You did what?

Just a quickie, cos I'm out on site at the moment, but I just had to boast about my supreme achievement at the Questars adventure race on Saturday.

In case you've been fortunate enough to avoid it, adventure racing consists of trail running, mountain biking and kayaking for many hours, in search of little electronic markers. In the hope of winning a pair of socks and the applause of a roomful of rangy SAS-alikes.

To be honest, the main achievement for a "friend of the dessert trolley" such as myself, was actually getting through the entire event without sitting down in a big "I'm not going any further" tantrum. The event consisted of 90 mins running, 180 mins biking, 30 mins sitting in kayaks arguing (not a particularly successful part of our strategy), and another 180 mins biking. That's FIVE HOURS, in case the maths was troubling you.

I was allowed to navigate for my team. Which is good, because it took my mind off the sheer horror of what I was doing. And apart from being shouted at quite a lot ("You said turn LEFT!!!" "What are we looking for??" "That's not a path!!!"), it was not as unpleasant as it sounds (and believe me, I know how bad it sounds)

Anyway, to cut a tedious, mud-splattered story short, we came 2nd out of 22 teams in the mixed event. Unbelieveable.