Just south of Worcester, I stopped to put extra clothes on, and to fit some lights. I followed the signed route through Worcester and on to Kidderminster. On this stretch, there was a fairly heavy shower which I found demoralising. Fortunately it was brief, and I managed to convince myself that it wasn't going to rain for the entire remainder of the ride.

At Wolverhampton, Pat Kenny joined the attempt, providing us with experience and an extra car, thus reducing the pressure on the others. I passed 300 miles in 15hr 35mins, still over 20 mins up on schedule.

When we arrived at Stafford, I was almost marshalled off course. My scheduled route was to use a pedestrianised area, rather than the inner ring road. However, local opinion was that I shouldn't do a midnight dash through the centre. I persisted and followed my route, rather disappointed at not being marshalled through.

When I approached Newcastle-under-Lyme, I began to drop off to sleep. I immediately stopped, and took a 10 minute rest in my (stationary!) car.

This break revitalised me, and I continued towards Holmes Chapel and Knutsford. By now, there was little wind, and I was losing my earlier gains on schedule. By Warrington I was 10 minutes down, but copious quantities of marshalls (at 3am) raised my spirits, and kept me on course.

I made my way through Wigan and Preston, still losing time on schedule, and arrived at Lancaster 35 minutes down. This was not a major concern, as the schedule was (theoretically) to beat the record by 4 hours. I could certainly afford to lose time, therefore, as long as it didn't get out of hand. 400 miles took 22 hours.