So when the entrys came up for "Puffer lite" me and Mark jumped on it. "Ach that`ll be a piece of piss we said"
We forgot one very small thing about scotland in summer in the north......
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[MIDGES]
The little gits came out in their droves as soon as the intense sun went in for the night.
With a relitively small field entered but lots of names we did not know we were both unsure how we would do although went into it aiming for a podium. Alex Glasgow assured us he hadnt done much training and had been ill for 6 weeks so "wasnt going well"
Mark made me do the first lap so i had a couple hundred meters running where i noticed i forgot my pump , lucky the race went past the pits so i grabbed another pump from Mark. We got a shift on up the climb and i moved into 2nd position behind Alex. I say behind - i couldnt actually see alex. This is where we stayed for the rest of race. Behind the 2 Alex` but second over all. The Squarewheels under 16 4 man team threatened our second place for a while but they eased off as the early hours came in.
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[the ABC pits at the top of the first climb]
The course also seemed alot rougher in places than the winter puffer.It developed alot more braking bumps than in the winter and as a result this took its toll on your upper body. Still an excellent course which is technically challenging instead of the boring round a field stuff we get in other places. Certainly was alot faster in the dry with the fastest laptime of the day being set by Alex Glasgow at 29.29 and that included the lemans start !
Me and mark averaged around 35mins a lap which kept us busy , it also meant that eating was hard so i kept my eating simple , sugar/gels and dried fruit.
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[energy food]
Big thanks to John McCallum for not only giving me one c02 can when mine blew up in my face on lap 7 at the furthest point from the pits on the course but for giving me another when it transpired that the one he gave me first was empty. He went on to take second in the solos. Colin Olden won the solo men - "do i really need to do this lap" he shouted at 7.50 - John has to do a 33min lap to even attempt another lap Colin. "Oh in that case im stopping if he manages a 33min lap at this stage then he deserves to win".
Dont know if i fancied my chances on that course, Im not a strong guy in the upper body department and im sure id have felt really beaten up on that course after not too long.Also Gavin Mclean did 9 laps on his own at a pace which kept him in the top 3 of pairs till he blew up(understandably). His team mate Hendry Mcnicol became ill after his second lap and emptied his stomach contents across the pits.
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| From Strathpuffer lite |
[it seems after 12 hours racing ive forgotten to smile]
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[Team mates - the Colins(your left or my right) in third place]
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Mark in celebration mode PRE race.
Driving down the road after the event became interesting and after about 20mins showed its self to be dangerous so we stopped in inverness morrisons and slept for about half an hour had 2 iced coffees and a lucozade alert before pressing on. Mark how ever decided he needed a snooze ...
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| From Strathpuffer lite |
Good event and other organisers take note.
Technical courses
Live results on a webfeed (as our pits were so far from the race center due to space issues at venue it saved a very long walk each time we wanted to see results)
Good catering
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