I made my way into the Vedren, the central area which served as the walkers' village. It was pretty full. Whilst waiting for the gun at 4 am three blokes next to me started asking me questions. With their two dozen words of English and my equal number of German words we made ourselves understood and had quite a laugh in the process. It turned out we were all first-timers. I never saw them again after the start. A loud cheer greeted the gun and 17 minutes later I crossed the start line, had my bar code scanned and began. There were wild scenes all around me as more students cheered us in an excess of beer but it made for a great atmosphere. I slowly followed the throng and realised my own pace would not be possible. We went out of the city to the north and very soon crossed the bridge over the Waal.
It started to get light and the number of spectators slowly grew. People with garden furniture at the end of their garden, bunting and flags in every street. Parties in full swing with hi-fis on, or live music being played. The atmosphere was that of one great, gigantic street party. The line of walkers snaked for miles already and I realised I had not yet seen or heard an English voice, only Dutch and German. Amongst 40,000 people I felt quite lonely.
After a couple of miles I saw an English couple, recognisable by the flags they flew from their rucksacks. I spoke to them as we walked but they were walking too slowly for me and, at a bottleneck, we lost contact. On my own again I realised this was going to be hard work. After 5 or 6 miles I was overtaking a small group of people when one of them spoke English and we immediately started talking. They were all from the Reading area, Kate and Emily were teachers, Ben a paramedic. They let me join them and on we went, chatting about everything under the sun, which was now out and the temperature was climbing. It turned out Kate had had the idea of doing the walk and invited the others but only Emily had done much practise, regularly walking 30 miles. Once the 30 and 40km walkers had left us the pace quickened markedly and I marvelled at how they kept it up.
Every village and town we passed through the crowds grew bigger and noisier. Brass bands started playing and adults and children were everywhere doling out sweets, cakes, biscuits, fruit and drink, in addition stall holders selling it. Clearly food and drink would not be a problem, unlike the toilet stops which were, as hundreds queued to use them. We stopped for food and it was clear that Ben and to a lesser extent Kate were suffering with their feet. On we went for mile after mile. Ben began to suffer more and more. Emily and I began to wonder how long the walk was as it was taking us much longer than our training walks. It was difficult to measure how far we had gone and how far was left. The temperature climbed to 25 degrees with 60-70% humidity and drinking became the preoccupation. We stopped for a rest when Kate became light-headed and off we went again only to discover, after 5 minutes that Kate and Ben were nowhere to be seen. Fortunately they called Emily on her mobile and told us to carry on as they were resting again. So, off we trooped, soon dreaming thirstily after a drink of beer once we'd finished.
The course seemed to go on forever and our spirits flagged somewhat. Eventually the bridge and town came back into view and after many detours around the suburbs we came back to the start point. Slightly confused by the lack of a finish sign we checked in at our desks and day 1 was over. We found out later that it had been 32 miles long. Our beers tasted nice after 11.5 hours on the road but we were a quarter of the way there. Ben and Kate came in within the time limit but Ben's feet were a mess. Never mind day 1 was over. I got food and then gingerly cycled home to shower and hit my bed. Mario my room mate had finished three hours before me but never mind.
Just time to get 4 or 5 hours' kip before the alarm went off at 2.30 am again...
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