Training weekend in the Mourne Mountains

As the challenge draws ever closer we decided to take advantage of the good weather and do some back to back training. Saturday, cycle and hike, camp in the woods and then hike again on Sunday.

So to get ready to sleep under this (above) Friday night was spent preparing kit, Oonagh took no chances and pressure tested all her kit.

 

After an extremely thorough check we packed up and were ready for Saturday morning. A slightly different route for the cycle finishing at Trassey Track rather than at the Slieve Donard car park. The final 6 miles of the ride had a lot of ups and downs, mainly ups. A tough way to finish but great training.

We decided to climb Slieve Bearnagh, a steep climb with a great view over the Mournes from the top. There was plenty of chat and some team bonding with no team member being more open and frank than Ruud 'You might not want to hear this, but you know what really annoys me about you?...' 

Certain sections were even more difficult than usual due to the recent heavy rain having washed large sections of the paths away. The severity of the climb was encapsulated by Oonagh
'Of course I'm eating when we get to the top! My sandwich is the only thing getting me up this bitch!' Still, it stayed dry so that's a bonus... a bonus celebrated by Oonagh (in Ruud's giant fleece).

After coming down from Bearnagh we made camp in the woods nearby. Ruud showed his survival skills by making the fire and even fashioned a drying rack from sticks. A handy man to have in the wilderness!

 Ruud's handy work

Home sweet home...

After a breakfast of bacon butties and tea we burst on and climbed Slieve Binnian, another steep climb. A slightly higher mountain than Bearnagh and certainly no more gentle. Again, much of the path has been washed away making the route to the top pretty unclear. Still if didn't really matter which way you looked at it, it was steep!

Another great weekend of training in the bag. We'll need it as we start with Ben Nevis, 1400m of ascent. And if that's not enough, we cycle 88 miles which includes almost 700 meters of climbing!