In the pic on the left you can see Pen-Y-Fan 886m on the left, with Corn Dhu to the right. I took this on Thursday 25th Jan 2007 after Derrick and I had clambered to the top from the north side. Yes, that means we have been training again. No matter what you do in the gym it will not replicate getting out in the cold and scurrying up a mountain. Apart from that it was a gorgeous day and too much of an opportunity too miss.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Tuesday saw Mr V and myself off down to Cancer Research Wales HQ which is based in Velindre Hospital, Cardiff Wales. Met by Maggie and Coleen who are two nice, more mature ladies with quick smiles and even quicker minds which flash with ideas almost constantly. They were charting our progress and, as ever, being constructive on where we should be applying our efforts on the fund raising front. Whilst there I also spoke to their media experts who have compiled a press release for us which should hopefully be out by now. GWR trains have chipped in our fares to London for the first part of the journey. We are hoping to travel by overnight train from Paris so we can start first thing on the 21st July 2007.

My wife, Jackie , has stuck her oar in regarding my training with the idea that I should run in the Chedworth 10 mile cross country run at the beginning of April. This means she has put me on a 10 week training programme with three runs a week. I'll let you look at the first week, no laughing now.

Tempo run 4.8km 27 minutes
Speed session 4x400metres @ 12km/h 1min recovery plus warm up/down
X country 5.5 miles 52 minutes

By now you will probably realise that I need the training, but at a sprightly 16.5 stones of weight I'm happy with the first weeks run, even if Jackie pooh poohs it.

Back to the mountains. When we got out of the car it was -2 degrees! Slipping on our boots I decided against the fleece as I know from experience that being a large chappy I do tend to heat up a bit. Sweat buckets if you want to put it that way. There has been a huge amount of rain in the area lately and the surface water had frozen on the lower lopes which hardly ever see the sun. This meant that Derricks stick like legs were quite often thrashing about with him going nowhere, a bit like Bambi on ice. After a couple of 100 metres we hit the snow line and a stiff breeze was with us. Stopping meant freezing, so we continued ever upwards without another soul in sight. A bit of sun and we all feel better, and this was certainly true last week. Short of the summit the ridge becomes quite steep and is usually a bit of a clamber. Today though we were enveloped in a bit of cloud and everything was covered in snow, the slippery kind! A bit of huffing and puffing and we were there, for a very short snack, Derrick thinks I've gone a bit soft, trading my usual meat pastie for dried fruit and nuts, a quick pic and then onto Corn Dhu. Like I said, the weather was great but if we stopped any longer then my ass would become welded to the rocks I was sitting on due to the cold. In fact, it was cold enough to freeze the water in Derrick's drinking tube!

So a tough week on the training front and this week will be no different. This weekend we are off with Mr V and Derrick's yougest lad to the Cambrian Mountains in mid Wales for two days walking. Staying in an old farmhouse at Dolgoch which is owned by the Youth Hostel Association. Youth! Between the four of us the average age will be 40 and Derrick's boy is 17 to help pull the average down a little! On top of this I will still be running and still popping into St Pierre gym for some weight training. Oh, and I'll have to go to work sometime this week as well. Enjoy the pics.