Wednesday 16 July 2008







Team 2 - Snowdon Summit (Simon Hall, Nigel Stacey, John Richardson, Kevin Davids, Nick Conway, Steve Bishop, Gavin Woods, David Littlefield , Chris Kirk)

Team 1 - Scafell Ascent (Paul Jameson, Michelle Taylor, Dave Henly, Andy Taylor, Nicki Yelland, Rich Hamilton, Chris Feibusch, Will Dickosn, Leigh Brooks)

Sunday 13 July 2008

End of the live posts

It's been great to hear from those of you keeping up with the live posts. I've removed the legalese from my work email to make them a bit more readable and corrected some of the typos (thumbos?).

Many thanks to Steve for bringing the "mobile device" up after I left it behind and to my gorgeous wife for having the idea of sending it with him.

Finally, the eagle-eyed of you will have spotted some discrepancies in the timings. The ones in "Done it!" are correct!

Done it!

There is a huge sense of achievement around the team as we've finally achieved what we spent the last six months preparing for. Smiles all round and absolutely starving so we wolfed down our breakfast. All the injuries held up thanks to Nicki's good work. We waited a bit for Team Two but our minibus drivers were dead keen to get back to Scotland so we've been dropped off with the coach in Llanberis where hopefully we'll meet the others soon.

For the record, here are Team One's timings;
- Ben Nevis 4h18 (peak in 2h40)
- Scafell Pike 3h19 (peak in 1h45)
- Snowdon 3h29 (peak in 1h48)
- total including driving 23h08

The good news is that Team Two were all together, Nick included, on the way up Snowdon.

We'll be back in Farnham this afternoon, well ready for normal food, a shower and some sleep. And to think about the next challenge?

Saturday 12 July 2008

Just one left!

These updates are from the Team One bus so by necessity focused on our own progress - with some news from Team Two as we get it.

Good run on Scafell, and we were very pleased to be able to do it all in daylight. We were up and down in 3h20 and very pleased to shovel in loads of chilli con carne at the bottom. Now we're all on the bus on our way to Snowdon (we think) for the final part of our challenge. It looks like we're doing a satnav special route and so we occasionally have to stop for sheep in the road...

Quite a few of us are now suffering a bit with injuries, which Nicki is treating fantastically. We will have to take it easy on Snowdon but should all make it.

Team Two were on their way up as we came down, looking in good spirits. Nick fell on the way down Ben Nevis and was really struggling the rest of the way down, so he missed out Scafell Pike. Hopefully he'll be ok for Snowdon.

Navigation permitting, of course!

One down, two to go!!

Ben Nevis done, first team down in 4h23 vs the 5h30 planned. Most of the second team were not far behind - except for Nick who's really struggling.

The weather was ok at the bottom but wet and absolutely freezing in the cloud at the top so we were all extremely glad of our warm kit.

We almost took much longer as we missed the first turning and set off resolutely towards Fort William. We only lost five minutes to that, thankfully, and didn't suffer any more navigational issues after that.

We've now got a six-hour stretch in the minibus - or maybe a bit less as the speed regulator seems to not be working!

Thoughts from the team:
- big thrill getting to the top;
- we need to learn some of the verses to the Proclaimers' "500 Miles";
- "ouch" - or something a little stronger - from most of us.

The next mountain, Scafell Pike, is much shorter but reputedly very hard; I think we'll all feel much better once that's done.

Ready to start!

The night was quite comfortable. My room (with Leigh, Chris F, Dave H, Rich, Paul and a couple of other non-St Andrews boys) burst into fits of boyish giggles just after we turned the lights out so we maybe had less sleep than we would have ideally had.

We've had a good breakfast and are all aboard our minibuses heading to the bottom of Ben Nevis. The weather looks good for walking, overcast but dry. Almost got lost on the way tio the start!

Butterflies for all - it's time to go!

Friday 11 July 2008

The night before...

All of us have finally arrived at our hostel in Glencoe and most of us are ready to settle in for a disturbed (lots of dormitory behaviour) and short night (up at 0530). There are some rather strange bed slips/sheets for us to climb in to and the curry, though good, is feeling a bit heavy for some.

Highlight of the night so far is the trip to the pub - walked to the pub, looked at the pub, walked back without setting foot inside. I think that shows commitment to the cause!

We're off to sleep now, when the jokes and sheep noises eventually stop. Big day tomorrow!

Time to go....

Well, I'm all packed and it's 09:30hrs on Friday morning.... time to go to get the coach to the airport!

Will left last night on the train and the rest of us are following either from Southampton or Heathrow today.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the team over the last six months.

See you all after the weekend!

Wednesday 9 July 2008

There's SNOW on them thar hills.....


This was the top of Ben Nevis last weekend taken by a friend of mine who has just done it..... better get out the woolly hats....

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Live blog updates

With some luck, we'll be able to post live blog updates as we work our way around each of the three peaks, using the wonders of mobile email. Get to read exactly how we're getting on as we walk our way around, with live news on weather, blisters and more...

Monday 7 July 2008

All ready to go at last !!

Just to let you know I am now the proud owner of an array of wet weather gear, spare shorts, socks and underwear.....................

Thursday 3 July 2008

"Punishment in the Park" - last session

Hi Team,
Are we all ready for tonights training session in Farnham park? It's the last one, yippee! No more running up and down hills carrying medicine balls, or doing unbelievably painful things like 'burpees' and 'squat thrusts'....
I'm glad it's the last one - the insects bites on my legs are enough to warrent asking for some blood back the next time I donate (which won't be until after 3p...).

Anyhow, just thought I'd share this - yesterday my company had a 20th anniversary river cruise on the Thames. I wore my 3peaks T-shirt and passed round a sponsor form and collected pledges for an amazing 320 pounds! That kind of generousity from work colleagues is really something - a big thank-you to them from me. Reckon the Jazz band and Pimms must have helped ...

See you tonight,
David.