Happy New Year, I hope you have some great plans to do something special in the Outdoors in 2015. I keep finding out this is the best way to heal the wounds & stay healthier than average. I have as you have seen become an addict but some addictions are good for you.

My addiction since coming back from Nepal has now spread to reading about the achievements & experiences of others which are more often than not on a mind-boggling scale compared to anything I would even consider let alone do. My latest read is ‘One day as a Tiger’, which I have been itching to get stuck into since buying it (had to finish a fiction first) a week ago from Cotswold Outdoor (at the check out Jim-Bob congratulated me on my choice). The book is written by John Porter about the groundbreaking climber Alex MacIntyre & their experiences at the dawn of lightweight Alpinism. Alex was tragically killed by a rock falling on his head whilst retreating on Annapurna but had fitted some incredible climbs into his short life, hence the book’s title based on: It’s better to live One Day as a Tiger than….

My New Year kicked off with the ritual Llyn Llydaw race, after a good night out before with Dorina, Iain, Andy, Georg & Simona three of us brushed of our hangovers (surprisingly almost absent for me) & found ourselves dropped of at PyB by Dorina in better than predicted conditions, a false dawn!

After some serious competitive banter with Iain the day before at the start I turned to them & said come on then is this going to be a Fun Run or a Race, I was glad with their simultaneous response; Fun Run. It was not much of a surprise to discover once negotiating the Lake path that Iain’s idea of a Fun Run is to show that he can whip my ass anytime he likes. Being chivalrous (well actually a realist) I decided to give up pursuit & chaperone Andy around the Lake (she negotiated the technical bits at least as well as me if not better). As we ran back down the Miner’s Track together we had done what we set out to do & it really did feel like a Fun Run despite the by now atrocious weather, at one point Andy thought I was going to be blown of the track by a particularly strong gust. At the finish a congratulatory hug & a mutual look of ‘well what could have been better than running in that weather on New Year’s Day morning’, it was seriously positive!

Back at the hostel re-united with Iain we shared a quick drink (not alcoholic) before Dorina arrived to take us back to the Cafe to warm up, every idiot needs a good woman behind them, thank you Angel.

Thanks as ever to Harvey Lloyd & his team for putting on a great event & standing out in such conditions, I thanked you at the time but no doubt the wind made it inaudible!

Plenty of thoughts for challenges for 2015 which I’ll bore you with later once I’ve collated them into something more coherent.

For now, the snow’s back & Sunday’s Forecast looks like a gem, see you out there.