Jill spent most of Saturday the 18th July completing a trans-Pennine hike to raise funds for Macmillian – a worthy cause I think you’ll agree.

The walk took over 200 participants from Manchester all the way to Sheffield to raise much needed funds to help support the charities work. It was scheduled to be 26 miles so Jill would essentially be completing a marathon!

She’d been training towards this for a while and put in a few 10-12 mile walks on consecutive days over recent weekends, but it would no doubt still be a big challenge. Anyone that knows Jill probably realise she’s made of tough stuff however.

All smiles beforehand

As it turned out, she needed to be as the walk actually covered over 29 miles. This did’t phase Jill though and impressively she averaged over 3 miles/hour to cover the distance in 9 hours and 9 minutes. I don’t think she even stopped for lunch !

Scenic, but no time to admire the view

It wasn’t all plain sailing though. At about 18 miles Jill suddenly felt a sharp pain in her left foot. She was obviously in determined mood as she carried on regardless with the help of some pain killers but the last 6 miles were a real struggle. The walker’s support and  encouragement for each other and the reason for the walk carried her through. After running across the finishing line (yes, she ran the last 50 metres), she was stopped by paramedics as blood was dripping out of her shoe. This is why:-

That’s gotta hurt.

How, I’m not sure, but Jill hadn’t even noticed she was missing a large area of skin on her ankle. Paramedics were also concerned that she might have stress fractures of the metatarsals on both feet- often called March fractures as they are common in soldiers who have to march long distances.It might be a little while until she can wear shoes comfortably…but thankfully it doesn’t look like she has any broken bones and is now walking quite well again.

Despite her pain, Jill later said ‘I think i’ve found my forte’  – seems so!

She’s already lined up her next challenge – a long-distance walk in London for the MS Society in late September.

Massive Congratulations to Jill on completing this – A truly awesome and inspiring effort!

Iain