Day 2- Man City, Man United

40 miles was the shortest distance he had to take in in one day, but he is the first to admit that he underestimated how harsh the Pennines would be.
The cold winds didn't help him across those steep hills, but he made it to the Etihad, Man City, where I met back up with him. We had a good turnout at City to support Shaun, including his dad, who had flown over from back home to surprise him, which was a great lift for him.

City had all sorts going around there at City Square, with people signing up for the Anthony Nolan register
(a great initiative to get people signed up to one of the three UK bone marrow donor registers for those needing transplants)
& also bucket collections taking place for City in the Community. We've tried wherever we can to help out other charities,& also make sure we don't step on any of their toes, but these 2 charities in particular have helped us immensely in the past, so it was a happy coincidence that they were there.

After a few pictures inside the ground, we were back in City Square (a type of fanzone outside the Etihad) & Shaun found himself being interviewed for City tv, as celebs such as Bradley Wiggins & James Martin looked on. (They were actually Chorlton Irish player Stu & the manager, Dan, but the commotion around Shaun with cameras, especially 'Wiggo' with the bike, led people to think otherwise)

From City, Shaun made the short cycle to Old Trafford, where the other half of Chorlton Irish turned out to meet him (days leading up to it of "I'm not setting foot in their dump",& vice versa) Shaun was also met there by some MediaCity residents & the people behind Glue creative media in MediaCity, who've been massively supportive of our campaign to raise awareness for the Oscar Knox Appeal, as have Grimshaws Vauxhall, so thanks to them. Special thanks to Moira Doherty at Man United for all of her help in organising this & for the donation of a signed Man United ball

Following a few photo ops in & around Old Trafford, & debating who was climbing up the '3 amigos' statue of Charlton, Law & Best to put a wristband on it (Everyone knows the real Holy Trinity was Kendall, Ball & Harvey), we headed across to MediaCity, the BBC's new home in the North, where one famous face did wear one of Oscar's wristbands

Day 1 Newcastle, Sunderland

For those of you who haven't followed the story as it unfolded on Twitter, Shaun set off on Good Friday starting at St. James's Park, Newcastle. The night before it started, we had loads of last minute prep to finalise, so lots of errands were run & most involved meeting various people in pubs. This led to me having, what transpired to be, a fairly heavy session before heading back to Shaun's, where he was getting picked up by a colleague who was taking the first leg of driving a support car. Upon arrival, around 4am, it became apparent that there wasn't going to be enough room for me in the car, so they had to set off for Newcastle without me.

They made great time getting up there, & Shaun was chomping at the bit to get out on the bike. I had published an itinerary on this very blog to give approximate times, but Shaun set off early,such was Shaun's enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we learned through Twitter that several people had turned up to see Shaun off, only to learn that he'd already gone. One guy had even travelled down from Scotland during the night, so we can't apologise enough for that. Thanks again for your support throughout, though.

Shaun then made the short cycle down to Sunderland, & the Stadium of Light, & following a few pictures, headed onwards to Leeds, where he'd be bedding down for the night, leaving him with a fairly straightforward 40m cycle across the Pennines the next morning back into Manchester. Or so he thought.

Shaun's amazing effort

Last week, I met a phenomenal fundraiser, who's devoted his life to crazy challenges to raise money for those less fortunate than he is. When I asked him whether Kilimanjaro was on his agenda, he sneered, as if to say, "too mainstream". Hipster fundraising. I loved it

I was pressing him on his previous exploits & he told me it all began with a cycle across Cuba. I asked what kind of distance that was & he told me it was 243 miles. It was my turn to sneer, involuntarily, of course.
He defended it, talking about the terrain, the heat,etc.
I was mortified, & of course apologised profusely.

As he left, I sat in that coffee shop & reflected on how easily I could cycle 243 miles,in any conditions. I couldn't. No way. It would take me months of training before I'd attempt anything like that. I tried to put it into perspective & I realised that helping Shaun put together his challenge, constantly looking at cycle routes & trying to work out where Shaun would be bedding down for the night had completely desensitized me to distances. I'd look at the starting point, work out a realistic distance & Shaun would subsequently smash through those expectations

Looking back, Shaun put the work in day in, day out in training for this,& his attitude was always positive. There was never an issue of not doing it,& that lured me into thinking it was easy. I was booking his accomodation daily,always leaving it until he could go no further & using
the next town as a marker.

However, Shaun was hammering through distances seemingly effortlessly, averaging over 100miles per day,
& obviously this was getting consistently more difficult,as each morning he was hurting more & more. At no point did he complain. At no point did he doubt himself. At no point did he contemplate giving up.
It really was an inspirational effort,& a fantastic achievement to complete them all. & he made it look easy.

When he came up with the idea,& we were first discussing the logistics, he spoke about 1200 miles in under 13 days. This seemed a lot to me, but Shaun ended up cycling to every Premier League ground in 10 days. He achieved this by cutting out his rest days completely. No time to allow his body to recover, just a single-minded mission to get round all 20 stadiums & get home. Incredible stuff