Pete's 2010 so far

2010 so far: Marathons, Orienteering, Intelligent sport (TM), Bob Graham support and Emigration

2010 has been a really interesting year so far, and I'm sure there's more to come. Trail marathons, orienteering, Intelligent Sport, Bob Graham support, and (last but not least) a move to Toulouse "en famille" for two years.

First I ran in my first two marathon distance events: two second places in very picturesque Endurancelife Coastal Marathons. My wife Jue meanwhile nailed 7 of them in 7 months for her "7x7" Endurancelife t-shirt.

I haven't orienteered regularly for almost 20 years now, but started doing some events these last few years as it's such a great family sport. Most have been small local events, but this year it seemed rude not to take in the orienteering JK Festival at Easter and national championships, with both being so close to home (the first in the south-west and second on Cannock Chase). Being first back on first leg in the "120 years" JK relay was a real buzz. Then I got another second (in age category) at the nationals, after being pipped to the post by a New Zealand resident, one of my old contemporaries Bill Edwards.

The Harvester orienteering night relay wasn't so close to home, but I made the trip down to Kent from my Mum's as she and my step-Dad Tony kindly looked after the kids for the weekend. It would have been yet another second place - this time for my club (Bristol OK) - if I hadn't mis punched at one control. I know that I stuck my SI dibber in the box at the correct control..but didn't hold it there long enough, or check that the box had flashed and beeped. My first mistake with electronic punching (do correct me if my memory is being selective). Really not great to make it on a relay where I blow out the whole team. But lesson learned.

Then there was the UK Challenger Trophy with Team Airbus. This year I joined the "Performance" all male team with my old friends Martin "Rabbit" Warren as captain, and Jon "Forrest" Price along with new guys "Max Power" and Chris, now known as Simon (sorry Chris!). Our performance in the main event wasn't at the level Airbus usually achieves i.e. we didn't win outright. However, we delivered where it mattered most in the Channel 4 televised Grand Prix stage, smashing the opposition with an outstanding team performance. We out ran the other teams, and nailed every single "Brain Cell" challenge, including the near impossible super pressurised finishing line challenge. See the action for yourself on www.dreamteamtelevision.co.uk under Streaming/Intelligent Sport.

The big project in 2009 was to run a joint Bob Graham round with my wife Jue. In the end illness and injury, and events beyond our control resulted in a bold attempt with inadequate preparation. We got to Honister (going clockwise), but it wasn't quite on. This year I decided to support Jue for a joint BG attempt with our friend Eddie Winthorpe. On the Tuesday before the attempt was due I found out that I had managed to land a two year secondment to Toulouse. Starting at the beginning of September. Due to this rather ambitious time frame combined with a fairly rubbish weather forecast, Jue made the right (but tough) decision to give it a miss. But with Eddie in unstoppable go for it mode, I headed up to the Lakes to support his attempt.

Despite heavy rain and strong winds over most of the day, Eddie was running ahead of schedule for much of the time. Unfortunately he had suffered a sprained ankle on the descent from Hall's fell in wet and gusty conditions (he was knocked off his feet!) and over the hours of running this started to catch up with him. Chris Gazeley and Trudy did an awesome support job, and Eddie was lucky to be able to tap into Chris' Osteomyologist skills. Never heard of them? Well, seeing as Eddie was scarcely able to get himself down to the road crossings fro Dunmail onwards, but after a 10 minute treatment at each one he had a couple of hours running without any problems, I would judge Chris' effectiveness as extremely high.

With this and the support runners (many thanks to Jim, Rod, Kate and Daniel) Eddie made it off Robinson (the last mountain) with enough time to jog to Keswick. But even with excellent treatment his problems had finally caught up with him and he could barely walk, and called it a day. Next time Eddie - you can make it with hours to spare in okay conditions and no injury!

But the really big project for 2010 has to be our move to Toulouse for two years. We have been looking at spending some time in France for quite a while (Jue has done almost two years of French evening classes) but this secondment was a bit of a long shot, so when we finally got the green light on 6th July, we didn't have much time left to get to France for the start of school term at the beginning of September. Moving house, selling car, finding new schools, and moving countries is still work in progress, but I am writing this from a hotel in Tournefeuille, a few hundred metres from our rented home to be. On Wednesday the kids will start school, and about then our furniture should catch up with us soon. So once we get over all the intial hurdles we're looking forward to some mountain racing (French style) and come winter some skiing in the Pyrenees, which are now only two or three hours drive away.

Watch this space..