The opening bars of Chariots of Fire tinkle into my fitful slumber - the clanging piano notes falling like icicles onto glass. I’ve been tossing and turning most of the night in a stupor of excitement, phantom route cards, laminated maps and indigestion from a COG’s kitchen battered fish overload. The day has arrived, the moment we’ve been training hard for. All those hours, days and nights spent up on the moors in all weathers will finally bear fruit over the next 34 hours. 5am and the sun has yet to rise. In the dark of the canvas tent there is movement, somebody next to me stirs and rolls over trying desperately to get an extra 5 minutes sleep, letting out a moan of despair. My mind briefly has time to reflect on yesterday’s scrutineering by the army and their unwavering strictness in what we must carry with us over the weekend. There was a flat “no!” to my teammate’s non-nutritious Pot Noodles as a posible dinner and much doubt cast on another’s idea of a change of warm clothing - a pair of nylon socks and a thin T-shirt not cutting the mustard. But the military checks are carried out for good reason as we will be pushed to our absolute limits, both mentally and physically, over the course of the next two days in an environment that has thrown both snowstorms and heatwaves at unsuspecting participants over the years.
Slipping into our short lived fresh, clean and warm clothes, we huddle around as the grey dawn sheds light on Okehampton Camp. The brooding bulks of West Mill and Yes Tors rise menacingly to the south over the corrugated roofs of the Lego-like huts of the military base and beyond the world seems to fall away. We are on an island, pushed up out of an ocean of order, humdrum and routine. Here we can run free, follow our own rules and make important decisions that would be impossible adrift in our everyday lives. The excitement is palpable with our dedicated teachers - having selflessly given up countless free weekends - milling around making sure we’re packed and ready, shepherding us to the starting line and out of their control. I swallow the last morsel of decent food for a while and group up with my team, a team that I will be sharing every waking (and sleeping) moment with over the course of this great adventure.
Filing our way up the footpath from the camp and onto Black Down, there is a feeling of impending otherness - a keen, crisp sensation washing us clean. We are about the embark on something very special as yet unknown to us. The moor waits patiently ahead ready to sculpt and mould us as it has the great granite boulders and outcrops that dominate this landscape. We will morph as one and forever more carry the time worn scars and bleached memories of this awesome place. Sir Ranulph Fiennes appears, a brief and rousing speech is delivered, a gun fired and we are off - into our futures, presents and pasts.