Hi Jamie Darling  All your family and friends and everyone connected with our Team are behind you for every tortuous step tomorrow. You are a truly a star. Dad/Kung/Oik.

Jamie:
 
I am in a world of pain. The reason i have not been blogging for the last couple of days is mainly due to fatigue and time.
 
We have been getting in so late from the walk that there has been little time to eat and rest, let alone blog.
 
I woke up on day 2 with what the doctor described as hamstring tendonitis. This, the doctor explained to me was not going to cause long term damage but would be very painful if i decided to continue. I tried to walk on it but the pain was too much so i pulled out. By chance the course was changed, weather cooled down, i decided to give it a go.
 
In short, here i am now, my family back at the hotel, having covered just under 240km and have 11km until salvation.
 
Yesterday was the day from hell. 80km, i came in around 60th out of 130, having taken 20 hours of solid quick walking through the second lowest point on earth, 50 plus degrees heat and up and down hills.To say it was a challenge is a understatement.
 
To hear more about the trip please ask, but now i am hungry and weak. My feet are in serious pain.
 
11km to go, about 2 hrs walking and then freedom.

Richard.  Day 4 (yesterday) was indeed brutal. William was unable to drink properly which, in that heat, was not good. I was drinking fine but becoming increasingly dizzy. Thank the Lord for Jamie's resilience in being able to carry first my pack then Will's, thereby adding 11kgs to his existing 11kg burden over about 3 km. So Will and I were both uncertain starters for thursday. After three hours in the recovery tent the medical team made our call for us : no more gobi. We had a "family board meeting" and decided that Jamie and Joey would soldier on whilst Will and I would medivac to Urumqi...17 hours later we are recovering whilst following reports of Jamie and Joey as closely as we can  . We think it was the right call, disappointing not to be with J2 for the next few days but helping ensure we are around for the next few years.....

Joey: today was by far and away and without a shadow of a doubt the toughest of our days so far. As one of our American friends, Ava, put it, it was hot as f*****g Hades which is if anything not harsh enough given a high of 54 degrees during the day. We were robbed of three hours of sleep this morning as we awoke at 3am to be bused three hours to the start line which consisted of ten kilometers woth of dunes. Thankfuly the clouds were overhead in this first stage, making those three hours merely horrific rather than murderous. At the first checkpoint we were feeling confident, being out of the dunes and into, we thought, flat, even downhill and hard ground. We were met, however, with 27km of "dunnettes" which sapped more of the life out of me than JLS. Jamie was instrumental in me personally making the 2nd checkpoint, providing me with constant motivation in the latter few kilometers. Having relaxed and recovered for quite a period at that checkpoint, we headed back out into the baking sun, felling less cocky than we had felt earlier. halfway to checkpoint 3 we stopped at a village where we bought ice cold sprites which lifted our spirits immeasurably. high on sugar and caffeine, we bounded out, continuing the leg, finally arriving exhausted and in poor humour about 25 minutes before the cut-off time at the third checkpoint. From there it was a further 7 kilometres to camp through more of the same energy sapping terrain we had been in all day. Jamie continied in his hero role at the end of the day, carrying at different times, Will's then dad's backpacks, both of whom arrived at camp thoroughly the worse for wear. If we all make it through tomorrow's 80km long nightmare walk then it will be a miracle!

Joey: Today is hard to sum up, something that seems to be becoming normal...we had no delays this morning, getting underway at the pre-planned time of 8.00. We were looking forward to today as from what we could see from the course notes, the course promised to be log and relatively flat. Despite some early delays due to numerous river crossings at each of which we decided the best course of action would be to take off our shoes and socks in order to prevent excessive blistering at a later stage, we made pretty good time to the first checkpoint where we were all very cheerful as we were blissfuly unware of the steady but shallow ascent for the next 10km. We reached checkpoint 2 also in good time, having powered up the valley, overtaking around a dozen other competitors on the way and despite 32 degree heat. after the long slope up, we were due foor a subsequent 20km dowhill stretch. Despite rising heat we continued to make good time, impressing Americans Alex and Reuben with an inspiring bank of film quotes though upsetting them whe we revealed that we all like Troy. When we reached the 4th aand final checkpoint, we were informed that an "easy" final stretch awaited us whilst what we found was a long and somewhat hilly final 6km and in the absurd temperature of 45 degrees. Despite all of these issues (and not a few blisters) we've all made it to camp in more or less one piece although Jamie, the least acclimatised of us all to the heat though easily the fittest, is currently being treated for electrolyte imbalance and heat exposure

Joey: Today was an interesting one to say the least. We woke to the sounds of 6am as normal but with a heavy mist and a bone chilling cold to set the mood. We were told that due to the low visibility that we would have in the mist, we would have to delay the start by half an hour as we would be unable to see the course markers. As the mist persisted we were forced to delay again and again until we finally left at 12.00, a full 6 hours since we had woken up, all terrific fun. the upside to all this was that the course was altered and shortened to around 20km (as the slower competitors, ourselves included would have otherwise ended up getting in at around 9.00 and in some cases, even 12.00) and in the flat so we made excellent time today (a little over 4 hours) helped along by the relatively low temperature of about 15 degrees. Today, it has been concluded by the majority of competitors, has been something of a "gimme" but seeing as yesterday was incredibly tough, it seems only fair! Only time will tell how we fare tomorrow but if i'm blogging agin tomorrow evening, then i guess that'll be our answer.
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Richard. Joey has summed it up. Jamie went to bed last night with a painful tendon that had flared up badly this morning and he was in two minds as to whether to risk carrying on. The delay combined with the cold helped  things a bit and so he decided to soldier on. Twenty kilometers later he is now in the medical tent having acupuncture. If that fails they amputate. The oldest member of our team is surving, just, physically but suffering badly from constant verbal abuse. The good news about a truncated walk was less of that....
 
William: Well, after yesterday that was an absolute sinch (touch wood!) Somehow we saw rain for probably the first time in a long time. Not much to add from me. I hope Peter's meeting with Wen Jiabao went well. I'm sure you made an impression. Hideous, really.  Byeeeeee

Jamie:
 
We were up at 6am to start at 8am.
 
It was explained to us that today was a 35km day, but it was up and down hills most of the way.
 
We started strong. we made quick progress along a desert path through a valley and reached check point 1 within 1.5 hours. It was already extremely hot.
 
The next check point cam quickly, only an extra 5km. We reached this point having been walking for 2.5 hrs. We thought, and rightly so that this was good progress. 15km done in 2.5 hrs.
 
The next two check points were considerably harder. They took much longer and took a lot more out of us. I personally nearly gave up, the heat was very strong, and the problem with the desert is that there was no shade.
We powered on, it was tough, but we all made it in about 9 hours. That shows you have tough the day was.
 
Let us see how long i can last tomorrow.
 
Joey: well i pretty much agree with everything that Jamie said, the day started well, almost too easy, in retrospect, we should have realised that something was fishy! and fishy it certainly was, i doubt  can adequately sum up in words just how hot it was, but, i think that very will have to do. I managed to stick to my plan in terms of taking on enery throughout the day, having three gels and three bars, the last of which was very melted indeed. The main redeeming factor was the spectacular views which i hardly need tell you were awesome, snow capped mountains in the backround with more hills than i care ti remember in the foreground. If it didn't act as a constant reminder of just how far we have left to go (215 km) then i would be permanently in awe.
 
William: Managed to finish the day without a blister, which I'm delighted with. Tough day today. I was feeling very good until about an hour til the finish, mostly at the front. Then altitude hit & suddenly I was left with a splitting headache. Day 1 over. Sigh. Just ate expedition foods chicken korma ...probably would have been revolting had I not been so hungry! We ate with the winner, who completed the race in around 4 hours. We finished in 9. I now know what the fat kids who run cross country at Harrow every Monday feel like. BUT itts all in the head. As a fellow trekker reminded me, in this expedition, 90% is mental, 10% is MENTAL!
 
Lets hope we all survive Day 2

25th June 2011
 
Hext team have arrived in the first camp ready for the start of the event tomorrow morning.
 
The journey from the hotel was long and hot, we were forced to stop and watch some local dancers in the heat of a small local village.
 
We are part of tent 7 (code name: wild horse). There are 8 people in our tent, which surprisingly has plently or room for each person.
 
We have done some socialising. To our disappointment we have yet to find a relatively normal person here, most have done at least one of these ultra marathons before and most have been training for 3 months.  Thus our task has now become to simply finish the event. We shall keep you up to date with our progress.
 
joey's bit: well the informstion provided in such an amusing style by Jamie is now to be supplemented by some rather more irrelevant and rambling information from me, your reporter in the field. The trees look lovely, they're big and green. Despite dad almost breaking his back and the cyber tent, the evening has gone rather well and we're all terribly excited to walk 250km in the next 7 days, especially the part where our feet are torn apart by blisters, not to mention the inafmous Gobi desert sand vipers. Well hopefuly i make it to tomorrow's campsite but in the meantime, i hope that everyone out there not in a desert is having a good time.
 
William's addition: I apologise to all of you who just read Joey's nonsense. We are all in good spirits, avoiding catastrophe earlier when I managed to lose my bag containing my trekking poles and shoes before finding it again at the hotel lobby. We just arrived at our first campsite in the Dabancheng region (sorry I can't write characters) after being made to attend a local town's festival in which some popular folk songs were played (I think I was the only person to enjoy them) and have now eaten supper. Thank you Mimi, the noodles were excellent. We have now met a fair few of the other trekkers and we are definitely amongst the most unfit! However, we're all together, relatively happy and rearing to get going for tomorrow!

it's the night before we leave and in rather typical Hext family fashion, dad's running around assuming that myself and Will are wrong about everything and have totally failed to do anything right. Which is probably not far from the truth. Our sleeping bags are like "grapefruits" and our bags are "bricks" and with the exception of a few burst energy gel sachets, everything is staying in place. I must say that both my mind and my stomach are on a supper that was apparently impending an hour ago and now it's time to go.

This is Joey making sure that our blog is working and that we can therefore send the link to friends and family