The
Moon Walk – London – Saturday 11th May
It was me (Fiona on a Sunday – Fi will do)
and four other Yorkshire Lass’s who started training through the winter – and
what a winter we trained in a lot of sub zero temperatures so a bit of rain, a
thunder storm and blowing an absolute bitch seemed fine for walking round
London Town – oh did I mention through the night starting at midnight to be
precise, its for Breast Cancer, so in our Bras too!! We are not talking times
here, its girls power and endurance!!
We are Team Black Sheep!!
On the train we all had our moonwalk T
shirts on and a few people thought we were a Hen Party, our excitement probably
fuelled that train of thought.
Then when Carol gave us all a gift on the way down – Make up bags full
of treats like foot soaks, dextrose tablets and small bottle of wine, we got
giddy – and opened the wine! Why
not!!
Once settle in our room, we decided to find
somewhere to eat, I used ‘around me’ so not realising I was phoning the pub
directly opposite I asked them to run through the menu and I told them I ws 74
yards away – we settled over at the pub and watched the drunks roll in and out
while we sipped water and wished we had carried on with the wine!!
We set off for the moon walk – feeling
really giddy now, for no apparent reason I told the taxi driver I was a
celebrity (Jennifer Saunders does the moon walk every year so I said I was her)
and that I therefore would not need to queue for the Moonwalk!! The taxi driver
drove us to the front gate SORRY ladies big mistake – HUGE – we now had to walk
two miles to the end of the queue!!
Once inside the Moonwalk City which is a
freakin massive pink marquee with 20,000 people all in decorated bras (mostly
woman but some gents too). There
was supper provided for everyone nice pasta dishes and bottles of water and
buns to eat. The theme for this
year was ‘Out of this world’ Some great decorations, we saw three avatars on
stilts and some one with spock ears! Live music was playing so we danced then
there was a minutes silence for the race as it was dedicated to 3 ladies who
signed up for the race in October but had since died of breast cancer – not a
dry eye in the house!! I did not want to spare energy on tears – they could
wait!!
By now we all just wanted to do what we had
trained hard for – WALK!!!
There were six starting groups and we were
in group 4, not where we wanted to be but we had to wait and wait and it was
cold and late, then eventually we were penned in ready for the off and away,
not our fastest pace due to traffic of people, we got our heads down and
walked, checking on our buddies all the way. Walking in the dark is tricky you
have to watch your step all the time as I later found out. The first mile seemed like 5 and the
first three more like ten, we were all getting a little worried. So we tried upping the pace and
overtaking but this walk is on the pavements there are no closed roads so its
tricky. But the support is
unbelievable, first there was a Suzuki Jeep with an air horn driving up and
down, all the London cabbies tooting their horns and an incredible amount of
people stood clapping all the way round with shouts of ‘come on moonwalkers you
are doing a great job’. 
As we headed towards mile 8 the toilet
announcement came – two miles to the loos!! Carol had a spring in her step, and
the next two miles dissolved away!! But oh boy when we saw the queue for the
loo, it was not good!!! The shouts of more toilets in 3 miles spurred us on and
this is when I slowed down on the water – not good and the next toilets were
more like 4 miles and when we approached the marshalls were announcing 15
minute queues!! We just walked by. Poor Carol,we were now in Knightsbridge and
on behalf of all the moonwalkers who were seeking a place to wee, we can only
apologise to the immaculate back streets of London that were tinkled on that
night – it was in pure desperation!!
The next miles went quicker and we stopped at mile 17 for a loo break
and some fruit. The next two miles
soon passed and we were passing the most amazing Landmarks, the sun rising of
Buckingham Palace we saw it from both sides as we looped around, we took a
picture of Big Ben at 4.45am and we saw the Houses of Parliament. I stumbled on
the cobbles a couple of times going right over on my ankle but I was straight
back up and walking, not lending any time to stopping. When we got to mile 20
we knew it was the equivelant of our Friday night walk but I was in agony, my
feet were on fire and my legs were dead, I went and lay on some sculpture
stopping the team. Then after our two minute break we headed out the final push
and not long before we all became delirious along the Thames, we could see the
big pink marquee and we just headed for it.
The crowds at the finish looking for their
families cracked me, the tears of tiredness and fatigue washed down my face and
we all held hands and crossed the line together. I grabbed the lady giving me my medal as if she were a long
lost relative!! The dead legs felt very stiff and my feet hurt, so getting
back to the hotel room was a blessing.
Although Fiona walked for fun it was also for a great cause, please visit her fundraising page and pledge to help find a cure for Breast Cancer.
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