Urbanathlon, Ben Nevis & Edinburgh

posted on September 7, 2009 in Stuff,Travel

Why do I keep agreeing to these things? I don’t like running. No one likes running. But Urbanathlon is only 5k with a few puddles and some fences to jump. That’s meant to be easy; a walk in the park.

Urbanathlon 2009

Well, it thoroughly destroyed me. Still, team Steve does Science pulled it off, so to speak. Mark blitzed across the line, I fell across a few seconds later and Steve finished his blood trail a short while after. (They mixed the numbers up):

Urbanathlon Results

Apparently spurred on by this period of uncharacteristic activity, we decided to go to Ben Nevis the following weekend. Thanks to ‘Tumble-Field and Steve does Scotland Highland Adventures’ on our first night we checked into a VW Polo. Which was handy because we had just spent 6 hours driving to Scotland in a VW Polo, so we kind of new what to expect. If you’ve ever tried to sleep in your cupboard, with 2 mates, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Ben Nevis summit

We headed up the big hill early next morning. Weather was pretty pants, but it was a jolly good bit of fresh air. We made it up in 2 hours 25 and down in 1 hour 30. We thought this was quite good, until we saw the record ascent and descent (up and down) is 1:25:34. Mental.

Ben Nevis

On the next night, we upgraded our Polo to a couple of tents. Steve is a distinguished scientist, one of our best hopes for beating a host of diseases. Well, I watched him wrestle to get that tent up. Let me suggest you put down those cigarettes and step away from the Stella because that cure might be a tad further off than we hope.

Eager to spend more time with Mark (the only third wheel worth his spokes) we went to visit a friend in Edinburgh.

Deep fried Mars Bar.

Deep fried mars bar

Silent Disco.

Silent Disco

Fireworks.

Edinburgh castle fireworks

I am now happy to recognise Scotland as a great place.

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