The Three Amigos on the BBMC 2010

Today has been spent recovering from yesterdays epic exertions when the Three Amigos set out and completed the Big Black Mountain Challenge. There were a few disappointments that have tried to sour the feeling of success, the biggest being that despite my best efforts my two walking companions were after all followed by a fat bloke. Shocking photographic evidence has emerged that shows there is still a major battle of the bulge to be won and no amount of photo editing can disguise the hideous man boobs that appear in one summit photograph. This has been consigned to the fridge door as a warning against any future calorific excess.
That aside it was a fantastic day, as ever, and a big thank you to the Longtown Mountain Rescue Team for organising it. It started super early and unusually we got to the start line in time for a 7 am kick off. At this point Sara threw a mental about me not cooking her breakfast and sat in the track until we agreed to having a bacon sarnie from the burger van. This proved to be like no other fast food outlet in that you required a calendar to time your order. Despite a captive audience of 1000 walkers passing in the next hour the lovely lady in the burger van had not got any food prepared. So we waited impatiently while she baked the bread rolls, slaughtered the pig, cured the bacon, raised the chicks to point of lay hens, collected the eggs, chopped the fire wood for the stove and finally the butties arrived. Sara then thought she would have the nice lady make her some sandwiches and being the peculiar brand of vegetarian that she is just had to have salad sandwiches. She spent the time waiting for the right growing conditions for her red onion salad surprise by eating a platefull of sausage. As I keep telling her shes not a veggie, shes just fussy.
Finally we started, opinions vary whether this was 40 minutes later or three weeks but finally we were off. The usual rash of gear hounds, Sunday walkers and fitness freaks filled the slopes of the Black Mountains. All was going well, except me, I wasn't going but needed to. Suffering the revenge of Chinese chili chicken I just made it to a Christmas tree plantation where either killed a tree or helped if grow bigger than its rivals. Finally able to concentrate on walking we made good time and enjoyed the views, the chats and the intriguing details of Sara's new job. For some inexplicable reason she had completely failed to mention that she was now a transmitting engineer for a TV company broadcasting the type of material favourite of the late home secretary Jackie Smith's husband. Late as in voted out not dead. This was bound to prompt several hours of questions and within a very short time Sara knew exactly why she had never mentioned it before.
Richard achieved a sort of super hero status at each checkpoint as out of 1000 entrants he was number one. Marshall's even climbed out of their tents to see him and comment that he was the one.
Legs worked well right until the final stretch when Richard and Sara discovered how similar pain and pleasure are. The pictures above and the video below show what was going on but in the final dash for the line Sara's hip gave out which led to the most extraordinary contortions (we think she learned these watching the monitors at work) to try and get rid of the pain. I though this was just a tactic to stop my very exciting anecdote about Fray Bentos pies but I was not put off. Then 500 metres or so from the finish line Richards knee threatened to kill him if he carried on abusing it. This prompted no end of sympathy from Sara and I, you can see Sara doubled over sympathetically laughing. Richard didn't take my advice to hop if it was only his right knee and manned up for the final hobble to the cakes.
Once again the challenge was beaten, the cakes eaten and we plan to do it next year. Except Sara who's a girl.