I guess it’s been a while since I updated this but I do have some good excuses for once! A week spent in the Hebrides at the Heb Challenge, followed by a week spent in the Hebrides relaxing and taking in the Heb Celt Festival, followed by the phenomenal Edinburgh Rat Race.

Before it all was a few days in the hills with Tim Lenton attempting to relax and take in the Ramsay Round at a more leisurely pace, just to get round the thing this year. Alas I think I may be jinxed because after a gorgeous day up on the Ben, Aonachs and Grey Corries, my old Illiotibial Band problems returned and my knee grew excruciatingly painful, forcing me to pretty much bail out after day one. Ho hum. Not ideal preparation for a five day adventure race the following week!
The Heb went bloody well again, with so many stories that I will only refer you to the article I wrote for sleepmonsters here. We finished third again but must have won any and every sing-while-your-running karaoke contest going, much to the annoyance of the sheep and the puzzlement of the other racers!

The Rat Race in Edinburgh was the big breakthrough we’ve been working towards for so long. After running about 18 miles or so on the Saturday night ‘prologue’ we were sitting in 3rd place, mostly because I’d stuffed up the climbing checkpoint, but we’d still pipped Saab Salomon and knew we’d be fast on the bike the next day. And so it was. It was Iona, Andy and myself again and it just worked so well. Not one wrong turn, one cross word or disagreement, just a superb team effort. We went hard when we were racing and refuelled, adjusted maps, etc in the time outs, which saw us coming in an hour behind Saab Salomon. However, they had shot through all the timeouts and when the electronic timings came in an hour after the finish, we were pounced upon in the hot tub by the TV crew to tell us that we had won! The first thing I’ve won since the Fair play award when I played football at primary school! Absolutely stoked, just a shame we can’t sue our prize of a trip to Stockholm to do a race there, as I’m doing the far bigger Wilderness ARC… Can’t have my cake and eat it, it would seem.