The Mighty Deerstalker!!

The Mighty Deerstalker


An adventurous hill-running race with approximately 1250 competitors dressed up in varying degrees of tweed & hunting attire which begins like this – sprint up a grassy slope, leap over some hay bales, plunge into a river/mud pool and then get to the top of the 1st hill as fast as you can. The rest of the race revolves around 2 major hills and consists of running, scrambling, crawling, jumping, wading, balancing, and sliding – not to mention dirt, mud & cramp (and in several cases blood, sweat & tears). FUN! I love challenges :)


I knew what to expect from last year, so I did a bit more running leading up to the event, and even stuck to soft drinks on the RPM night out the night before – I must have been taking it seriously. It paid off as I was somehow the fastest female runner (or probably more realistic to say the most determined female competitor who firmly believes that pain is just weakness leaving the body... not necessarily the fastest runner). I got a voucher for £100 of adventure racing gear, a medal, and a huge deal of pride. I was also in pain for 2 days – there must have been a lot of weakness leaving my body.


Heather, Simon, Richard & I also had a great walk near Peebles the weekend before - very windy on the tops but a lot of fun and great to catch up with Heather & Simon who I hadn't seen for ages!

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My nephew :)

I got my first smile the other day! I'm constantly amazed at how quickly he changes...

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Pub Quizzes, Bolton, U/10 Masters

The last few Mondays we've been doing the pub quiz at Oscars – Alan, Liana, Richard & I – its great fun although I'm not sure how much I contribute in the way of answers, just the occasional inspired 'guess'. Thanks to the others we've done pretty well most weeks, and have managed to claim victory once which presented us with a voucher to fuel the following week's performance.

I started taking tennis a bit more seriously again, and even had a couple of lessons on my forehand & serve (thanks Marcel!) before heading down to the British Tour in Bolton. I had an epic 1st round match, which made me seriously appreciate my fitness levels, and scraped through after 3 hours 50 minutes. I got beaten 7-6 6-4 in the quarter-finals by the 2nd seed, disappointed but happy with my overall performance.

Straight onto Roehampton for the U/10 Masters, where 3 Scottish kids were competing (I coach Alexandra, and there were 2 boys from Glasgow). We had a 1st, 2nd & 3rd place finish – pretty good showing for Scotland!! I had a minor panic in the airport when I realised I didn't have any ID with me (having got the train down it hadn't crossed my mind till I was about to check in)... but I somehow managed to get through 4 security checkpoints at Heathrow without showing anything except a boarding pass, so luckily I made it back without any major issues!

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