Challenge Stu

Yesterday Jim Mann and I raced together for the first time, in the Marmot "Dark Mountains" event. The race was a new twist on the Mountain Marathon concept, but instead of two days with an overnight camp we would be squeezing all the racing into one cold, wet January night. The weather did not disappoint... Due to the fact the race took place overnight, I haven't slept since Friday night, so apologies for this short and perhaps confused blog! We had entered the Elite course, meaning 51km and 2200m. On Friday race organiser Shane Ohly took the decision to use bad weather courses, meaning we would actually race less than this distance. With a predicted winning time of 11 hours you can see that the pace is not expected to be high! Jim and I sorted our kit, left Muncaster Castle and walked to the startline for our allotted time of 7:40. Only Kim Collison and Alex Pilkington would be starting afterwards, and were the favourites at the start. Jim and I are both navigat...

I used to have a sticker on my ski helmet which read "Crash and learn"... I wonder if what happened yesterday will teach me anything? I went out to do an hour on the road bike, it was about half past three by I got going to I put the lights on and set off from Crookes, through Crosspool towards Rivelin Dams. Then up Roper Hill to Ringinglow and west, past Burbage Bridge, down The Dale to Hathersage. Just before I descended to Hathersage I stopped for a quick photo of the cloud inversion in the valley. In Hathersage I turned left, up out of the village and back up the other way to Burbage Bridge. From there it was basically downhill to Ringinglow then all the way home. Good ride so far! It was getting dark now so I had the lights on, but as I came down past Lady Canning's plantation I remember noticing the slight sparkling on the tarmac. By the time I'd realised what this meant I was still doing about 50km/h when I noticed the patch of ice in front of me, which ...