Day Four

The day started stupidly early with a 6:40 start time, which was just horrid. Ho hum, I headed out on the first cycle to Swainby in the chilly but clear morning.

It was an undulating hour's ride and after a quick change I was out on to the run. Today it was a 15km amble over Carlton Bank and on to the Wainstones. I really enjored this run, and although there were a lot of climbs they passed pretty easily with beautiful views over the Moors.

It was then on to the bike for a mountain bike across to Glaisdale. This route started off with a terrible trek up stone steps to get up onto the top but was then a great ride along disused railway tracks and good bridleways. The views continued to be stunning and other than the strong wind the weather was good too.

A long descent on fast rocky trails took us down to transition before setting out on the final road cycle to the finish.

This passed uneventfully and pretty quickly other than the fearful climb out of transition and the long slog uphill to the coast cliffs.

Soon enough I was at the finish and crossed the line to be presented with the finishers medal.

My total race time was 30 hours 15 minutes which feels pretty good. A great adventure and a brilliant race. It feels brilliant to have got to the end and a big achievement.

Thanks to everyone for helping out; Mum and Dad did a great job crewing, of course Vicki for waving me off to play in good spirits and Amelia for the loan of the mascot (I'll try and get her clean).

Finally, thanks to Cycledealia, ForGoodnessShakes and Avoncraft kayaks for their generous support.

Victory!

By a comfortable 6 mins.

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

Job done

A nice short day at 6 hours 15 mins and I'm in Robin Hood's Bay.

Total race time was 30 hours 49 minutes and 53 seconds.

Now waiting for Liam to arrive to find out if he's held his lead.

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

Rules, it appears, are made to be broken

Either that or the rule of 3 simply doesn't apply to multiday races?
So I had achieved my first aim of carrying the leader's jersey into the
final day, and james had decided to stagger the starts by 5 minutes today,
which gave me a bit more of a lie in, but as it was a mediocre night's
sleep, this didn't help too much. At least I figured out why the problems
though - I was so eager to recover that I kept shovelling carbs into myself
late into the night, and couldn't sleep due to the sugar rush refusing to
allow my brain to shut down - a useful lesson to learn!
So I decided not to show up at the start until bruce had already left ...
Why not leave him wondering where I was ;-)
The first leg was a 15 or so km road ride along an A road and then over a
hilly back road, that kev and I had driven the previous night, and got a
bit concerned about how unpleasant it looked.
As it turned out it was relatively ok, and I despatched it in 41 minutes -
1 more than my nemesis ;-)
Next was a run over carlton bank on the cleveland way, and heading into the
first section I could see HHN about 5 minutes ahead, so they hadn't taken
much time either.
The cleveland way is an impressive cobbled walkway heading (literally) up
hill and down dale, and took us along the edge of a sheer ridge with
fantastic views to the north. Being sadistic, james the race director sent
us along the undulating rather than the flatter option. At least this gave
me the opportunity to see HHN approaching hilltops in front of me, and work
out that they were only slowly pulling away. Given how I was feeling, and
how hard I was thrashing myself, this was very good news!
I was amazed to find that even though this was my 4th straight day, and I
was basically running on rock, often steeply downhill, my feet still felt
fine - a great testament to the x-talon shoes that I had worn for every leg
of the race so far (paddling in them to save transition time, and using
footplates on the bike rather than bike shoes), I think I've found my
favourite multisport race shoe!
Dropping down to clay bank to switch onto the mountain bike, I jogged into
an empty transition to be told I was now 1830 minutes back - 7 minutes over
an hour and a half, not too bad, but it's on the bike that bruce would be
looking for big gains.
Next piece of good news was that pumping the tyres up this morning, a valve
had been ripped out of a tyre, and the replacement tube was leaking a touch
- oh well, at least I know, make sure the road front is available at the
next transition!
Out onto the road and I spotted a forestry road on the left and took that,
straight up, though not as straight up as the alternative it would appear -
a steep walk up the cleveland way that I had to jump a stone wall to get
to. Once up on the top, there was a nice track, that was a little
concerning due to the state of my front wheel, and the regular stone
drainage channels.
I was going fine once we turned onto a lovely, flat, smooth disused railway
line, when a hiss from the front warned me all was not well. stopping, the
front was soft, so I pulled out the CO2 canister and ... Nothing ...
Looking at it later, it had a short thread on it and didn't go into the
head far enough to pierce, so out came the minipump.
On my way again, this time it stayed up long enough to make it over the
road section, and gingerly through a length of concerningly rocky
singletrack before another pumping. Out onto glaisdale rigg and I hit the
last section of 4wd track confidently.
Too confidently, as I crested a rise at about 30mph, all I could see on the
other side was rocks and ruts, this wasn't going to be good. Sure enough
all the thinking light thoughts in the world wasn't going to save the front
tube, so it was a stop to change the tube and pump up the tyre - another 3
minutes gone - and down to the TA.
Getting the front wheel changed I headed out knowing I now only had 10
minutes lead, this was getting close!
There was really nothing left but to give it death, so I consumed the rest
of the gels and go fast that I was carrying, and headed for the whitby to
robin hoods bay cycleway.
Boy was this cycleway popular! Apologies to the small child that nearly got
run over deciding at the last minute to change sides, the dog that didn't
understand 'move' and the chap who's bike I knocked going through a gate
he'd decided to stop in the middle of, but I really wasn't stopping for
anyone!
I was quite disappointed to find that the cycleway rose almost all the way
to RHB, and then when it did drop, did so into a headwind, but at least
when I arrived, everyone in town seemed able to point me towards the
cycleway, thus making up for the lack of signs!
Onto another section that turned from tarmac to gravel, and then kevin was
stood in front of me shouting 'turn in here', where? And then just past him
a gap appeared in the hedge and I heard him saying you've got about 3
minutes.
Given I could see the gantry this was going to be plenty, but I still
sprinted to the line, dibbed in and was immediately congratulated by bruce,
very quickly followed by H2O and then a number of others.
What a great race, my time of 21:56 won by 6 minutes, and HHN held on to
win the teams race by the same margin.
Thanks to james for putting this race on, to kevin for doing so much
organising to make it possible for me to compete, to ivan for the loan of a
great boat, alex for the bike, which I shall attempt to return to it's
original pristine condition. Thanks of course also to inov8, Go Fast and
For Goodness Shakes for the products that helped get me through 4 very
intense days, and last and most importantly, to Hildy, Heather and Barry,
none of whom had even seen a multisport race before, and yet today got me
through 3 transitions in less than 1 minute 40 seconds, awesome work guys,
and thanks for all the work you did winning this with me!

Day three done

I was slightly concerned about today as it was described last night as the toughest day, but since it looked fairly straightforward to me I figured there must be something I was missing. It was to be a run over Nine Standards Rigg, followed by a cycle across to Northallerton. At 28 km the run was going to be long, but didn't look to have too much climbing; certainly not compared to the last couple of days. The tricky bit turned out to be the surface which varied from slippy mud to boggy mud.

Setting out my legs were seriously heavy and things didn't feel great. Then after a couple of km everything cleared and I felt great. Within the first half hour I'd caught the three starters ahead of me so had already made 12 mins on one team (it's a reverse start with slowest leaving earliest). Things carried on well up to the summit and then down the long boggy descent on the winter route to the road. It was only halfway down and an hour or so in that I started getting caught by the later starters.

I passed the support crew (mum & dad) at the assigned spot and I carried on while they headed for the transition. The rest of the stage was more boggy, muddy paths, with the last section being along the side of a river valley, which was tiring with constant camber. I steadily picked off more people and arrived at transition feeling really good.

A quick snack and I jumped on the bike for an MTB leg, which took us along miners tracks and over a few dales. This was a great ride on rocky tracks up and down some fun routes. Most of the way I'd been trading places with Karen (surname unknown) nut she suddenly vanished - turns out she punctured being a bit flash and showing off down a rocky descent past some walkers. D'oh!

Another fun descent took us into Castle Bolton for a quick snack and then it was back out for a road section to the finish at Northallerton. This was a fast ride with most of it heading steadily downhill with a bit of a tail wind. An improvised aero-tuck with my arms laid on the bars added some extra speed and Catterick arrived in double-quick time passing a few more on the way.

From the we turned south straight into what was that talwing and it was a bit of a slog down to the finish. I missed a turn at one point which would have put me over the allowed distance on a B-road so I decided to be a good boy and back tracked to get back on route. That was the first navigation error of the race which I'm pretty pleased with.

I crossed the line in just over 7 hours 30 minutes, so a nice short day! Hopefully I've made up some time as it felt like a quick day and definitely my best yet.

Food, briefing, bed.

Sorry Angelina....

The rule of 3s

Well they say that problems come in 3s, so hopefully after the puncture on
friday, the route choice yesterday, and today's catastrophe, hopefully
we're done with the bike issues and will have a smooth day tomorrow, so
what happened today? All in good time.

Yesterday we'd been pretty efficient after the race getting fed and set up
for today, the only issue was my complete inability to sleep, at least that
gave me the opportunity to eat plenty, so hopefully I would be well fuelled
unlike tom gibbs from HH-nuun who had been ill several times overnight, and
so would be doing the first run on jelly babies.

Bruce set off looking pretty keen, and then HHN were 4 minutes after him,
and my countdown started. At 9:04 I was away, leaving kirkby stephen
looking for a footpath this took me off towards some farmland where I lost
a minute or so getting my bearings, and then onto moorland heading for 9
standards rigg, a stone circle that I eventually approached, shrouded in
mist, an hour into my run, having seen no other soul as I battled across
the boggy surface.

From the top there was more bog hopping down past an 'area of shake holes',
which was a very cool field full of small flat boulders, that looked like a
huge rock sheet had symmetrically cracked as it cooled. Here I saw a couple
of walkers braving the forecast before hitting the B6270.

Slogging along the road I still hadn't seen any other racers, and just had
the chance to say a quick hi to H2O before heading back across the
moorland. A navigation error here cost me another few minutes as I found
myself on the wrong side of some bogginess. Heading south I managed to
avoid sinking too far and reached the track to keld, which was very boggy,
slippy and generally hard going, especially as I was fairly certain bruce
was going hard and eroding my lead.

Shortly before keld I caught ant emmett, and we ran into TA together, him
confirming bruce was on a mission today ... Oh good ;-(

The time check told me he was 15 mins ahead, so 7 mins gone from my lead
.. Could be worse, but he's a strong rider so expect that to grow as we
head out for an MTB.

After friday's puncture I was a little cautious on the rocky sections, and
the foot plates that had been doing so well on the road turned against me,
slipping every time I stopped to open a gate, not seating back into the
pedals very quickly, and being too slippy to pedal unclipped. At least
that's my excuse for losing another 5 minutes on the ride ;-)

Actually I was quite pleased to hear that, and headed out on road wheels
confident of making some time back. I immediately started passing other
teams, and the pace notes I had written for this section worked a charm,
allowing me to pass several teams stopped studying maps at or near
intersections.

Through brompton-on-swale, the lights were red turning into the B6271, so I
went for a cheeky hop up onto the kerb to cut the corner, only my front
wheel decided it preferred to stay in contact with the tarmac and dropped
out of the forks. Needless to say, this somewhat impeded forward progress,
and I went straight over the bars. Nothing appeared badly damaged, though
the wheel is no longer true, so back in it went (Thankyou disk brakes), and
I tried to head off. Unfortunately the anti chain suck device didn't stop
the chain going round the cogs, but was now stopping it returning. Out with
the multi tool to sort that out and I was on the way again, with the
addition of a bit of visible blood and a couple of new bruises.

Getting back going was hard work, and I had a bit of back and forth with
one team who were using a cyclocross bike for added speed, and they
eventually pulled away from me as we headed into Northallerton and I
trailled them into the leisure centre and collapsed across the finish line.

First order was to find out how bad the final result was, and I was
pleasantly surprised to find I'd pretty much pegged bruce on the last ride,
so lost about 12 minutes to him and HHN ... Could have been worse, and
here's hoping for some sleep tonight and a trouble free day for kev and I
tomorrow.

Day two, done

Another 4800 calories expended and I've made it to Kirkby Stephen in
just under 9 hours.

The day started at 7:34 with a quick cycle to Thirlmere to paddle the
lake to the southern end. This went pretty well and although there
was a bit of wind, nothing too nasty, and it was despatched in under
an hour.

It was then up on to Helvellyn to climb to the summit and then descend
along Striding edge to just outside Glenridding. The ascent was done
in a howling wind and the last bit in the cloud with no visibility.
Fortunately it's a very clear track so no problems with navigation,
but all the way up I felt like Frodo running from the Black Riders as
following runners appeared through the mist before being swallowed up
again.

I checked in with the marshall at the summit (who deserves the biggest
medal of us all - he was up there for hours bundled up in a sleeping
bag hiding from the incessent wind) and headed off down the ridge.

Just as I left the summit the weather cleared and there was a
beautiful view right along the ridgeline.

Striding Edge is a pretty sharp arete so it was a cautious descent
clambering over the rocks. From 'Hole in the wall' it was then a run
down the side of the fell descending towards the river where
transition was to be in the Patterdale YHA. I got to transition after
2.5 hours and was soon paddling along the river into Ullswater (with a
small delay to rescue the guy who capsized getting on - a thank you
would have been nice ...).

This was definitely a low point. The wind was blowing and it was
pretty choppy; I was definitely not comfortable in the waves, but made
progress and was boosted when Liam came hurtling past with some
advice, which got me going again.

Finally I made it to the end, and hopped out (well, fell and splashed)
into the waiting arms of the support crew.

A rather lengthy sit down ensued to get over the kayak and then I was
out on the big for the hilly slog to Kirkby Stephen. Buy was it hilly
- up-down-up-down all the way. Finally it looked like a downhill run
to the finish and the wind swung road into a headwind and it started
raining.

Finally I made it across the finish line with very little energy to spare.

I've cried off camping again so have the luxury of a hotel room which
makes life that bit easier.

Food, briefing and bed now.

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

It's a funny old game

A horrible football saying, but let's face it, applicable to most sports,
and none more so than a multi day, multi discipline sport that combines
mentally and physically pitting yourself against your fellow competitors
and mother nature.

So day 1 had been a raging success, and day 2 was my chance to consolidate
my lead. Starting last, I had the luxury of spending the day chasing, and
with this being the last day of paddling, it was my opportunity to make the
most of the fantastically fast epic V10 surfski that ultimatekayaks.co.uk
had loaned me in taking time on the lakes.

Starting with a short road ride out of keswick up a hill, I arrived at the
north end of thirlmere about 4 minutes down on team Helly Hansen, so we'd
knocked the ride out in a similar time.

Another swift and efficient transition (new team member hildy, who had
joined us last night fitted straight in) had me on the water, slowly
closing in on HH, who in turn were creeping towards 8ruce (with hot legs
according to my support crew).

Exitting the lake I overtook HH as I slung the V10 (very happy it's the
11kg 'ultra' model) on my shoulder and they lugged their necky up the
track.

through transition while bruce was still changing his shoes, and onto a run
I had seen the start of last week. Up the forestry track, and as I came
back, bruce popped out in front of me - I was now last on the road again as
the others had all elected to go bush up the hill and taken reasonable time
out of me. Oh well, there went any chance of the king of the mountain award
for the day, so I just slogged up the hill conserving myself for the
descent.

My the top HH had pulled out 3 minutes on me, bruce a minute or so, and ant
emmett was just in front. The descent off helvelyn was pretty spectacular,
slippy, dangerous, and covered in walkers who were very gracious about
moving out of the way.

Down into Patterdale and I'd overtaken maybe half a dozen places, and saw
bruce heading out in his boat as I was directed to the youth hostel hosting
the TA.

Here my crew, who have christened themselves H2O were waiting, got me
quickly into my kayak gear, and pointed me at the exit.

The river down to Ullswater was great fun, and I must have overtaken 5
people before hitting the lake - mainly people showing that Kayaking is
very weak in british multisport as they fought to keep their boats out of
the willows, or pointing in the right direction.

I used to hate the paddling sections in multisport races, but prefer almost
anything to swimming, so stuck with it, and once I bought a surfski,
actually started enjoying paddling. I think everyone I passed in the
middle, windy section of the lake will confirm how much fun I was having
here, and generally how little fun they were having, and will hopefully be
encouraged to go out and buy a ski and start paddling it - people spend
happily spend a grand on a bike that lasts a season, but balk at spending
less than that on a boat they can keep for years ... But I digress ;-)

Anyway, so I passed bruce, HH, and seemingly 90% of the field on the
paddle, and thought I was heading out onto the ride in 1st place.

I was using road wheels, so was careful along the early bridleway section,
not wanting a repeat of yesterday's puncture, even getting off and running
for a stony section, and then it was road all the way to kirkby stephen.

Through shap, and a particularly dodgy descent into crosby ravensworth,
through maulds meaburn and over a nasty little uppy downy section of back
road that kev and I had decided looked like the go, and I hadn't seen
anyone ... As expected.

So I was a little surprised to turn out of the road and see 3 racery
looking people just ahead, with 3 more way up the road, one of whom
appeared to have bruce's distinctive green shorts!

To say I was a little perturbed was an understatement! After dispatching of
the immediate 3, who seemed as confused as me when they saw the yellow
jersey, I spent the next few miles chasing the rather stronger rider ahead.
Passing another team, I came across bruce's father taking photos, and
confirming that he was ahead.

Some fairly serious effort saw me catch him about 2 miles out of town, and
we rode in together, with him taking line honours (though not overall, as
HH and a couple of others were already in).

So as I said in the title-it's a funny old game, where all the gains made
in nearly 20k of Kayaking were almost undone by a bit of poor route choice,
resulting in a lot harder finish to the day than expected.

oh well, seeing how well I recover from today will be a good test for the
efficacy of the for goodness shakes recovery drinks that I skulled once
over the line, and the go fast I will be guzzling during the race tomorrow!

Results : I'm still in the lead, with another 2 mins gained over HH, and 8
over bruce, as second solo 44 mins behind.
Kevin also moved up a place after another strong day, enjoying the run over
helvelyn, and not enjoying the swells on Ullswater.

Day one done

Well that was fun!

As expected the sea kayak was cancelled so we had a nice run along the
clifftop to St Bees instead. Good call as it was seriously blustery
and the sea was VERY rough. All went well and I got to transition
somewhere in the middle. Everything was ready so I was straight back
out on the road for the cycle to Buttermere. The wind helped here as
it was right at our backs and blew us along in double quick time.
Surprisingly quickly I was at the paddle and surprised the support
crew, but very quickly all was in order and I was on the way to the
paddle.

The wind was really gusting across Crummock and there were a few hairy
moments, particularly when it whipped the paddle out of a hand. I
survived and made it through the portage with only a bit of swaering.
Buttermere was much calmer and was despatched quickly.

The rain really came down as I set off on the run after another quick
transition, and the weather was foul as I tackled the monster run.
The route was really tough heading over some very steep feels with
horrid ground underfoot.

After 3 hours of slogging I got to the swim and then just had a chilly
swim across the lake, which just about the finished me off.

I finally crossed the line after just over 8 hours of racing, greeted
by a fair crowd of people, which was great.

Showers and food followed, and we're now in the briefing for tomorrow,
which is going to be a god-early start, so hopefully it will soon be
sleep time.

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

The best laid plans of mice and men ...

Apparently sometimes actually come to fruition ;-)

Day 1 of the coast to coast started off reasonably badly (for me) with the
cancelling of the first paddle leg from whitehaven to st bees, and it being
replaced with a clifftop run.

Starting off at a reasonable pace, I immediately dropped into follow the
leader mode, following the crowd up a long flight of steps and along the
tops. I slowly started picking people off, dropping down to st bees with 3
or 4 people visible in front of me.

A swift transition onto the bike and I was off on the route that we recce'd
last week when we were up, jumping onto the coast to coast cycleway I
seemed to be making reasonable progress, passing a few other cyclists,
checking I was on the right track with a walker, and nearly taking out a
dumb golden retriever.

On the roads towards the transition I pulled in a guy that I figured was in
2nd, and could see another ahead. Slowly reeling them in I took a short cut
following one, pulled out onto the road, and BANG sodding tubeless tyres!
This tyre had been a git to get on, and I was not happy I was going to have
to fix it.

Despite my misgivings, the tyre goop everywhere, and having to use tyre
levers for the first time in years, I managed to get it sorted, and got
back on the bike on a mission. Overtaking a couple of people I ran into
issues with support crew vehicles not being particularly sensible about
heading in. Dropping the bike with barry and heather I got my BA on, threw
the kayak on my shoulder and headed for the get in.

There were a few boats on the water, all heading further left than I
thought was strictly necessary, so I headed further right, getting pushed
along by a nice little squall, pushing me past most of the others.
Overtaking a double getting out, I chased the only other person I could
see. Overtaking him, he told me he was leading, so taking another 5 minutes
out of him on the 2nd lake, I headed onto the run with a cushion.

Looking back halfway up the hill I was amazed not to see anyone chasing,
but assumed they were heading a different way. A long walk up the hill and
then an out and back to a marshal sheltering behind a cairn and still
no-one in sight, sweet! Down, up and down again saw me at dalehead tarn,
where a photographer said he could see no-one else, so thoughts of winning
the day started to set in.

Up the ridge onto maiden moor and the weather set in. SERIOUSLY! I got
shotblasted by hail for about 10 minutes along the top, got very strange
looks from all the walkers huddled in groups against the weather
(seriously, they thought I was mad?), and ran down off Cat Bells in a 2-6
inch deep stream of water.

Once off the tops, the weather improved, and I got to swim across a flat
calm derwent water. Coming out, I was informed by the crowd (well 3's a
crowd right?) that no-one else was in the water, which was great to hear as
my adductors, hamstrings and quads all cramped on me all the way to the
finish line, which apparently I approached too soon, and from the wrong
direction for my support crew to get a photo.

Kev came in a couple of hours looking good, and sounding positive despite
the downpour he ran through and the freezing lake he'd just swam.

Wind and Rain....

Safely ensconsed in the hotel after a big dinner and outside it sounds
like the world is coming to an end. It's blowing a gale and rain is
squalling down to make for a thoroughly unpleasent night.

Sadly the forecast for tomorrow is for more of the same so the sea
kayak leg is looking doubtful, which will be a real shame.

Had a rather excited phone call from Vicki saying "you're on the front
page". Turns out the story I sent to the local paper has been
published, with photos, on the front page. Fame at last!

Next post will probably be after day one is done with, so keep an eye
on the tracking to keep up to date.

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

On the way

After the months of preparation we're finally on the way to the start,
motoring up the M6 in a car laden with all sorts of kit and enough
calories to feed an army.

I think we've just passed another team, unless there's some other use
for a double kayak and two mountain bikes this weekend.

The weather is getting steadily worse, having left hertfordshire in
sunshine it's now windy and starting to rain. The forecast for
tomorrow is strong wind so the sea kayak leg may be doubtful, but at
least it's on-shore so we may be OK.

There is going to be satellite trackingan but I don't have a link yet.
You'll find it either at www.sportstrackuk.com, via the race
organisers at www.openadventure.com. The adventure racing website
www.sleepmonsters.com will have reports and should have links to
results and the tracking.

Kevin

--
Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

On the way

I arrived home to a care pack from the team at Go Fast; - thanks guys, that will
provide a heap of fuel during the race, and should nicely complement the
For Goodness Shakes that we'll be using for recovery after each stage.

Having loaded the hire car up it's time to brave the bank holiday traffic
and head for York where hopefully british rail will deliver us some more
support crew.

(Liam)

Thankyou mr Rozier!

Just like a bought one! The spacer that kevin had made up for the spare front wheel works a treat, now just to get the tubeless rear to seal, then test out the spacers that have been added, and I have a set of road wheels!

Some figures

While polishing off the routes I did a quick tot-up of the distances. In total over the four days I make it:-

Swim - 1.4km
Kayak - 38km
Run - 57km
Bike - 192km

That assumes no navigational hiccups, which is, frankly, pretty unlikely.

Stilson 1, Seatpost 0

Good old brute force and ignorance in place of more refined techniques has finally seen the bike relieved of its stuck seat post. That's another hurdle out of the way.

Team mates, Kayaks, Wheels, Maps and Milkshakes

Liam made it safely to the UK on Saturday so Team Ixion now has its full complement of racers and support crew ready to go.

On the way back from the airport we call in to visit Ivan Lawler the UK importer of Epic Kayaks to collect a V10 surfski they have loaned Liam for the race. A lovely piece of kit which exudes "fast". It makes my nice safe sea kayak look bloated and overweight (9kg vs 27kg!), but equally it looks so narrow I'd struggle to paddle it on a calm river, let alone in the sea. With the boat safely back home we now have, in theory, a complete set of kit, but I'm sure there'll be a very long list of last minute panics.

The race has a mixture of road and off-road legs, so ideally we'll each have two sets of wheels, one with slow knobbly tyres on, one with narrow slicks on. We have four set of wheels between us, but fitting them to the bikes is proving tricky due to axle and disc alignment issues. Our frien Bryan Rozier is making us up a set of spacer so we can fit a second set of wheels to Liam's bike, but it looks like we're out of luck getting the second set fitting mine. It's a long and complicated tale which isn't worth recounting, but the combination of weird spacer layouts on the Hope forks and centre-lock discs on two of the sets of wheels combine to need a fair amount of work, and time which we haven't got. Not a disaster, and I'll just ride with very light knobblies, or if it's dry semi-slicks which are quick on the road and tolerable in dry dirt.

More of an issue is the saddle height on Liam's bike - it's steadfastly corroded in place and so far no amount of persuasion has freed it off. This is a bit of a problem as Alex, who has leant us the bike, clearly has legs a few inches shorter than Liam's. Not quite sure who this one gets resolved at the moment.

The final route book came out on Friday so from that and the wonder Anquet mapping software we now have a complete set of maps with our planned routes for the event. The fact that they extend to 24 sheets of A4 at 1:50k highlights that this is fair trek. Just need to get them laminated and that's another box ticked.

The lovely folks over at ForGoodnessShakes have been kind enough to sponsor us for the race and have supplied a stack of their great recovery drinks. Recovery is critical in multi-day races, so these will be a real asset. They're also great during regular training - a good-tasting drink at the end of a session which is specifically designed to help you recover. You also avoid all the messing with mixing up powdered drinks that comes with most recovery products - I can't recomend them enough (and that isn't 'sponsor talk', I normally buy them with my hard-earned pennies, so am immensely grateful for their kind supply for this race).

Think that's all for now - today's mission is to get the directions for my support crew (mum and dad) sorted so that hopefully my bike and boat will be in the right place at the right time.

Mobile updates...

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Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.

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What are we up to?

Over the August bank holiday weekend I'll be taking part in an adventure race roughly along the Wainwright's coast-to-coast route from St Bees to Robin Hood Bay. We'll be running, cycling, kayaking and swimming a total of about 200 miles over 4 days, pausing to change disciplines and stopping for overnight rests.

A rough map of the route is here :- http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=118363840308914899944.00046b08040a1689a9174&z=10 which gives a vague idea of the undertaking.

Preparation for the event has been rather turbulent. Getting the required kayaking certificates and sorting a boat to paddle for the event have presented a few hitches, and just getting my head around the scale of the event has been tough. With two weeks to go I think most things are finally in place, and my team mate should even be on the plane on the way to the UK. Liam's trekking half way round the world to join me for the event. The original plan was to do the race as a pair, but it soon became clear that Liam would be with a good chance of winning it, and I'll be aiming for mid-field obscurity at best, so we've split up and will race as solos.

We've had some great support getting everything in place. Avoncraft, For Goodness Shakes, Cycledealia, Epic Kayaks and various friends and family have made huge contributions to get us to the start line.

I'll try and keep this up to date with the final days of preparation, and come the event you'll be able to follow live GPS tracks and there should be updates on here and at Sleepmonsters.co.uk where we're official reporters.

Nearly ready to go...

Kayak's in the garden, bike's in the garage and I've even got the requisite kayaking certificate.

Two weeks of sorting and packing to go and we're off.