The Three Peaks Yacht Race – 389 miles of yacht racing, 60 miles of running including over 12000 vertical ft and 30 miles of cycling makes this race one of the toughest challenges anyone could ever put themselves through!..............
…….. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know we made it to the finish line and even finished in the top five with a time of 2 days 21 hrs and 55 minutes. Not bad for our first year I’m sure you’ll agree.
We could have been even quicker and placed better but fate took that out of our hands when we were passing eventual fourth place, RBS Adventure Quest, and our spinnaker halyard snapped. Luckily Ade’s quick thinking and Dan’s apparent lack of fear minimised the number of places we lost. The main sail was dropped and in its place Dan was winched up the mast with a spare Halyard and block and a sling to lash it onto the mast with. What positions we lost we quickly made up but we’d lost too much ground on the leading pack so had to settle for fifth position into Corpach with Killary just seconds behind.
This is where Chris and I, as the runners, had to do our bit and hold our lead to the finish line. We felt comfortable on the run to the bottom of the Ben and it looked like we’d lost them. We passed the leading four teams on our way up so knew the best we could do was to hang onto fifth. The zig-zags up seemed never ending and I don’t mind saying I was struggling but Chris and the odd strategic hobnob kept me going and eventually we hit the summit and began our descent. Before long we crossed Killary’s runners so we knew it was going to be a close one. They must have scrambled up and cut out the zig-zags. Running down was treacherous, the last thing we needed was to turn an ankle but we had to keep the pace up to hold onto fifth. Once we got back onto the road back into Corpach we were both struggling but we knew we couldn’t slow down. The last few kilometers seemed never ending but then we caught sight of the finish line and saw the rest of the team waiting to see us home. Finally it was all over and the pain and exhaustion suddenly seemed worth it.
As for not winning? Well there’s always next year!!.......
Many thanks to all of you that have already sponsored us and to those that haven’t you still have until 28th August so 'dig deep' as they say. We'd still like to make our target for Ty Hafan and believe me we've earnt it!
Many thanks,
Team Hero
