Rab Mountain Marathon 2009

Last week Helena and I [Sue] did the RAB Mountain Marathon.; now in its third year, this event has grown in popularity and this year attracted 500 people. The event was held in The Howgills in Cumbria with the start and registration at Sedbergh. - which is not too far away from us in Ilkley, so we could have a Saturday morning start. The forecast looked as though we would be in cloud on the tops both days, which would mean an awful lot of compass navigation, but thankfully, the weather was fantastic. As we drove into Sedbergh at 7.30 on Saturday morning, the sun was shining.....

Saunders Mountain Marathon 2009

Well, we (that is Helena and Sue) have just come back from completing the Saunders Mountain Marathon - and what a fantastic event! This year the event started in Coniston in the Lake District. We set off in good time on Friday night - we wanted to register nice and early and not have to worry about it on Saturday morning. It had rained Friday, but the sun came out as we headed up to the Lakes, and it ended up being a beautiful evening. The atmosphere at the event centre was great with everyone mulling around, looking at maps and eating goodies from Wilfs .....

Open 5 Peak District April 2009

The last Open 5 of the series took us down to Hope in the Peak District. This was the 5th race in the series, and for the last 4 races, Louise and I had been leading the series, however, there were a couple of girls right behind us and it was all going to be down to the last race ? which ever one of us came 1st at Hope, would win the series. No pressure then! This was going to be a tough one. As usual, we opted to ride first and headed off up towards Mam Tor. We did some fantastic mountain biking along Rushup Edge, then round the back of Mam Tor ....

Open 5 Malham 1st March 2009

The 4th race in the series and Helena from BeOutdoors decided to have a go with friend Sue. It was the first time that either of them had done an event like this before (5 hours of mountain biking and running), so it was bound to be entertaining - and it was ... read on for Sue's very funny report ....

Sledging Thursday 4th December 2008

I don't know about you, but we had lots of snow in Ilkley on Thursday, and once the kids had gone to school, we took some time out from work to do a bit of adult sledging on Ilkley Moor! It dosen't get better than this!

Open 5 Blanchland 2nd November 2008

Sunday 2nd November saw the start of the Open 5 2008/2009 series. Sue from BeOutdoors and friend, Louise, had entered the female pairs category. The beauty of these events is that you often end up riding and running in places you wouldn?t normally go ? and yesterday was no exception. A very cold day (it was 1.5 degrees in the car when we arrived), the rain held off (no flooded car this time!), and we had an excellent day out in beautiful countryside ? with a scattering of snow on the hills across the valley. Although it was very, very muddy ...

OMM Borrowdale 27th/28th October 2008

We (that is Helena and Sue from BeOutdoors) had trained for this OMM long and hard ? running in the dark on Ilkley moor with head torch and back-packs filled with tins of baked beans! All week we watched the weather forecast ? and it didn?t look good ? in fact each day we looked, it seemed to be getting worse; by Thursday the forecast for the Lakes was ?torrential rain, gusts of 90 miles pre hour, little visibility and difficult to move on high ground!? Mmm, well we were not to be deterred, surely it couldn?t be that bad? Surely it couldn?t be as bad as last year? ...