IT'S TIME!

It's the day before the big day and we're all excited! Chomping at the bit to get going.

Meeting up with everyone in Fort William tonight ready to hike and bike tomorrow. The support has been fantastic, the team has done everything they can to be ready... just the doing left to be done!

We're just 400 pounds away from our total, please give what you can to help!

THANK YOU!

https://www.justgiving.com/teams/3peakscyclechallenge

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! 

Special Guests for the challenge...

The final day of the challenge could be the hardest and that's why we're delighted some friends and family have decided to join us for the final push.

Liam and Helen Bradley, Laura and Drew's parents, will meet us at the bottom of Mount Snowdon and climb the final mountain with the team. Liam loves sport and at the tender age of 63 completed his 11th marathon... Snowdon should be a gentle stroll for him.

Also joining the team will be Kieran and Claire Dorman, brother-in-law and sister (respectively) of Laura and Drew and extremely proud parents of the latest family edition, Cillian. Kieran will be official photographer for the final day and Claire and Helen will look after Cillian while the rest of the team slowly kill themselves getting up and down the mountain.

Cillian will be in good company as Colleen Oldham (Ben's wife and Oonagh's sister) plans to bring 'the boys'. Oliver and Sam Oldham will be there ready to congratulate the team at the bottom of Snowdon, although we may have trouble stopping them climbing it with us!

Pete Watson, John's brother and Christa's brother-in-law will also be joining us for the final push. A keen sportsman, Pete is what we like to describe as 'sickeningly fit' - in a cardiovascular kind of way. It's great to see the challenge turning into a big family affair and we hope to add more names to the list for the final day.

Seeing our friends and family at the finish line will be a huge boost for the team. With only a few weeks to go we're all itching to get started!

The Video

If you haven't seen this yet have a look and please give what you can!

Donate here. Thank you!

1 month to go!

It's been pretty bleak weather recently; heavy rain and strong winds... on the good days. Flooding and closed roads on the bad. Of course being summer time we hoped to avoid this sort of thing but then we are in Britain so we could well be doing the challenge in pretty horrible conditions. So best to train in them too :)

Oonagh Thompson, Dominic Berry, Drew Bradley and Eileen Thompson decided that Slieve Commedagh was the mountain of choice this week. With special guest Clover who is undoubtedly the fittest of all of us!

A pretty windy day which knocked down the speed on the bike. Having friends and family along the route really does give you a boost which will no doubt make a huge difference on the challenge! 

Love this photo, thanks Oonagh! After a blustery ride we set off up Slieve Commedagh and hoped the rain stayed off. For the most part it did so happy with that! The rain has made certain parts of the rack pretty muddy but compared to the winter months it's still pretty dry in the Mournes!

And we even got treated to a few minutes of sunshine!

Feeling good for the challenge. Everyone is in high spirits and enjoying the prospect of getting stuck in!  We're all training hard and doing everything we can to make it a success... please give what you can

https://www.justgiving.com/teams/3peakscyclechallenge

An update...

In recent times our team has...

cycled, climbed, swam, ran, got married, got a job, cycled some more, ran some more, planned training weekends in the mountains and...

 raised almost a THOUSAND pounds for our charities! 

We're just a month away from the challenge and we're working everyday to make it a success. Your support is vital and received with great appreciation!

Much, much more soon!

The Route!

We're just under 2 months away from the challenge and things are going well! Ben Oldham and Drew Bradley sat down armed with atlas, google maps and Ben's knowledge of the roads and slugged out the final details. So the challenge shapes up like this...

The night before we start we will meet at the base of Ben Nevis.

Day 1 - Depart 6am and scale the dizzying heights of Ben Nevis. Once down (we hope by 11am) we will head south towards Loch Lomond. We thought we'd break ourselves in gently so we're only cycling 85.1 miles, with a total climb of over 2000 feet!! We never said it would be easy. Once we near the south of Loch Lomond we'll rest up for the night and try to recover in time for day 2.

Day 2 - Picking up where we left off we'll continue south towards our destination of Carlisle. Luckily today there are no mountains but we will be covering 144 miles of road. We expect this to take about 12 hours so there'll be a few aches and pains by the end of it.

Day 3 - After a big day on the bikes we decided to have a big day walking. Heading roughly south west on the bikes we'll  head towards the second of our three mountains, Scafell Pike. A 38.7 mile ride should bring us to the base of England's highest mountain. We'll be going up and over the mountain as our bed for the night is in Ambleside. So after the 16 mile walk over a mountain we'll need to polish off the day with a short and hopefully sweet 7.4 mile bike ride.

Day 4 - The end is in sight! But only after a 106 mile bike ride. Leaving Ambleside and the Lake district behind us we'll head south east towards Chester. We'll be doing a tour of towns and cities in the north west of England; Wigan, Warrington, Chorley before arriving at the much needed bed in Chester. This is the penultimate day so by this point I think we'll be ready to drop!

Day 5 - The final day! The big push to the end starts today. A 60 mile bike ride will bring us to the base of Snowdon. Just the highest mountain in Wales to climb and descend before we finish. Arguably the shortest day but looking at the previous 4 days we doubt it'll be any easier! After that, a cup of tea and a rest, a well earned rest we think.

So this is the plan.

We're doing this for 2 great charities. Please give what you can...

https://www.justgiving.com/teams/3peakscyclechallenge

It may have been quite here in the blog but we've been plenty busy getting ready!

More details to follow soon on how you can help and what we've been doing to make sure this is a success!

Easter Egg Rolling in the Mournes!

Happy Easter everyone! 

In the mountains we decided to celebrate easter with a bit of egg rolling, but first we had to get to the mountains. Drew Bradley decided that he needed to get some multi discipline training under his belt and so cycled to the Mourne Mountains.

He was absolutely delighted to see Oonagh Thompson and Dominic Ruud Berry on the way. It gave him a massive boost. Something that will be very much needed on the Challenge! After 30 miles on the bike in a good time of 1 hour and 53 minutes, Drew arrived here...

Slieve Donard was covered in beautiful sunshine, apart from the top which wrapped itself in a damp blanket of cloud. Something for the team to look forward to later in the day. 

The mountains were teaming with people enjoying the long weekend and getting some fresh air. We decided to climb Slieve Donard, the largest of the Mourne Mountains. Hopefully the above photo shows just how busy the mountains were. This is the view from the saddle looking up Slieve Donard (which is steeper than any of the photos do justice to).

After a stop for tea and a sandwich we continued up. The cloud wrapped us up and a steady drizzle clung to us. 

It was lovely to have so many people out on the mountains and to hear everyone encourage each other so much. There were lots of 'nearly there's to be heard and plenty of 'not far now's floating around too!

The team decided to celebrate Easter with some traditional egg rolling. After a hotly contested bout of egg rolling Ruud emerged victorious with Oonagh a close second and Drew a distant, distant third. We then ate the eggs, free range of course! 

 

A great day and the team is feeling really good about the challenge!

The Latest Training Update

We might not have done all these things together but our team has been extremely active. Our latest endeavors include...

Mark Thompson signing up and training for the Kuala Lumpur marathon
Sarah Beale training for an Ironman distance triathlon having already completed a half Ironman
Drew Bradley and Ben Oldham continue their training on the bikes clocking several hundred miles in the past weeks
Oonagh Thompson and Dominic Berry continue their mountain training in the Mourne Mountains
Laura Bradley and John Watson continue their higher impact training with rugby and mixed martial arts respectively. We know who to turn to if things get a bit handy on the mountains!

We're all doing this because we want to achieve our goals. Completing the 3 Peaks Cycle Challenge. Please see this video for more information about our challenge. Thank You

Charity Video

Slieve Binnian March 18th

After several weeks away from the mountains we finally made it back and we're back to training. Plenty more cycling and more trekking to come! But on Sunday 18th March we were faced with blue skies, warm sunshine and so what can you do? Well you've got to go from a long trek in the mountains, obviously! The Blue Lough is just one of the great views we had on this trek.

 As we started the trek we had some company. The locals were slightly curious about the three people geared up in gators and water proofs on such a lovely day but the sleet and sudden downpour on the way back to the car vindicated out decision to waterproof up!

Unfortunately our equipment wasn't quite ours. In a slightly rushed moment I picked up a pair of boots and asked Oonagh if they were hers. She said yes so off we went. Sadly they weren't Oonagh's, they were her sister Eileen's which were identical... but a size and a half bigger.

Despite the 'malfunction' Oonagh gallantly continued on the trek and we're glad she did. The Mourne Mountains are home to some wonderful scenery which has largely to this point been enjoyed while covered in rain, snow and cloud. It make a nice change seeing the mountains in the sun. To show how much we appreciated the sun we took lots of photos. Now we realise that it seems slightly odd taking black and white photos on a gloriously sunny day, but we think they look lovely nonetheless. 

 

 Near the top of Slieve Binnian there is a large open space. Above you can see Ruud majestically striding across it. This is what we should have crossed last time we did Binnian but were forced to turn around due to 100 mile an hour winds. Even the less diminutive of our group would have struggled to stay grounded in those conditions.

Our return to the mountains was even celebrated by the local search and rescue team who organised a fly by in our honour. Please note it is an assumption on my behalf that the fly by was for us, it could have been a training exercise, but here's hoping. 

Lunch at the top of Binnian led to some debate. More on that in the next post. Still we were there to enjoy the last of the sun before the clouds closed in and we were chased off the mountain by rain and hail. The waterproofing paid dividends, apart from the lighter trekking trousers I decided to wear. By lighter I mean not waterproof and with two soggy legs I squelched back to the car... lesson learnt!

The inner monologue of a cyclists

Having done plenty of bike rides recently and not been able to upload photo of the rides we decided to share some of our thoughts while out riding. Cycling can take you to some strange and wonderful places...

Oh man this is going to be a long ride. I could do a little less, if I don't go up that road. Hmmmm. No for goodness sake you're out no, just get on with it. The sooner you get going the sooner you get back for a brew.

Right that hill. The hill is the key. It'll be ok after the hill.

If I lie here, If I just lay herrrrre. Would you lie with me and just forget the world. Lets waste time, chaaasing cars. Around our head. 

Countdown was a great show. Who presents that now? I'll have a P please Bob, ha! Hold on, that's not right.

Bloody hell this hill is steep!

If you go any slower you'l fall of the bike! Don't look up, don't look up. Just cycle until you get there. Oh bloody hell I knew I shouldn't have looked up! How can I be peddling this hard and not go anywhere!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I love being at the top of a hill! Downhill here I come! Oh that's fast. Very fast. Too fast! Oh Sh1t! Brake brake brake brake brake! Urrgh I'm in too high a gear.

Half way to tea.

Des Lynam did countdown for a while but I don't think he does it now. Is countdown even on now?

Wind. Oh no don't get windy!

That car hasn't seen me. Don't pull out! Look! I'm in a bright yellow top you HAVE to see me!! Good, he saw me. Man it's got to hurt hitting a car on a bike.

I can't wait for a cup of tea.

Carol Vorderman doesn't do it now either. What happened to Countdown?

The Sum coming up easy as the rain cam tumbling down. Comin up easy, not on this hill.

Bloody hills. It's not even a hill, it's barely a slope I'm just knackard.

Home! Tea... awesome!

What we're doing and why!

This is what we are doing and why. 

Thank you for looking.

Laura Bradley and Sarah Beale visit the Mournes!

'I'm going to do this in style' said Laura Bradley...

'Are you heck!' replied Bealie.

We decided we wanted to do a short but steep climb... oh hello Slieve Bearnagh! You look steep but short, you'll do just nicely.

We set off from Trassey car park and enjoyed the warm, dry conditions as we'd come out expecting to be very very cold. So that was a bonus!

It wasn't really warm enough for a t-shirt, but apparently Sarah Beale has antifreeze in her veins. The uneven ground meant we each found our own path but were close enough to have a chat as we went.

When we arrived at Hare's Gap something strange and magical happened...

But then we got cold and I got told in no uncertain terms to put the camera away... we had a mountain to climb! But the camera came out again just a short time after...

Slieve Bearnagh is a great walk and it's part of the Mourne Challenge... www.mournechallenge.com ... hope to see you there!

Fairly short write up this, but this walk was great! Weather so much better than we thought it could be in February, great chat, stunning views and a sense of tremendous well-being being back in the mountains!

The 3 Peaks Challenge in August will be tough, extremely tough but when the outdoors is this much fun there's bound to be an upside to all that hard work. More information about the charities to come soon!

I hope this photo of Oonagh Thompson , Laura Bradley and Sarah Beale does justice to the severity of the slope!

The final trek of January

After a few weeks of missed training we decided to seise the opportunity for a long walk in the mountains. The weather was dull but warm enough and no significant wind this time, much better than the last outing! We decided to climb Slieve Commedagh starting at the Trassey Road car park. Following the Trassey trail and as we parked we met this lovely looking fella. He didn't seem too bothered by us and even posed for a photo.

We were surprised to see so much snow on top of the mountains and even more surprised at how dry the trail was, sure that'll change in the next few weeks when the snow starts to melt! Well in the mean time, time for some fun with the camera ...

Having topped Commedagh in a time of just over 2 hours we were literally knee deep in snow, wonderful crispy snow.


Having spent some time playing with the camera I decided to go a bit quicker to catch up. The result... a 13 stone Brummy running down a mountain in Northern ireland screaming 'I've built up a head of steam!'. Shortly followed by a bone crunching thud as said Brummy over balanced and clattered to a stop in deep snow, which remember, covers rocks. Guess which one stopped me? Yeap, rock. The rest of the hike went by with a failed attempt to slide down the mountain on our backsides and little else other than beautiful scenery and great trails to walk on... with a sore knee.

Luckily it wasn't this part that I fell down! Still goes to show just how much snow and ice was clinging on up there.

Oonagh found the ice formations truly entertaining ...

Still a few greats photos and even met a guy from the tele! Another great day! 

Supermarket Exercises

We all know how much fun shopping is, there is quite frankly no better way to spend your time, no in fact... no better way to spend life! But just in case, just, in, case, you're not as a big fan of shopping as some people we thought of a few exercises to make the weekly shop a bit more interesting. Get tired for all the right reasons and turn your weekly shop into a weekly workout...

Basket Bi-cep Curls

Not exactly the most complicated of exercises but a classic. Let the basket hang by your side, pull the basket up until your elbow joint is at 45 degrees. We suggest sets of 10, the basket will get heavier the more you add so things will get harder the longer the shop goes on. Remember to swap hands and keep working both arms.

Basket Squats

When you need to pick something off the bottom shelf try this simple exercise. Bend your knees until your basket is flat on the floor, keeping your back straight all the time. It's really important to bend your knees and not your back. Also keep your feet flat on the ground and you should feel your tights working, especially if you have a full basket.

Trolly Plank

 

This exercise is great for your core. Plant your feet flat on the floor, cross your arms across the handle of the trolly. Slowly roll the trolly forward until your body is straight and you are balanced on you toes (Figure 2). Hold for a few second and slowly pull the trolly towards you until your feet are flat on the floor (Figure 1). This seems easy but pace yourself, it can be sore the next day if you do too many.

Tip Toe Walking

Don't be put off by the terrible picture and if you're looking at this for the art quite frankly you're looking the wrong blog. This exercise is quite simple, as the name suggests. You just walk on your tip toes. Although you may look slightly strange while you walk this exercise is great for your calves. If you don't fancy walking on tip toes for the entire shop you could do calf raises in sets of ten until you feel like you've done enough.

Supermarket Sprints

WARNING! This exercise is only recommended in an extremely quite or empty supermarket, do this exercise at your owe risk, and quite frankly at the risk of others! Supermarket aisles are wonderfully straight and their uniform lengths make them great for keeping the distances consistent. We're not sure where the shopping comes into this one, perhaps leave your trolly at one end of the the shop and sprint back and forth to collect items... 

Some of the best cycle jerseys around...

As if wearing lycra in winter isn't eye catching enough we found some of the some of the best looking, funniest or just plain cool jerseys around. Happy cycling!
(The titles above the images are links to the website that each shirt is available from)

Down to the bone

Something for the more gothic bike riders amongst us, or those who just like a good laugh. This shirt is bound to have people taking a second look as you cycle past. Not sure if the matching leggings are available yet but we will keep an eye out!

Crash test dummies

Team member Sarah Beale owns one of these little beauties. The subtle, delicate colouring is one of the key features of this particular item, allowing the rider to blend into their surroundings. Nice.

 Subtle hints

The writing on this shirt sort of says it all. It voices a sentiment shared by all road cyclists and anyone who rides a bike. In fact I think everyone shares the sentiment. 

Suit you sir

A personal favourite of Drew Bradley. Worried about not looking professional after your commute to work? Worry no more! This smart shirt, tie and jacket number is just the trick for the cyclist commuter who doesn't have space for a change of clothes. Arrive to work ready to get business done in this cheeky Franklin number. 

PLEASE NOTE: wearing this shirt will not explain your red face and profuse sweating. It may also leave your colleagues asking why you're wearing a lycra suit... ignore them, you look great!

Beans means... cycling?

Well, this one is just plain funny.

SPAM!

Admit it, you like Spam! You can try and kid yourself but you know you like it. A poll of 67.5 vegetarians and vegans showed that spam was the single most difficult meat to give up. It registered a whoping 9.8 /10 on the Meats That Are Difficult To Stop Eating (MTADTSE) scale, leaving it's nearest rival , goat, lagging in second with a rating of only 6 / 10 on the MTADTSE scale. You can't argue with stats people. 

Dark Side of the Moon

There are hundreds if not thousands of epic band / album bike shirts, we just picked one of our favourites. AC/DC, Rush, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd (obviously), Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead and Led Zepplin are just a few of the bands you may see. 

There are hundreds of great shirts out there, if you think we've missed some of the best let us know! 

Happy cycling!