Have just watched a great video of the Pipe Dream race which can be downloaded by going onto the WFRA web-site, great work Craig, the heavy breathing is excused!!

What a wonderful weekend it was in North Wales, it just couldn’t have been better for my first shot at Ras yr Aran but the day didn’t start as well as planned.

The plan was, lie-in, read a book & slowly get my kit ready before setting off from home to the race start just half an hour away.

Reality, where are my Fell Shoes? Dorina who had unfathomably decided to re-organize my kit room two weeks ago (why Dorina, why, if we were married it’d be grounds for Divorce) was soon being called anything but Angel! The relentless search failed & blame switched to myself as I could only presume I’d left them at the Cafe. A nice little detour of 1.5 hours was wasted as they weren’t there, my third best pair were but my second best pair were back at the house with no time to get back there.

Arriving at the start I bumped into Kean & offloaded my woes. Next mistake was to convince myself the chilly wind & the minus 8 forecasted windchill higher up would make wearing my Waterproof jacket a wise call, wrong. Plenty of conversations during the race all along the lines of ‘arn’t you hot in that’, ‘yes I’m f…… boiling’.

Now this may all sound pessimistic & ask the question ‘so why does he do it then’ but: The reality is I have never enjoyed a race so much & that is saying something. Cracking weather, great turnout, demanding ascent, technical early descending & then the icing on the cake a simply glorious undulating run in of several miles with my legs seemingly getting stronger & stronger. To think I used to watch Rugby Internationals instead!

As for Kean, not his best so he failed to make it three in a row thank god but we had a good evening of Banter at the Cafe & the next morning. He clearly has no intention of taking it lying down because as soon as he got home he dug out his Moelwyn pb & sent it to me by e-mail, not bad I’d have to agree but it was done in days of ‘L’ & not ‘FL’ Kean, I think you’ll be needing some Siabod Porridge to challenge me in April.

Calum’s presentation on Saturday evening put our own endeavors into context but as this wise young head pointed out we are all capable of challenging ourselves to a level that we can enjoy & be happy with.

Now if you read this instead of looking at that video you’ve made a wrong call, it shows far more clearly than I can in words ‘why we do it’.