By Isle of Wight Observer
A few drinks over dinner one January night led to a Newport man taking on the ‘brutal’ Island Ultra Challenge.
Around 1,600 people took part in the weekend’s 11th annual charity event, in which they could walk, jog or run over the full-length courses of 106km (66 miles), with ¾, ½, and ¼ route options. Around 1,000 of the challengers took on the full 106km route, making the most of the weekend’s great weather. Other challenges included a new ‘Southern 50km Loop’ which attracted 100 entrants, and the 10-mile ‘Cowes Marina Estuary’ option. Most challengers started from Ventnor and, for those who completed the full journey, ended at the Chale base camp, making good use of the eight rest stops with restorative food and drink available en route.
For Martyn Thorp, his first thoughts of taking part came over dinner with his pal Mark Lounds, of Ryde. Martyn said: “Mark was already doing the event as he had taken part a couple of times before. I had never thought about it but after a few drinks over dinner decided it was a good idea!
“We did the challenge together. Mark had never got past the halfway before, but we made it three-quarters of the way, but it was brutal.
“We walked a total of 54.8 miles. Our actual walking time was 17h 34m 36s – that’s a lot of walking.
“To be fair, we both wanted to stop around Ryde, but neither of us said anything. We carried on until we got to Yaverland and walked up Culver Downs which is really steep. On the way down, we were both shuffling like 95-year-olds, we stopped for a couple of minutes at the bottom, then we both realised we couldn’t walk any further.
“My feet felt like they had been smashed with a hammer, but we were both raising money for our charities and I believe if you are going to do something and ask people for money, then you should be prepared to do something others wouldn’t do. I’m happy to put in blood, sweat and tears. Martyn raised money for Daisy Chains IW and Mark for Get Kids Going.”
The event raised a total of more than £600,000 for a range of charities.