Dear Friends,

First of all, a BIG THANK YOU for all your very generous contributions!!!  In spite of the Credit Crunch, you have so far helped me raise in excess of £15,000 for Cancer Research UK!!!!  And we're still counting.....

Secondly, I wanted to tell you about the gruelling race that I successfully completed on Sunday 6th July.  Based on previous experiences (2005 & 2007), we were expecting the usual 30-40c in the Pyrenees with dehydration being a major risk.  However, the weather Gods played havoc with us   We had WINTER LIKE conditions with only 4c on the mountain tops and 13c in the valleys...and it rained basically throughout the entire ride, the worse possible conditions! 

We were up at 4.30am, had a carb-rich breakfast then headed off to the start in Pau.  At 7am, some 7000 (more than 15% did not show due to the horrific weather conditions) started their 170km ride, including an attack on the two HC Category climbs (one notch above the highest official number Category One climb!), Tourmalet (23km long epic climb where Lance Armstrong used to excel and kill his rivals) and Hautacam (the last 15km climb to the finish).  Without boring you with all the details, I finished on top of Hautacam after 8 hours, 26 minutes and 11 seconds of exhausting, but firm climbing (as slow as 5km/hour at the steepest gradients), dangerous, slippery and cold descending (exceeding 70km/hour).  I was very happy, emotional, warm/cold, soaking wet and proud!  Without your kind support, money and thoughts of not letting anyone down, this would not have been possible!!

Finally, for those of you that have not yet managed to send in your money, my link is STILL OPEN and it will only take you 5 minutes to send a final contribution using a credit card.  It would be pretty cool to beat the £18,000 I raised last time!  After all, it is only money and it will be used for a very important  cause - to fight cancer.  Every penny counts!

Thank you once more for your priceless support and all the best.  Big thanks to all my training mates - those early 6am Saturday/Sunday mornings in the Surrey hills made all the difference.  Thanks for dragging me along!

Eirik

Eirik Winter

07802 310898