Challenge Stu

I hope everybody had a fantastic bank holiday weekend. I was lucky enough to spend it on the West coast of Scotland with Lorna and my Mum and Dad. We were in a place called Tayvallich, a little village on an inlet of Loch Sween. A mile's walk takes you to the other side of the peninsula, where from the even littler village of Carsaig you have a direct view across to Jura. It's a stunning place. Tayvallich Bay. After a monster 10 hour drive north (though a stop at Mungrisdale was well worth an extra hour or so), we arrived and set about preparing ourselves for a weekend of adventure. The first step was to inflate my funny old blow-up kayak. I bought it originally to practice for using inflatables at WARC 2013 in Costa Rica, but it has far outlasted my predictions and has been great. There are numerous patches, the non-return valves have died, and it's short fat shape means it waddles around the sea rather than carving swiftly through the waves as a fibreglass boat migh...

I remember when I had birthdays as a child, Mum would always ask me "do you feel any older?"... I don't think I ever did, and even on my 30th birthday last thursday I still didn't notice any change in how I felt at around ten past three. However, I am now officially an old man, and I decided a few months ago that I wanted to do something to celebrate my big birthday. The plan: The plan was the Scottish 4000s duathlon. This was organised my Martin Stone as a race in 2001 and 2003, but can obviously be attempted at any time. The general idea is to summit the nine 4000ft peaks in the UK, which are located partly in the Nevis area of Scotland (W) and partly in the Cairngorm area (E), linking the two by a road bike ride across the country (it can also be attempted as a full run instead of the duathlon, for which Spyke holds the current record). The distances are about 11 miles, 60 miles, and 23 miles, and I'd hoped to go for a fast attempt, targetting times of aroun...

This weekend I've been up to Scotland to recce a few sections of this year's birthday treat. After the (ahem) success of last year's "29 at 29", the plan for my 30th is shorter but still very exciting: I'm hoping to complete the Scottish 4000s duathlon. The route involves a run up the four 4000ft summits in the Ben Nevis area, a road bike ride of 60 miles, and a second run over the 5 Cairngorm 4000s.   The plan this weekend was to look at as much of the runs as possible, focussing on the second one, and gently enough to aid my continued recovery! I left Sheffield on Friday afternoon, arriving at Oxenholme station at 5ish, where I was joined by Wil and Lucy Spain. We set off north and were soon in Scotland. By Hamilton we were hungry so went to Pizza Hut. Takeaway ordered we nipped to a supermarket to stock up on hill food then returned to collect what turned out to be (thanks to various special offers) rather a lot of pizza! We arrived at the Rothie...