One heck of a training run....part II

Sunday was again forecast to be dry and if anything, better weather than we'd had on Saturday. I'd really caught the sun so prepared for today with suncream...it started to rain as soon as we arrived at our start line!
But let's backtrack a tad as there was a little bit of stress on my part beforehand.....Liz unfortunately had only been able to help yesterday so I successfully enrolled Pat into our support crew so that Ellen wasn't alone in the car plus would definitely help having two to pre-warn people of my arrival. Then Liz decided she'd had so much fun the day before, she wanted second helping....excellent, the A team were joining forces again!
From a bike crew perspective, I lost Debbie and Debs but gained Caro (she is so amazingly fast at running / biking, she would later admit that this was probably the slowest bike ride that she'd been on but there was no way I was running any faster than I did during today!!). Loz and Tricia were back for seconds too...bit saddle sore but as they say, no pain, no gain!
At the Westbourne meeting point I realised I'd left the most important part of my kit at home...my running shoes! Frantic call to John and they were being personally delivered to Tuckton for us to pick up on the way through. My Garmin watch had also decided that it had been traumatised yesterday and froze...wasn't able to check time or mileage and at Hythe, I was getting so panicy that Loz insisted I wear her watch!
Heard the Wave105 airing of my 2nd day at 1pm, announcing that we'd would be on our way in the next 5 minutes or so...that had been the plan but we were stuck in traffic getting into Lyndhurst.
Late arrival at The Waterloo Arms meant it was a quick visit and whip-round before shooting off through the village - Ellen, Liz and Pat had already had a quick opportunity to prep the customers and I received quite a lot of encouragement running through the High Street. My route then took me back across the New Forest to Hythe, with only ponies and cattle for company. We took a very small diversion through one car park as it was packed with VW campervans, clearly on some sort of reunion and they weren't expecting a vocal runner and 3 cyclists to be 'robbing' them off all their change! As we were now more in the realm of Wave105, we found people were more aware of Cash for Kids than Jigsaw whereas yesterday it was definitely the other way round. I was receiving encouragement from cars, whether that was beeping horns or waves / applause out the window. At one layby a family were out clapping and taking photos of us - transpired they had heard all about my efforts on Wave and wanted a photo with me...I'm a celebrity!
Into Hythe where the weather got decidedly colder : Hythe ferry company had kindly arranged complimentary tickets for us although poor Ellen thought it was a car ferry and hadn't realised she needed to drive all the way round to pick up with us again :o(
We were running slightly later than expected so having just missed the 3.10, took the opportunity for a little refreshment pit stop before running down the long wooden pier (the resident train holds the world record for the oldest pier train!) and into the waiting room out of the wind.
Once docked in Southampton it was only a short hop to our 2nd pub, The Platform Tavern. In fairness, I'd virtually written these guys off as when Tricia and I visited the previous week, it really wasn't my kind of place - loud live music and 20/30 somethings, most of whom blanked us or who were too drunk to care what we were doing. What a difference it makes to visit the same place on a different day and at a different time. Nice and quiet inside and virtually everyone was more than happy to donate. Then the bar staff gave their tips for the day and to round it off, there had been a leaving do for a guy called Ben at the Oceanography Society during the week and he had requested the excess bar tab be put in the safe for me : £76.60....awesome generosity guys!
Next obstacle to overcome was the very steep Itchen Bridge but once over that it was back down to the coast at Netley then into Queen Victoria country park. Ellen, Liz and Pat were still doing a sterling job working the crowds whether in car parks or in the park itself - all I had to do was run! By this time I was starting to get a tad concerned that we wouldn't make the last ferry in Hamble (6pm) but having negotiated the park, it was only a couple of miles into the village. Last pub for today was The Victory Inn, again very generous patrons, some of whom Tricia and I had caught the week before too!
There's quite a few pubs in Hamble and not content with just The Victory Inn, Liz and Ellen carried on with their pub crawl. I shouldn't have worried about missing the ferry : when we left Queen Victoria country park, Tricia and Caro sped on ahead to ensure the ferryman didn't leave without us...it would have been an awful long way to cross the Hamble via the roads (Caro eventually getting her 'speed' fix and Tricia able to keep up with her by engaging her electric bike sports mode!).
I sent a text to Gloria at Wave to tell her we were just about to catch the ferry. She was already at the studios awaiting our arrival and anticipated we would be there around 6.15...by the time we'd got off the ferry that gave me just 20 minutes....no way! Tricia was still pulling in the donations along the route, catching a couple of lads coming out of a local convenience store (no one was safe!).
Loz was to comment that today had definitely been a lot hillier than yesterday and there were still a few more slow drawn out inclines for me to negotiate and once again, a couple of miles from the finish, my wheels fell off again (this time can't blame the milkshake!) - I'm sure its just because whilst I was obviously more than capable of running the distance, with the stops and fundraising, I was spending an extra couple of hours each day on the road, without putting back in the calories and energy.
After negotiating a barren industrial estate, never a better sight than the logo of Wave105 and we eventually hauled into the car park at 6.30pm.
Steve was unfortunately stuck in traffic so we piled into the studios to meet up with Gloria who plied us with lovely cups of tea and coffee and scooby snacks! Once Steve had safely arrived, we all had a final photoshoot under the Wave logo before being 'interviewed' for a Cash for Kids update that would go out next weekend.
Not entirely sure what today's mileage was but it was definitely in excess of 20. On the fundraising side, whilst we hadn't encountered the crowds of people experienced yesterday, once again the day's total far surpassed any of our predictions : £490.05 making an overall total of £1,262.60 for the event (with the previous Fridays donations). Gloria confirmed that this had been a 'major event' as far as Wave were concerned so really pleased everyone's efforts have resulted in such an amazing figure.
Ellen, Liz, Loz, Tricia, Debs, Caro, Debbie and Pat - you're all fantastic and thanks so much for giving up your precious weekend to help....definitely would have been so much less of an adventure and success without you xx