Ok so we’re in New York baby! After the full VIP treatment from Virgin Atlantic, including a jacuzzi, steam room, hair cut, massage and 4 course meal followed by the ever so hungry press snapping at us as we got on the plane, we landed 7hrs later in JFK with the all the crew and passengers clapping and cheering us off! We felt like rock stars for the day (Just another day in the Royal Marines I guess).

We arrived at the Hilton Garden Hotel on Staten Island who have put us up for free until we start our “little jog”, but it’s not all sunning it up and lazing around the pool! Gump HQ is the busiest it’s ever been with the support crew all doing an amazing job of smashing out the 1000 admin jobs to do and all of the RVs and comms to sort and fit out for our event!

Lloyd “Crazy” Fenner, Jim “The Gecko” MD and Jamie ‘Turtle’ Jobson have started our first few runs in NY, most notably around Central Park on Manhattan Island (just a short 12 miler), and with the humidity, heat and people driving on the wrong side of the road into us it is a little bit different to pounding the streets of Dorset. But we aren’t here for a holiday! Damian ‘Toddmeister’ Todd has also been cutting about NY on “Achilles” and expresses that riding along 4th Avenue being chased by a fire truck with all horns and lights balzing is not for the fainthearted.  We are getting many positive comments from our Atlantic cousins so all is going to plan and to schedule… thus far anyway! 2 days to go until blast off… so watch this space and keep helping us raise money for the cause! (Jamie’s first blog)