What No News - 'Less is More'

No blog updates for a while as I haven't really had much to comment upon.

It's been a weird winter here. One of the upsides of the prolonged snow and ice is that I started walking everywhere. And I've enjoyed it. I've done a few events recently, namely the South Shropshire Circular and High Peak Marathon enjoying both events tremendously. The first is a regular yearly outing conssiting of 25mile walk/run. It's a solo event but I matched up with Rick and Simon, old buddies who are usually fitter and faster than me, and was impressed that I stayed with them. (Although I think they wished I quit my AR ranting sooner) Perhaps it was the need to finish promptly and get to the pub to see England v. Ireland.

The High Peak Marathon is a team of four event run overnight around 40miles of the finest moors of Derbyshire. I was a bit apprehensive as I hadn't done it for seventeen years, and I was joining three new team-mates that I hadn't run with before. But we had a great time. Ross's route finding was very sound, Max seems very strong and steady bringing up the rear and Amanda just seemed to skip over the tough terrain. We choose good lines in the snow, and paced the whole event very well.

Both of these events are single discipline, and of long standing exsistence; 28 or 40odd years respectively. Both events are tremendously popular (my original team didn't get a place in the HPM) Why did I enjoy them so much? Another event I did was a local three hour Trail Quest around Ireby, near Bassenthwaite. For princely sum of just £7 I enjoyed trails that I hadn't raced before, and then cycled home via Skiddaw House, a classic ride through the Northern Lakekand Fells. A true adventure.

Throughout the past few months I have had a re-occurring though that 'Less is More'
Some of you may have seen my posting on www.sleepmonsters.com in response to Tom Gibb's Thread, 'What No Races' (or something similar) Tom, quite rightly gave us all a kick to examine why were are losing AR races from our calendar. My posting was very much about enjoying what we have and not needing 'new and exciting challenges' I don't belive we need such things as abseiling and ropes in AR, which is appearing to be something quite different to what I would call 'Mountain Multi-sport'.

Tom also quoted The Hebridean Challenge as one of the UK's great races, and I've been working hard to make it happen this summer. There is still a lot of planning to do and I'm looking forward to being there at Easter to flesh out the route and race logistics. Sadly, I feel our event is being overshadowed by other more 'sexy' events with marketing budgets, 'event partners' and impressive web sites and well marketed packages and add-ons. Basically we are being sold pre-packaging Adventure and it isn't coming cheap.

Sometimes Less is More...