Rip off Running! How much to enter a trail race?

Note the modest £5 entry fee!

And what a nice race it was too - I galloped round in 55 minutes to find that Chris Wilcox (same age group as me) was already standing at the finish with a big grin on his face. I'd been pushing like mad to finish strongly thinking he was behind me and, most likely, catching me up! Still it was good fun on a cold, wet, windy, muddy course. The friendly guys at Clwydian Range Runners have been successfully organising races round the forest for years, most of them on forest tracks and made up paths and mostly at night (The famous 'Dashes in the Dark'), now the staff at Llandegla centre have marked out a running trail to complement the excellent MTB trails. So this was the grand opening of the route. We paid our £5 fee which included soup and a roll and set off to enjoy a very well organised safe race. I must point out at this stage that the Clwydian Range Runners break even on the race and this is a non-profit making venture. Imagine my disgust on arriving back after the race to find that another group of people (not a running club) have announced a race on the same course in summer with the entry fees starting at £23 (the ad says 'no booking or hidden fees'.) Someone is clearly making a fat profit out of this and they'll no doubt target fitness centres and the like and entrap naive first timers who think they're getting a good deal. Anyway thanks to all the marshalls and timekeepers who stood out in the pouring rain - there's devotion to the sport.

Bad news for the Union of Bridgepainters .

 We took this picture of the Forth Railway bridge when we were just about to cross the Forth Road bridge on our LEJOG cycle ride. This was almost at the end of our longest day - just short of 100 miles! Could not see anyone at work painting it though! Apparently the practice of starting to paint it all over again as soon as it was finished ended fairly recently - it was reported in 2011 that 'A 200-strong team has been applying a triple layer of new glass flake epoxy paint, which is similar to that used in the offshore oil industry. It creates a chemical bond to provide a virtually impenetrable layer to protect the bridge's steel work from the weather.'

Go, go, go.

And here are a few statistics from our wee cycle ride across the UK:
Total Distance - 871.7 miles
Total time on the bike - 78hrs 22mins 12secs
Total Climbed - 49494ft (almost twice up Everest!)
Average pace - 11.1mph
Best days pace - 13.5mph (last day!)
Top Speed reached - 45.1mph (last day)
Furthest Distance in 1 day - 96.7 miles
Total Calories burned - 42267
Not bad for 2 non-cyclists I think