Towpath Trek. 147 Miles. 3 Days. [day one]

4 idiots. 147 miles. 3 days. 5 Charities.

Attempting to walk the longest section of the Grand Union Canal in just 3 days. Raising money for @DementiaUK1 @britishheartfoundation @CancerResearchUK @macmillancancer and @NationalAutisticSoc

Welcome to day one of the Towpath Trek ultra challenge, where we start our journey in Paddington at 06:30, dodge some bikes, get blisters, advertise shoes, watch other people do all the hard work and battle through the first 43.5 miles of our journey to Birmingham.

Click below to get to the sponsorship page, there is still time to donate!

https://www.sponsorme.co.uk/richardgoulding/the-grand-union-canal-147-miles-in-3-days.aspx?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaYhnc9jnMUjMTXsKhyYXb1TxNy-ghrvuZ7dedl3NiAirhcx_zHKLXyOLmI_aem_AZWOBpMchJ4abcaMpIRSsHofGtqRMigutuHUn-GrYd0HPzEkCzmarhB_Bu_ftiVBM0DdT1zDGyzgvDvO2dupH2dX

[Music] [Music] [Music] after rest this night dragged my wife out of bed to take me in tricky to the station uh to catch the 4:30 train into Paddington and we met up with Tony and Neil tooking our 147 M Journey Down the top path I know the music at the start probably sounded way too epic but 147 Mi as a long way as we’re about to find out we’re battling against cyclist for the first few miles that were making their way into London and it wasn’t long until we had our first donation just want to say a big thank you to an and Mr Patel who just um caught up with us on the canal and donated uh we didn’t hear them shouting from behind us so we made him walk along the canal for a bit to catch us up but yeah thank you very much much appreciated 10 miles in we our first stop just outside of Smith Farm our feet were already saw having to walk on a rickety pontoon Bridge that was in place because of toath repairs we had a quick bite to eat and quick drink and it was time to get our feet out the others had gone with a method of silicon pads and tape to look after their blisters and I’d gone for the slightly disgusting method of baby cream and Vaseline rubbing it all over my feet the other guys were laughing at me for that after a short 15 minutes we were off again and it wasn’t long until we covered a half marathan distance in just under 4 hours and the miles started to fly by all right Rich 18 miles in how you feeling mate not too bad sun shining look at this Cloud out the blue sky lovely day so we’re uh not far off doing 20 miles a minute got a little niggle on the left hand toe on me left on me left foot going to sort out in a couple of minutes but feel all right we can do this yeah it’s going all right and the rest of the team ahead marching on so yeah we got this in the [Applause] [Music] bag just had a little uh little stop at the SW botle our second stop today 20 mil in um see everyone’s doing okay Neil’s got some of the biggest PES I’ve ever seen in my life on his feet at a minute so struggling with that we’ve all picked up a couple of blisters I think um legs feel like a minute we’re moving a good Pace still so just got to try and get through today get to the campsite and then um yeah we can assess do a bit of Health Care when we get there Foot Care maybe set up a little foot Spar or something in a bucket um yeah we’ll keep going for now and move on on [Music] at stop three Neil needed some serious help with his feet one of his blisters had burst and the rest of them were causing him a lot of pain nurse tricky came to his Aid uh lced them all for him and Tak him off as best he could NE had previously cut slits in the end of his trainers to try and give his toes some relief he was in that much pain I honestly don’t know how he carried on for the the rest of the 13 miles that we had to go I also lent in my spare pair of trainers out my bag uh my Brooks to try and see through to the rest of the day my aunt and uncle came down to see us and give us some words of encouragement and they helped these guys open up a lock gate and get the get the barge through uh I decided to film them instead of helping them out do this uh my uncle is 81 years old in all seriousness it was great to see them and it gave me a real boost to get through to the end of the day uh we were on our way now to see Chris at the campsite who had offered to set up all our tents for us and cook us a meal which was amazing um after all that walking that we just done well set up four sucks um just started the fire that’s for din and then nail south over there put dinner on coffee’s on in a good place 40 miles in do you know what this is brutal absolute brutal but it’s all good training for [Music] tomorrow after day one the 100 plus miles that we had left seemed even more daunting we’d all picked up some blisters and our legs were sore at least Christian set everything up for us and was waiting on us hand and foot we settled in for the night and tried to get ourselves prepared ready for day two [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] a