Our very own Lucky CFO Alan Braithwaite went out into the New Forest yesterday with two other lucky readers of Trail Running Magazine, the Editor & a photographer to do an article for next autumns edition of Trail Running Magazine.
We can ensure you it will be worth a read.
Our January training weekend took us to the Black Mountains & namely Ystradgynlais, a small town north of Swansea. For thos of you who went to Smudge’s Stag Do, it’s the same town.
Anyway, we travelled up on Friday night. 10 of us left from our various bases and we met at the Scout Hut in Ystradgynlais, where Richard Brimelow (event director) greeted us with Hot Cross buns… Yum!! Before myself & Chris Laws (Atacama veterans 🙂 ) gave the most amazing and educational lecture ever on nutrition. With the group all feeling very informed & educated we got our heads down for some sleep, which evaded some of us as we were battling with ‘first night camp excitement’.
On Saturday we split into two groups which were being lead by Steve Knaggs & Chris Slater as they are working towards their Mountain leader qualification. We agreed to rendezvous that evening at Llyn Y Fan Fach about 10km north of the town where we started for our overnight camp.
We set out carefully navigating our way through the town and across the road, which seemed to take for ever, before finally hitting some hills.. We then completed navigating legs, whilst also picking up some of the Black Mountains famous Air Craft crash sites…
Now either this was luck or perfect linked groups, but both teams arrived at the overnight camp at exactly the same time. It was at this point and we had been thinking it for a while, that we realised how blooming cold it was. So we wrapped up as warm as we could and put our tents up and had dinner. Luckily for us, there was a rescue hut there, so we did get to sit inside. when I say inside, it had walls, a roof & some benches.. Luxury in this instance.. Dinner was light weight obligatory Cous Cous, veg & Chorizo…
As some of the group headed to bed, Adrian, Steve, Chris & myself headed out for some night nav practice and with 100% success rate we headed back to our tents for a very very very cold night sleep… My 1 season sleeping bag, thermal top, jacket & gillet struggled to keep the cold at bay even whilst i was being sandwiched by Chris & Steve..
The next morning, we had breakfast (muesli cereal bombs) and headed back to the hut. Whilst walking back, we did get to enjoy the snow that started and then laid after we had left…
A great weekend with some great hill walking & wild camping… Thanks to Richard Brimelow for organising and thanks to all who came along..
So…… That’s it.. All done and dusted… And what an awesome experience/adventure we all had. I won’t bother putting a trip report up here, I think Chris’ blog updates and the awesome photos tell the story… However, I will put a couple of things on here.
Firstly, I want to link you to one of the other runners post race thoughts… What a write up and he says it all pretty well.. Navigate here http://www.4deserts.com/blogs/comptetior_blog_new.php?pid=OTQy&blog=21 and read Ian’s second blog entitled ‘Till the next time…’
Who won the Prize Pot & Sponsorship update!!! Oh, the excitement… Well, thanks to all of you we managed to raise a whopping £6190.34 inc gift aid for Cancer Research UK… A massive thank you goes out to everyone of you.. And now, on to the prize pot winner or winners….
Well, we always said that the winner would be the person who picked the time slot for when the team didn’t finish and due to the unfortunate events of Chris being quite ill, the team didn’t finish Stage 5. So the winner of the entire prize pot is Ian Furlong. Well done Ian. However, we also felt that as two of us did finish, the person who bought the time slot at 41hrs, 47mins, 42 seconds which was where Rich and I finished also deserved a prize.. So, we managed to get a laptop donated to us by Geek Squad UK www.geeksquad.co.uk so we’d also like to congratulate Andy Wilkinson on his prize..
Two questions left…
Would we do it again? I can’t talk for the other two, but I would (and I’m pretty sure they would)…
Do I recommend it to you? Yes!!!
teamHSX on Atacama have spent the day exploring the town of San Pedro de Atacama today and getting to know where all the cafes are.. 🙂 The town which sits at 2400metres within the driest desert on Earth also gets looked over by the snow capped Andes (check out the picture below)… Which is just cool..
The team also saw the finish line today as the race which starts 0800 Sunday morning finishes in the town square..
Also this afternoon, Emily has left the boys to join the other volunteers for her volunteer training, which starts tomorrow…
All in all, we’re all having a splendid time…
teamHSX on Atacama have now checked in and are relaxing air side.. Please remember there is still time to sponsor them and enter the prize draw.. No more entries are allowed after 0800 Chile time, this Sundy..
