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Kitted out by the College OA stores, and with over £4,000 of sponsorship money in the offing, Tom and Nick Codrington took to the South Downs in December for the longest day trip of their lives. The aim: to walk the equivalent of two and a half marathons within twenty-four hours. Two thirds of the trek took place in darkness and temperatures dipped to minus six degrees centigrade.
A Question of Sanity
Planning for the event had started early in September; the event itself cast new light on the meaning of tiredness.
Twelve hours of trekking brought a realisation of being only half way, with the harder part of the trek still to come. An hour later, and there was a twisted ankle. Increasingly improbable shapes shifting in the corners of the eyes, turned every fence into a signpost and every tree into an onlooker; but the greatest morale breaker was not being able to see anything apart from a dim circle of light projected two metres in front of us from a head-torch. It was claustrophobic at best and maddening at worst. After all, this was the 19th of December - just two days off the shortest day of the year.
That's not to say that there were no high points at all. Our support team cooked us bacon and eggs in a lay-by at 5 o’clock in the morning and a dozen or so more distant supporters sent us text messages almost every hour. The sun rising at 8 o'clock brought near elation and our route, from Winchester to Truleigh Hill (east of Worthing), along hard-frosted paths and the occasional road, allowed us to enjoy some exceptional scenery.
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