If you had asked me yesterday about my Walk the Walk MoonWalk 2025 experience my response would have been at best monosyllabic.  Eventually I may have grunted that Oldest Friend (OF) and I indeed felt proud to have completed the 26.2 mile walk around London (from 11 pm throughout the night) but afterwards you would have seen me face-plant directly into my pillow complaining of rigor mortis in both legs. 

Today both of us will tell you that it was the most magical and surreal experience, and that although we are still both trying to dull the voice of accumulated lactic acid and still avoiding stairs, we encourage you to enter next year.   Do not be offended if we do not join you; we will be available for bra design, fundraising and tapering advice. I give you this lengthy blog as a training manual.

I did not know anything about this charity until OF completed the event three years ago. Like OF, I know too much about breast cancer and know that the big C is very democratic about who it chooses to hang out with. On a gin-fuelled whim OF enters the event again and tells me that The MoonWalk  is organised by breast cancer charity, Walk the Walk and that it encourages women and men to power walk (right!) either a marathon (“Full Moon”) or half-marathon (“Half Moon”), wearing brightly decorated bras (tick) to raise money for breast cancer causes. She is persuasive and so I decide to join her.

On Saturday night, primed with a full belly of pasta (we take our training very seriously) we join the most sparkly, bonkers people on Clapham Common ready to take in the sights of London. 

Looking back, it already feels like an out-of-body experience (apart from the legs).  I once lived in London and have done my fair share of return visits over the years, but on the MoonWalk you get most of London to yourself and it feels quite surreal. 

My OF is a veteran walker, she knows what she is doing.  She muscles to the front of our starting pen, refuses to allow me to have my face bejazzled or have a second cup of coffee before we leave the Walkers’ Village and I notice that she is very vocal as we join the count down to the start of our adventure. OF was always very quiet at school but I can see that I am in for a night of surprises.

As we walk down to Battersea – a mass of LED lights, pink gorgeousness and sequins – night buses and taxis all honk and wave.  In return we giggle and chat and many are still singing the Abba hits that the live band played in the Walkers’ Village.  The marshalls herald us through any waiting traffic and we forget that we had another seven hours of walking ahead.   

My Full Moon Take Aways: 

• Walking is much, much harder than it looks.  I call myself a runner, but as the night drifts past, I discover muscles in my thighs and ample glutes that I have never experienced before .  
  
• The best conversations are had when you are walking.  When you run, it is all a bit breathless and sweaty.  Over 7.5 hours of marination I discover things about my OF that I never knew, despite knowing her since we started secondary school.  What goes on MoonWalk stays on MoonWalk so I will not divulge what I learnt – and she has probably got more ammunition about me because she asks such great questions that she always gets a reply. 
  
• Companionable silence on a long walk is also fine.  You can earwig in on the most interesting conversations from other walkers and then make up a back story about it.  ‘I am feeling suddenly emotional,’ is countered by, ‘Oh, not again Ang. Girls, look sharp she needs more chocolate?’ or, ‘Do you want some plasters?’ ‘No, I cannot bear to look down at my feet, we will walk through until Dawn’.
  
• Lighting is everything. I was never night owl enough when I lived in London to see its iconic sights backlit in colour in the early hours. A purple Battersea and a blue St Paul’s are just beautiful when there is little other noise or night pollution – although OF is slightly disappointed not to see Tower Bridge lit up in pink as it was last time she marathoned.

• Everyone has their reason for walking and every reason is humbling. We saw a teenage boy walking so painfully at mile 21 in uncomfortable looking trainers but he was with his family and laughing with his dad – not moaning at all. Every step means something to someone .
  
• The marshalls are the most lovely people in the world. They were out on the course for hours and hours yet had a cheery word of encouragement – not to mention tangerines and bananas – for all of us. No night bus or grumpy taxi driver could fail to be charmed by their traffic control. Thank you.
  
• Do not jump to conclusions. The people spilling out of nightclubs around 4 am are the best support crew and are genuinely interested in what the walk is about. One well lubricated reveller tucks in besides a walker near us asking about the charity and her reason for doing this. I bet he signs up next year – he looked like he had the costume already. At mile 23 we are passed by two Lime bikes – one rider is wearing a clown’s red wig and we applaud his revelry as he shoots past and cheers us on.
  
• A hot chocolate in Sloane Square is a lovely idea, but I should have noted that OF didn’t imbibe when I slugged back a shot or two. Although I eulogised about this warming sugary hug she just waited patiently for me to drink my drink. Even though I was too proud to say anything, I know she noticed when I looked a little green ten minutes later; we nearly had to cup our hands in a way the old Cadbury’s advert never intended.
  
• Time stands weirdly still when you walk through the night. Despite passing Big Ben I never once looked at my watch and it never occurred to me that I was missing sleep. We were not really aware that the sky had turned light, and we had no real sense of a finish time. It is only when you finish that your body reminds you that you owe it a night’s sleep.

I ask OF which memories of the MoonWalk I should include in this blog but she tells me that she trusts me to pick the important ones. This is so typical of OF for she has journeyed besides me through all my rocky times and she – along with my sister – was the inspiration behind getting this Dragonfly blog started. She never tells me what to do, but she is always there by my side. I feel very emotional to be her chosen pilgrim on this adventure and feel even closer to her after this experience.

If OF was to choose one memory I believe that she would share our naivety about the extremely grand window displays and pavement dressings as we walk through Chelsea. ‘They really go to town in this part of London, don’t they?’ she says. ‘I know, did you see that man throwing all those rose boughs off his lorry as we came into Sloane Square, and the size of those floral displays outside The Ivy? I hope he is going to clear up.’ It is only as we limp down to the river again that it dawns (!) on us that this is the start of the Chelsea Flower Show and we have just passed the people who work through the night to make it themed so miraculously. We then spend an emotional mile discussing my sister’s love of The Chelsea Flower Show and how it punctuated May for her each year. I get a little teary as I remember her last visit and OF stops to give me a squeeze. OF distracts me by disclosing that she is a member of the RHS; you just cannot pigeon hole this girl, we will have her running next.

It gets quieter and quieter as we walk the last mile up to Clapham common. It is the walk of no shame. LED costume lights have dimmed, decorated bras are a little less perky than they were at 11 pm, but there is no question that we will all return to the Village. One young girl runs past us – I am full of respect – I notice that she is running in her socks with her trainers slung over her shoulder. She just wants it all to be over and to collect her finisher’s medal.

OF and I share a bear hug before she leaves to wend her way back to her hotel and hopes that she can find the room key she secreted in her bra. I wonder how my body will ever bend in the middle again, and am reminded not to jump to conclusions as I am reacquainted with Mr Red Wig who appears to be waiting for someone outside the finishing pen. He has a little sign written for his loved one and it reads, ‘You are amazing!’ He flings his wig up in the air as soon as he sees her hobble through the finishing post and I realise that he is very in love and punch drunk on life rather than inebriated as I believed him to be a few miles earlier.

My body has finally given up being heroic and I shiver as I walk the mile back to my son’s flat. My legs are painfully wooden. I feel suddenly emotional to have completed this marathon adventure – a Full Moon – walking besides OF. I have my medal on so feel that any dog walkers will forgive my limp and my leaking eyes. The poem that Himself penned and sent us before the start of our escapade now feels all the more special:

Moonwalkers

Friends that stroll together
Ageless in their eyes
Within dark city limits
The truth of friendship lies

Step by step keep marching
Twilight lays ahead
The river keeps on rolling
Keep faith, there is no dread

So, may a dragonfly walk with you
Or pinned upon your bras
Soft guiding light to cheer for
Two Moonwalk shining stars

We have indeed full mooned.