kev gave me a bottle of water to have a couple of glugs from and a snickers bar to eat on the way. I had been feeling sick for most of the endurance course, and was expecting to see lunch again. I had a tiny bite of the snickers but this only increased the nausea, so I ran the whole way back holding it as it gradually melted.

During the run back Monty received several phone calls, and he answered each one with ‘hello mate, you’ll never believe it but I’m in the middle of running the Commando endurance course’.

Monty kept asking after my shins and I had expected this part of the weekend to see me off, but I couldn’t feel anything so just kept running. As I crossed the finish line I dropped my weight and it was then I realised how in bits I was. I couldn’t stand still, or even upright, and just started spinning. Monty sat me down and gave me water. I sank about 2 litres straight off and promptly burst into tears.

I went into the pavilion to change and started throwing up. Aware that I was throwing up my much needed water, I tried to stop myself. It was a few hours before I felt right again. It had been emotional.

As Kelly Holmes had run back her wet trousers had flapped all over the place and even started to fall down, and she had effed her blinded her way through four miles about what she was going to do with her trousers when she got back.

We returned to the grots and had a much needed hot shower that actually makes your aching muscles and cuts and grazes sting furiously. And as the water was so soft that it took several minutes for soap and shampoo to wash off, there was plenty of time for this stinging.

Day 1 was finished, and as a group we were already deeply proud of ourselves.

Several people had passed both events, by seconds in some cases. Tom Daly unfortunately missed the endurance course time by 2 minutes.

We also compared injuries and applied large amounts of lotions and potions promising to make us feel better. Kelly Holmes had a rather marvellous knee swelling about the size of a golf ball.

On our return Tom Daly also asked me what I did about my nipples. I advised him that as I wore a sports bra, this solved all nipple rub problems, and the T-shirts just rubbed over the bra. I told him he was welcome to borrow one of my bras, but I think he, and the other chaps, just opted for taping their nipples.

It was also at this point that Kelly Holmes discovered the soles of her boots were collapsing and crumbling. The rest of us were only concerned about getting them dry for the next day.

That evening the instructor’s decided to go ashore (drive into town) for a few drinks. Tom Daly, Colin Jackson and Daly Thomson went with them. They had discussed how to get there and back and eventually decided to drive down and either get a taxi back or sleep over in the wagon.

Steve Redgrave resisted the temptation to go and explained the problem of drinking with Keith. Basically, you each get a pint and before yours has reached your lips Keith has finished his. Keith then offers to buy you another, and you can’t really say no and expect to maintain any respect at all. So before you know it, you have one and half pints in front of you. Keith then downs the second one with equal rapidity and then it’s your round.

In hindsight Steve Redgrave should perhaps not have told Keith that Daly Thomson is wrecked after one pint.

The rest of us lounged around Kev’s grot watching videos, or in my case, gently dozing. Christopher Dean popped out to buy a couple of bars of chocolate and returned with about three bulging supermarket bags. Steve Redgrave was tempted to have a particularly vicious dump in the instructor’s grot – but unfortunately someone had beaten him to it rendering him unable to perform.

 

That evening apparently Daly Thomson trapped (pulled) beyond the call of duty. Monty told us the next day that a middle aged woman had dragged him off and snogged him viciously – which he seemed rather pleased with. He even trapped in the taxi queue.

Later that night Kelly Holmes was awoken by a dark figure in the doorway – and informed a drunken Daly Thomson that yet again, he was in the wrong block.

The following morning as Tom Daly, Kelly Holmes and I wandered down to breakfast we saw Daly Thomson running up the hill with 2 breakfasts.

It seemed that at some point during the previous evening a ridiculous bet had been devised whereby Daly Thomson had been given a completely impossible task which, if he was unable to do meant that as a forfeit he had to take breakfast to Kev and Keith. What Daly Thomson didn’t know is that Kev and Keith had completely forgotten about it.

Over the weekend several units had come to Okehampton camp and Daly Thomson had not enjoyed taking the breakfast passed all of them. He never returned for his own scran, and just went back to bed.

Monty that morning looked like a man who had foolishly tried to keep up with Keith on a night out.

That day was a relaxed day, with the exception of a nine mile run. Monty’s briefing for this was quite simple ‘chaps, you’re going to run nine miles’.

That morning we were also given the route for the 30 miler and spent the time before the nine miler planning our routes.

After lunch we set off merrily for the nine miler.

Monty had a rather nasty headache and hoped that a nine mile run would be just what he needed to sort it out.

Kelly Holmes and I ran separately from the group, knowing full well that we would not keep up. We instead ran it accompanied by Mat – who talked incessantly the whole way, which did actually help take your mind off what we were doing. My shins hurt in the first couple of miles but eased off once we had started to get into the run.

While Kelly Holmes and I trundled along, listening to Mat’s truly awful jokes, the group at the front were having an interesting time. Part of the nine mile route included a rather persistent, long uphill, followed by a diversion through leafy lane at the top of the endurance course (to avoid running along a busy main road). There was a water stop at the end of leafy lane. Christopher Dean – who had dropped back a little, sprinted along leafy lane to catch up, knowing he would be able to stop for a few seconds at the end and have something to drink. However, as soon as he arrived at the stop, Monty started the group off again. At this point Monty realised that they were 3 minutes behind. The remainder of the run was downhill, and Monty said to forget double march, just keep up with him and you’ll make the time, and proceeded to sprint off down the hill.

At this point Kev in the safety vehicle watched people start to straggle as limbs flew left, right and centre and the regimental march of steps all came to pieces. Jonathan Edwards started gurning groans in time with the running steps to try and maintain some sort of rhythm. Most of us now run with a continual count of one, two, three, four in our heads.
 

As Kelly Holmes and I came through leafy lane her damaged boots were starting to make her feet horrendously painful and she started effing and blinding about the boots and what she was going to do with them. I though Mat would fall in the mud with laughing.

As I ran in from the nine miler, Steve Redgrave felt the need to capture the moment on video, so I attempted a sprint finish. As Kelly Holmes came in Mat and Keith walked beside her, while she ran.

Tom Daly again missed the time by 2 minutes and I wondered whether he would do the 30 miler in 8 hours and 2 minutes.

Steve Redgrave also did a video interview with Colin Jackson, in which he expressed concern about the hygiene of the endurance course, and commented on the quality of the meals, but also mentioned that he had had a word with Fortnum’s in respect of this.

On the way back Monty realised that he had told Keith all his stories, and would probably now starting telling Keith’s back to him, so the journey back was in virtual silence.

On our return to camp Christopher Dean snuck out to re-take the assault course – which he passed. His delight at being able to tell his fellow rubber daggers (Royal Marine Reserves) that he had passed all the tests so far was slightly dampened by the news that Sally Gunnell had already texted Steve Cram with news of Christopher Dean’s assault course fail, and Steve Cram had passed this news on to the whole of Christopher Dean’s unit.

Over dinner I was at a table with Tom Daly, Kelly Holmes, Sally Gunnell and Christopher Dean. We discussed Sally Gunnell’s dinner (seaweed, some sort of sprout thing and other unmentionables) and Tom Daly’s worms (that’s worms in a wormery to consume vegetable waste and make compost as opposed to any other sort of worm). Apparently they are delivered by mail order and the box states quite clearly that it contains live worms – and Tom Daly did not have the decency to be in when the package was sent, so his neighbour took delivery of it. Christopher Dean involuntarily winced more often than can be good for you.

Many other subjects were also covered, and by the end Christopher Dean told us that the weekend would result in his having two weeks of physiotherapy and four years of counselling.

According to my briefing notes the third day started as follows:

4.30am                        Up

5.00am                        Scran
5.15am                        Depart
6.00am                        First team sets off on 30 miler

In the event the first team, which was Kelly Holmes and I, accompanied by Dids (previous years challenger, who had come to help out), set off at 6.30am.

In order to limit blister damage I had taped up my feet well enough to make an Egyptian mummifier green with envy.

We, and many other teams, managed to walk about a mile in a complete circle towards the beginning, showing utterly appalling navigational skills. Then Kelly Holmes managed to attract a flock of sheep that started to follow her, and may well have ended up doing the 30 miler. It would have been hard to explain to the farmer why his sheep were now so far away. But they realised in time the folly of their actions.

Yomping up hills and very little down hills, through marshes and along rocky tracks ultimately took the final toll on Kelly Holmes’s ankles and my shins. Kelly Holmes spent large amounts of time mumbling to herself and hitting her head with her hand. Dids and I kept looking at each other, wondering if she was alright. As we came up to Okehampton camp – just short of half way – we agreed to call it a day. We were both totally happy with this decision. We had been going for about 6 hours, were knackered and for my part, was now in a lot of pain. I hadn’t expected my shins to last this long and was therefore already feeling an enormous sense of achievement. We also both agreed that it did not mean enough to us to continue and cope with the condition we would have been in at the end – which would have been extremely messy. Kelly Holmes had been close to tears on the marshes and I had been close to tears as we came off the moor onto the road to be collected by Monty.

The pain was starting to kick in. Dids went off to get a signal on his phone while Kelly Holmes and I put on lots of clothes and snuggled up under a poncho. Having collapsed on Dartmoor unconscious and hypothermic only a few months earlier I was very aware of such precautions.

Monty arrived in the landrover and insisted on taking a picture of the ‘satisfied customers’ in this amusing situation before giving us a lift back to camp.

On the way back we found out that Colin Jackson had also come out at the Okehampton RV, his decision being along very similar lines to that made by Kelly Holmes and I.

As Tom Daly had the key to our grot we went to the instructor’s one and watched videos, slept and ate our packed lunch. While there Keith and Sebastian Coe came back. Keith was hugely impressed with Tom Daly, saying that he just got stronger and stronger at each checkpoint, and they were so impressed that they would both vote Green from now on.

We also heard the Steve Redgrave was in a bit of a state and quite angry. Part of their route had been fenced off and rather than just kick down the fence and worry about it later, they had lost their mind to such an extent that they scaled a cliff to get round. With 30lbs on your back, that probably isn’t sensible.

One of the grid references we had been given was one digit out, putting the RV in the middle of a reservoir. However, Monty had said in the briefing that the RV at that grid reference was the middle of the dam over the reservoir. Therefore most people adjusted the RV accordingly. Except Daly Thomson. Daly Thomson was convinced that the RV was in the middle of the reservoir and was on the verge of swimming out to it. Daly Thomson in fact did not look at or touch a map during the 30 miler – except once when Kev asked him to point out where he was, and it seems he hadn’t a clue.

Later that afternoon, as the weather was turning, they all arrived at the finish - to the welcome relief of Monty and the doctor who had been in attendance all day.

We staggered to our grots to shower, change, compare blisters and have a couple of beers. I didn’t realise then that both my little toes were huge blisters.

Over dinner various awards were given out. These were as follows:

Most sustained instance of flashing. Flashing is extreme bad temper, which uses up considerable quantities of calories. The winner broke all previous records held for flashing by maintaining his for 10 hours – and that man was, as Monty so well described him, the Tasmanian devil Steve Redgrave. His prize was a complete set of condiments, which he thereafter referred to as his rage pack. He still looked like a man aggrieved due to his incredibly red face due to range shward (spelt phonetically).

There was also a prize for manking. This is less energetic bad temper than flashing and generally involves lots of mumbling, talking to self, swear words and banging of hand on head. This of course went to Kelly Holmes, and was a full matching set of light, easy to carry plastic cutlery.

The next prize was for the dispersion of DNA in Okehampton that would be appreciated by generations to come, as well as the person who had the most bewildered expression for the whole weekend. This award of course went to Daly Thomson, and was a pair of yellow rubber gloves.

Mat’s prize went to the person who had managed to achieve an enormous amount bearing in mind what they ate. The winner had to be Sally Gunnell, and she was given a meal prepared by Mat that consisted of sheep crap in a burger bun, with sheep crap on the side – all good, natural, organic stuff. Apparently, after returning the food to nature, Mat actually ate the burger bun.

The final award was given by Kev and was for the person who had kept a smile on their face and maintained a good attitude throughout the weekend. It went to Jonathan Edwards who had to eat a popodom as fast as he could. He smiled throughout the test, and managed in scoff it in well under a minute.

This was followed by a game apparently played by all marines after getting their green berets. It is too complicated to explain here, but basically you do not want to be the last person left playing or you get the pleasure of drinking a fizzy orange drink through a sock kindly donated by Christopher Dean that he had been wearing all day.

Tom Daly ultimately had the pleasure, and downed the drink most bravely.

Monty asked if we would recommend the Challenge to anyone else. ‘Oh yes’, said Jonathan Edwards, ‘I would recommend to someone I didn’t like’.

We retired to the NAAFI for a few well earned beers and more tales from Monty, while Daly Thomson went out with the girl he had trapped in the taxi queue – called Steve Redgrave.

We also discussed the course and what we though of it. It was generally agreed that having weekly commando challenge style sessions in Hyde Park was a good thing for those of the group who wanted to maintain this level of fitness, and also for potential new challengers to know what the course involved.

I did not spend another night at the grots, as my other half had most generously driven all the way down and booked a room in a superb, comfortable hotel for the night, four-poster bed included, with a very late breakfast.

It seems that Monty will not be doing another Commando Challenge. Several weeks earlier he had told us that he would keep doing them until he pulled, so it does rather beg the question – has he, and if so, with who?