There all just numbers, a bit like the Pennine Challenge I didn't think too much about how far it was, just that it was going to be a day and a bit of exercise.

Training was a bit sparse, especially having finished the Pennine Challenge and gone into relaxation mode.  The longest ride I'd done for several years was just over 100 miles, the longest swim was an hour and a half.

The swim started at 10am on Saturday and went remarkably well, I stopped twice for 10 seconds to have a quick drink, but other than that it was just up and down for 304 lengths of the pool.  I lost count within about 10 lengths and refrained from asking the lap counters for fear of realising how far it was to go.  It was quite a nice surprise when the indication came that I only had 2 lengths to go and that there were still other people in the pool.  In the end I was ranked 14th of the finishers in the swim in 2:39 I could of quite happily stopped given that I thought I might struggle to get through it at all!

The bike started well, 16 laps of 14 miles, the first half generally downhill / flat and downwind.  Unfortunately it meant it was a bit of a grind on the way back.  I had a bit of a bad spot around 60 - 100 miles, feeling tired and realising that there was still a very long way to go.  Luckily Ali was there at the end of most laps, even through most of the night, ready with a large box of food and gallons of energy drink.  After this though I started to feel better and by the time it got dark and I got to use my lights I started to enjoy it again.  This time the lights worked flawlessly and were probably the brightest on the course helping dramatically on the descents.  Total time for the Bike was 15:22 including stops for food and re-filling my drinks supply.  My Actual riding time was about 14 hours showing how much a short stop every lap adds up to.

The run started very early in the morning - 42 laps of just over 1.2 miles.  The first half marathon went quite quickly - running gently downhill through some woods then walking / running back up alongside a road.  As it got lighter and easier to run a bit quicker my times speeded up a little stopping every 3 to 4 laps for a drinks refill and a bite to eat.  The first marathon came in 4:50 with things still going well - worth celebrating with a 5 minute stop and a chocolate muffin!  The next 26 miles was tougher, lots of running but the lap numbers seeming to come down very slowly.  The last 10 laps seemed to take forever, and were taking longer and longer to complete as I tired and my feet started to complain at the hammering by sprouting large blisters.  Going on to the last lap I head an announcement that someone else was just starting their last lap - this gave me a bit of an incentive to really push on the last lap, all the pain dissappeared and I ran probably the fastest lap of my race to finish in a total time of 28:42 (maybe I should have run it a bit faster all the way around), just over a minute ahead of the guy behind me ( who it turned out had completed a TRIPLE ironman in 40 hours just the weekend before!)

Overall it was an excellent event.  The organisation was superb and all of the competitors were very friendly and chatty, making it easy to take your mind off the pain for a few minutes.  The winning time was an incredible 21:30 - averaging over 20mph for 11 hours on the bike followed by two marathons, each in just over 4 hours!

 There should be some pictures up on our Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7770606@N07