The day of the challenge itself started before dawn with a rather rude awakening - torrential rain and a huge clap of thunder at 4:30am! We arrived at the school that was the base for the challenge at around 6am in the dark and pouring rain - really not the start we were looking for after such a beautiful afternoon the day before. 7am start for the mountain biking and my goodness grizedale forest is STEEP! Once up the forest trail was fantastic - the rain stopped, the sun came out (sort of) and we got lost. And then Paul's chain broke... 2 hours 31 minutes (and an extra 2km and several big hills) later we were back at the school with the first event completed. Time to wind up the other teams by cooking bacon butties in the carpark :) There isn't really much to say about the canoing other than it was wet, and not as cold as I'd thought it might be... The course involved collecting 13 markers positioned at various points along both sides of the shoreline and getting round in less than 1 hour 30 minutes. Penalties were awarded for missing points or being late back. 1 hour and 10 minutes, and a perfect score later we sloshed our way back to the school to dry off and prepare for the main event... the 8 mile 753m climb that is the Old Man of Coniston. As we set off from the school at around ten to two the top of the old man was still shrouded in cloud and really not looking very welcoming. As we climbed the cloud started to clear, but even as we reached low water, just below the summit, it was still pretty cloudy. We reached the top in just over 2 hours - a climb of 753 metres and what we thought was the hard part done and dusted. Time for a beer! After a ten minute beer and recovery stop we were off again... the stroll along the ridge coming as something of a relief after the seriously steep climbs on the way up. If only it stayed that way... Swirl How, the start point for the main steep drop, is only about 10 metres lower than the top of the old man... what we failed to notice on the map was the 100m descent and then the 90m climb back up to the top just before it! Once at Swirl How the fun really began - the drop down prison band was a lot more steep and craggy than I remember it. So steep and craggy in places that we resorted to hands and knees and sliding down some of the drops until we reached the junction with the path that would take us down past Levers Water and onto the quarry track back past the miners bridge and down to the finish. This last descent was now more of a trudge than anything... steep gravel track that hurt my knees, giving way to a nicer harder gravel track that didn't... We made it back to the school and the finish line at twenty past six, an official time of four hours and thirty two minutes... For those interested, the route for the old man of coniston is shown below - click the image for a larger version (1017x1024 - 475kb) Map Image © Ordnance Survey. Reproduced without permission.

Labels: biking, challenge, hiking

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Home for the next two nights...

Labels: challenge

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The prima challenge is now getting very very close... 4 days from now and at this time (approx 13:15) I'd have just set off on the moutain part of the challenge - assuming I've survived the mountain biking and canoeing from the morning session! I now have the schedule for the day, and wouldn't you know it, my team is out first with the evil that is 6am registration. The rest of the day pans out at follows:

Registration:          06:00
Mountain Bike fitting: 06:40
Mountain Bike start:   07:00
Mountain Bike finish:  09:30
Rest...
Canoe briefing:        10:15
Canoe start:           10:35
Canoe finish:          12:05
Rest...
Mountain briefing:     12:50
Mountain start:        13:10
Mountain finish:       17:40
Collapse...

And then the drinking begins :) Don't forget you can still sponsor my team at http://www.justgiving.com/PrimaA

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When I started my new job in January it was announced that the company was sponsoring a charity event. That event was part of the Care International Challenge Series. It all seemed simple enough.... a bit of canoeing, some mountain biking and then a stroll up the Old Man Of Coniston all in a 12 hour time limit... Wanting to show willing, and having enjoyed such things in the (now seemingly very distant!) past, I volounteered. That was in February. The event was in late September and seemed months away, with plenty of time to train and get fit and prepare. It is now September.... I finally went out on a practice walk today in the Peak District with Paul (one of my fellow team mates) and oh my did it hurt... mainly my knees from a couple of quite steep descents, but pretty much every other muscle in my body is also making itself known with new aches and twinges. I used to be fit... I used to do walks like this - 7 miles with a couple of 150m climbs - for fun and relaxation. I guess 10 years in a desk job has really taken the edge off my fitness. Sponsorship: If anybody out there is actually reading this and fancies sponsoring my team then you can do at http://www.justgiving.com/PrimaA. All the money raised goes straight to Care International. With that I'm going to drag my aches and pains off to bed and work out how I'm going to survive this thing. Dave

Labels: challenge

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