I couldn't have done it without David

Well Saturday night / Sunday morning found me doing the Moonwalk with my sister, niece and daughter and around 10,000 others, mostly women). My sister had the idea, lets do this as it'll be an incentive to deal with the fitness and it's a great cause. Now sometimes my sister has great ideas - it was her suggestion to do the Great Wall of China trek last year and the fitness thing has been an issue and it is a great cause...so we signed up and have been training for the past few months. 26.2 miles, starting at midnight (well actually 12.15 a.m. cos we were in the last group off) walking through the night around the streets of Edinburgh, including up to Dunsapie Loch on the top of Arthur's Seat. The castle and other main buildings around Edinburgh were floodlit in pink and there were people outside their houses in their pyjamas saying "well done girls keep going".

At 11 miles the people who were doing the "half moon" turned off with 2 more miles to do to get back to the finish. Unfortunately at that point, having signed up for the "full moon", we had another 15.2 miles still to walk! I didn't know you could do the "half moon" and to be honest it would have been a bit of a dawdle really. But no my sister thought we should just go for the full thing.

About 15 miles in walking along Seafield Road was when the knees started to really feel the pain - really wondered what I was going to do - would I make it? After some paracetamol and ibuprofen I was making it - just. Then the blisters started - 2 corkers. In exactly the same place as my sister got hers - (design issue with Asics trainers? - we were both wearing them) And in spite of my Nike blister proof socks! Then there was the half hour wait in a toilet queue while our joints and muscles stiffened up!

When we got to the 22 mile marker all of us got our iPods (and other types of mp3 players!) out. My choice - David Crowder - the man is after all a legend. I cranked up the volume and gritted my teeth and we ground out the last 4 miles. I've never been so happy to see the sign that said 500 metres to go.

We walked over the finish line at 9.40 together holding each other's hands high and stumbled up to claim our medals.

Was it worth it?

Moonwalk Edinburgh set out to raise £3million pounds, £0.5m going to Maggie's Centres in Scotland, £1.5m to the Breast Cancer Institute at the Western General in Edinburgh, rebuilding the breast cancer ward and opening a new theatre to cut waiting times, and support for the roll out of the anti-hair loss system into each hospital in Scotland.

Was it worth the pain and the exhaustion....you bet.