My brother & I allowed ourselves a window of 10 days to complete the walk (even though, or perhaps because, most websites recommend to allow at least 12 days to complete), meaning we would need to do a minimum of 17.7 miles a day.To keep costs down, we made the decision to camp along the way, meaning that we would need to carry all of our previsions with us including tents, sleeping bags, clothes & food and even after several €˜re-packs' of my ruck sack and being as selective as possible, I still couldn't get my pack below 15kg.We travelled up to Prestatyn by train on the 24th September, staying in an Air B&B over night for our last bit of luxury before starting our walk on the 25th.Full of optimism we set of from Prestatyn at 08:30 with the mind-set that although 17 miles was our minimum, we would push as far as we could. It was a hard start to the walk, entering the Clwydian Range very early and we ended up stopping through moral depleating exhaustion at 18 miles. It was at this point that the magnitude of the task facing us really hit home.We were actually in our individual tents and asleep by 20:30 that night, partly through fatigue and partly due to having no signal to call home and not a lot else to do but sleep.Day 2 (26/09/18)Due to our early night and a side effect of sleeping in a tent, we were up by 06:00, and once we'd had our breakfast and packed up our kit, we were ready to go by 07:00.With the disappointment of completing only just over our bear minimum walked on day 1 and our early start, we had renewed determination to crunch some miles and set off. We had a bit of a slow start with some very steep climbs, but managed to get through 24 miles on day two and finished the day in a far more optimistic mind set and at a campsite too. This gave us the opportunity for a nice hot shower, which was a very welcome luxury. Day 3 (27/09/18)Day 3 started with the dressing of the expected, but unwanted blisters, we had both bought quality walking boots and broken them in, but they were unfortunately an inevitability. Once that was done and our kit again re-packed, we were on our way (by now only on day 3 we had both become €˜packing ninjas' and were getting quick at repacking everything of a morning.With a good sleep and the use of washing facilities we were again refreshed and crunched out a massive 26 miles by the end of day 3. We hadn't intended to do this much, but unfortunately found ourselves at the 20 mile mark in terrain that would not allow us to camp, so we pushed on for better conditionsDay 4 (28/09/18)Once the morning routine was completed and we were ready to go, I quickly noticed that not only had my knee not magically healed overnight, but also as a result in me adjusting my walking to compensate for the knee, my hip on the same side was very painful. After a lot of sympathy from my brother (€œman-up€, €œmaybe I should have done this with Mum, she would have moaned less€ etc) we set off, but at a far slower rate.About 10 miles into the day, I had a searing pain in the shin of my opposite leg. It felt like shin splints or something like that, so I plodded on, but again at an even slower rate. We quickly realised that this pace was going to affect our end goal and with daylight hours slipping away, we made a decision at 16 to stop at another campsite that was on our route.Thankfully, I have a friend who is a field medic in the military and previous to my leaving he made me promise to call him for advice if I had any €˜non-blister' injuries. So begrudgingly, I called him. To his credit after several questions he made the decision to jump in his car and drive for 2 ½ hours to the campsite to take a proper look.Without proper equipment, he could only use his experience to diagnose the problem, he surmised that through my adjusting my walking due to the knee, it had an adverse effect on my hip and then intern had either caused a stress fracture to my lower tibia or some tendon damage. He gave me a knee support, strapped my leg, and advised me to keep my eye on things, suggesting that I may have to call off the walk if things continued to deteriorate.The knee strap made an unbelievable difference and the pain relief & anti-inflammatories that he gave me helped considerably and left me feeling positive again. With all of this our pace and energy levels were now back to how they should be.So on day 5 we passed the long awaited halfway mark and got our mileage for the day back up to a far more pleasing 20½ Day 6 (30/09/18)Day 6 was the most uneventful day of the walk, no new injuries and no excessively steep climbing or descending which was a nice opportunity to lift my head a little and take in some of the amazing scenery. Although it was there for the whole trip, a lot of the time was spent looking at the floor and pushing myself along, so I really enjoyed that day.Day 7 (01/10/18)Day 7 arrived with us knowing we had the highest point of the walk that approaching. Peaking at 2306ft and starting not far above sea level at Hay-on-Wye.We would be arriving at the base of Hatterrall Ridge 15 miles into our walk. We decided that we would gauge how our legs were feeling when we arrived at Hay. Deciding there whether to stop at a disappointingly low mileage or push up the 5 mile climb, knowing that we would then face another 5-6 miles of decent the other side before we could locate a decent place to camp the night.We arrived at Hay and foolishly feeling full of beans after an expensive lunch (it is not a Lidl kind of a town) we decided to go for the climb.It was hard work, but we crunched through another 23½ miles and spent the night in the lovely little hamlet of Llanthony.Day 8 (02/10/18)As silly as it may seem, it wasn't until the start of day 8 that we realised we were within reach of completing our challenge a day early. If we could push ourselves to another 20+ day, we could end in Monmouth and according to our calculations that would leave us a very achievable 17-mile walk to the finish line on day 9. With that in mind we set off at a good pace.It was another tough day, but thankfully, mainly downhill, with only a few very manageable climbs, so we managed to make it to our planned campsite in Monmouth.Most days we stopped for €˜a cook up' to rest our feet, have a cuppa and some food and to recharge our batteries. Understandably though, our pace wasn't quite as good as it was in the first half of our trek. Therefore, we decided to try to push through to Monmouth without a lunch stop and just eat some of our cereal protein bars as we walked. I know Monmouth quite well and know a nice little Chinese take away there, so with the idea of some non ration-pack food we pushed through. About 13 miles in though we had to have a 5 min stop to rest our feet. That was a bad Idea! It was hard to get going again, but by then I am sure I could smell the take away, so on we plodded, reaching Monmouth at 18:00 just as the take away opened, how's that for planning!Day 9 (03/10/18)The final day had arrived, both sore and stiff we strapped our respective pulls and strains and dressed our blisters before setting off.The last day was possibly the hardest, because although it was in comparison an easy walk, I think our bodies knew the end was neigh and they started to let us know what they thought of us for putting them through what we had done.We had worked out (with the use of our guidebook that it was a 16½ mile walk to the end, this proved wrong. It actually turned out to be 20¼ and those last 4 miles were without a shadow of doubt the hardest. Knowing we had 16 miles to do, you get in the mind-set of that number and when we reached it and realised we were still 4 miles from home I was ready to cry! Nevertheless, we dug deep and got to the rather anticlimactic finish (just a rock with a plaque on it) at 18:30.By 19:15 I was in a hot bath with a cold cider