Challenge Stu

Last year's 3PYR was a memorable one: Particular parts that have stayed with me in the intervening months are: The time spent on sandbanks, and one particular sandbank which we shared (in close proximity!) with two other boats in the middle of the night The slow progress and eventual triumph of our passage through the Menai Straits Completing Ben Nevis with a sailor rather than a runner Not really winning any trophies! Those who are familiar with this race will know that 1, 2 and 3 are very regular occurrences, but point 4 is very rare... There really are plenty of trophies available! Well, this year everything changed: We didn't hit even one sandbank, we didn't go through the Menai Straits, we didn't go to the top of Ben Nevis, and we won loads of trophies (this pleases the skipper)! As last year I will try to tell the story primarily with photos, and I apologise if I have ordered things incorrectly as I tend to do this after multi-day events... - ...

For once, I took the nice camera with me, so I've decided that my 3 Peaks blog will involve minimal words and lots of photos. I have raced this race a couple of times before, but this time was part of a new team. Wild Spirit is our skipper Paul Jackson's boat, but due to logistics we were racing on a chartered boat from Ireland (Sherkin II), under the team name Wild Spirit. Sailing with Paul we had Tom and John, and Wil Spain and I would be the runners. Thanks to Wil for stepping in at the last minute when Hugh Aggleton's injury became too serious to race. The final member of our team was Judith, who would be our shore support crew and would bring the bikes round to Whitehaven. All the hard work without the fun bits - thank you Judith! Saturday lunchtime - the adoring crowds gather... ...the Wild Spirit crew (l-r John, me, Wil, Tom, Paul) is ready... ...by 1 o'clock everyone else is ready and the race is about to start... So, at 2pm on (a very sun...