Run Britannia

The stunning scenery that Britain offers. Having cycled LEJOG twenty years earlier, it was better to see Britain's best bits up close.

Being already familiar with a lot of the Scottish trails, I particularly enjoyed the English bits: the North Cornwall coast (running along the South West Coast path with regular ice cream opportunities), the beautiful Wye Valley and the Black Mountains.

Day 7: Bridgewater to Bristol: the last day before our first (of four) rest days.

Day 7 looked pretty innocuous on paper, glorious English countryside, with a bit of climbing in the Cheddar Gorge. But the preceding six days, mainly on the undulating coastal path had taken their toll.

Lots of Day 7 turned out to be on trails across fields, but was punctuated by a seemingly endless series of stiles, which became increasingly difficult on cramping legs. I landed badly in jumping down off one of these stiles with 5km to go, and pulled an adductor, which felled me.

Thankfully, our rest day hotel had a decent gym with an ice bath - a first for me,. I wish I had tried one sooner.

Someone looking to celebrate a major life milestone.

For me, it was a break from work to celebrate my 60th with my wife, Jill, who ran too.

I have never been one for sitting on beaches and the thought of a cruise abhors me. It's also a great challenge for a charity fund-raiser: we raised £60k for Cancer Research.

This experience will improve your endurance in adversity.

Pretty much everyone suffered from shin splints -my legs were so swollen that the medics made me get checked out for deep vein thrombosis!

But we also learned to walk them off by taking a slower day.

Rat Race laid on feed stations every 10km or so. Despite eating like a horse at every one, including one in Devon in which I devoured 7 cream scones, I still lost 6kg.