Brand new Aidan

On April 22 at 4:34pm, Adelle, Justin and Ella welcomed Justin's very own minime Aidan James to the Fenn family. He is a teeny tiny 6lbs 6oz. And way cute. WAY cute. Hoorah to being an aunty!

Oxfam Trailwalker 2010

The past 7 months has all been preparation leading up to this day. We have walked over 300km together in training. I have been running and going to the gym. We are fit and well prepared, if not a little anxious. 

The epic 100km trek from Wheelers Hill to Wesburn Park began for us in the very wee hours of Friday morning April 16. Because we raised over $5000 (we think more likely around $7000 but we haven't done the final tally yet) we were offered a priority start time of 7am. This shot was taken around 4:15am. Nuts we are.

Here we are just as dawn breaks at the start line. My awesome team consists of Sue, Nerissa, and Clint. Nerves aflutter, we ate small amounts of food but no one really wanted to. And there were many toilets stops while we waited!

Checkpoint 2 around 11ish. Lunch stop. This is Lysterfield Lake. We are all in high spirits, running ahead of our estimated schedule. It is a glorious day. I think this picture caught Clint sniffing some happy powder and Sue attempting to jam her foot into her backside. Perhaps she had already snorted her happy powder... Nerissa and I are all about the food and sitting. I should mention here that we had a fantastic support crew, consisting of Amanda (Clint's wife), Trevor (Nerissa's husband), Matt and Mark (a friend of Amanda and Clint). Without them we would not have been able to complete the event.

Say cheeeeese! Taken with a full belly, change of socks and about to set off for Checkpoint 3.

We are still smiling at Checkpoint 3. What on earth is wrong with us? I have a couple of blisters by this point but nothing will dampen our spirits!

There is a big gap here in the pictures which I'm kind of disappointed about. This gap is our walk through the night and into the next morning. We walked from Olinda (where we stopped to have dinner), to Mt Evelyn, Woori Yallock and reached Warburton at 10am Saturday. We were cold, sad, and ever so tired. I have 7 blisters by this stage. My knee hurts. Clint has chafing. Bad chafing. Did I mention we were cold and tired?

Below is us around 11am at Warburton. After a pie for breakfast, dressing blisters again and the supportive smiling, encouraging faces of our support crew we are able to muster little smiles before we tackle the last 7km into Wesburn - over Mt Little Joe. It is nearly over and the just the daylight alone brings enormous relief to our spirits. It is hard walking all night in the dark with nothing but a little patch of light from a head torch to look at. Oh and my ipod went flat with over 5 hours of night walking to go. Sob.

The last dreadful hill in Mt Little Joe. 900 metres of this. See right up there in the middle of the picture? That's the track. And it goes around the corner too. Nice one.

I have never been so happy to see a sign, ever.

It's OVER. Not only did we finish, we finished as a complete team which only 58% of teams did this year. We walked it in just under 31 hours. I have 11 blisters in total. Going home for a bath, a meal and a SLEEP! My three nutty team mates would do it again but not I. I'm going for easy peasy things from now on, like half marathons!