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DAY 6: FRIDAY

The final day of reckoning had arrived, but since stating how confident I was feeling about completing the course I had managed to distress a tendon in my knee. Not through exertion you understand, but by sitting cross legged.

By 7am I was lying on physio Rob's massage table having my knee manipulated and being reassured that I would make it through to the end. To have failed through illness, injury or on grounds of mental impairment I could have lived with, but incorrect seating posture would have been hard to bear.

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Having warmed up with 30 minutes of increasing intensity circuit training we faced our first reassessment of the day. I had recorded 17 press-ups and 19 crunches over timed minutes on the first day of the course and much to my surprise and pleasure returned figures of 29 and 44 respectively on this occasion.

A 40-minute uphill hike was followed by the timed ascent assessment, which I completed in 13 mins 52 secs, knocking 2 mins 54 secs off the last Sunday's benchmark. My now five fellows, we had unfortunately lost one overnight, had all reduced their personal bests, too, so it was smiles all round as we took the long way back to the big house.

A lunch of chicken salad was given a real pep by the sudden arrival of chef Dan sporting sliced breast of pheasant for us all. We had heard the gunfire from the shoot earlier in the week and had thought no more of it, but some kindly local gent had popped round and donated a brace to our cause and a very pleasant surprise it was too.

Buoyed by the game and the knowledge that only the climb and return from Porlock headland remained, we set off on our final hike. What had taken over five hours on day one of the course was completed in just under four hours by the entire team, despite the best efforts of the Gods to undermine our resolve with high winds and driving rain.

As I approached West Porlock House, for what was most likely the last time, the raindrops echoing on the hood of my wet-weather gear sounded to me like the fanfare afforded to victorious legionnaires on their return to Rome, such was the feeling of satisfaction that washed over me.

I had never before been so tired and felt such pain from fatigue without choosing the option to stop, and here, over seven days, when my mind and body had screamed for mercy, my fellow enrollees and the course trainers had, in very different ways, helped me complete my journey. I thank them all and can only hope that in some small way I provided similar support for them.

All that was left was to crunch the numbers and what a pleasure that turned out to be. Over the course of a week I had lost 15lbs (7kg) in weight, 3½ ins off my waistline and, most importantly, seen my blood pressure fall from a dangerous phase two hypertension classification to 124 over 85 – which is within the normal range for my age group.

It's up to me now, whether I can keep up the momentum that the fine folk at BaseCamp have helped me to build. After all, I still have a very long way to go.

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