With just one race left, the Radio 2 presenter has been charting an extraordinary journey. By the end of this afternoon, she will have completed all 135 miles.
Earlier this week, she reacted with disbelief when she crossed the £3m mark. “AHHH, amazing, amazing. We’ve popped over £3 MILLION! That is incredible, thank you so much,” she said. “Everybody just giving a fiver or a tenner did it. You’re absolutely awesome.”
Fans have been urging her to take time off, after she revealed she would be back on air next week. One wrote: “I love her show but surely she deserves a bit of time off!”
The challenge has pushed Sara to her physical limits. On day three she admitted: “It’s probably been one of the toughest mornings of my life, if I’m honest — everything’s hurting.” She joked that a Wednesday “hump day” had turned into “hump after hump after hump”.
But the milestones kept coming. At 100 miles complete, the Radio 2 team declared: “She’s getting closer and closer to Pudsey.” Fans celebrated her as “a superhero” and “a superstar”.
As exhaustion set in, she took a joyous chip stop in a cosy pub, grinning over fish, chips, mushy peas and gravy. “Look at that smile,” fans swooned.
Her ice-cold bath after 28 miles on day three was brutal. Shivering as she submerged herself, she admitted “it does help” even as her body shook from the temperature.
Loved ones and celebrities have been lining up to lift her spirits. Sara was stunned when her sister Dot suddenly ran toward her during a live segment. “That was perfectly timed — pain’s really tiring,” she said. Dame Judi Dench sent her love “from God’s own country”, while Alan Shearer joked Pudsey Bear “moves quicker than me these days”. Ant and Dec chimed in from Australia: “Keep up the good work… loads of love!”
Sara prepared for the challenge with intense physio and a mental strategy of “five-mile increments”. She laughed that she bribed herself with treats: “Five miles and then I’ll get some chocolate — or maybe a pork pie.”
Even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson weighed in earlier this month. Sara recalled: “He told me to picture how I’d feel if I didn’t push myself that extra bit. I’ll have that ringing in my ears — there’s no way I can’t finish.”
From alpacas and bagpipers at the starting line to crowds lining the streets, Sara has battled rain, freezing wind, brutal hills, tears, and fatigue — but she has kept going with Pudsey Bear strapped to her back. “I may be occasionally stumbling, limping and weeping,” she said at the start of the week. “But I will get my sorry self to Pudsey.”
And now, with Britain cheering her on as she approaches the finish line, she is proving exactly why the nation has fallen in love with her grit, humour and heart.
