Tweed Valley MRT Mountain Challenge

I meant to blog this the day after it all happened, but as per the last post, just been too busy!

Every year, Tweed Valley MRT ( our nice neighbours) hold a 24 hour Mountain Challenge, and boy is it challenging: 40 miles, 10,000ft ascent. Ouch. Anyway, I've completed it for the last two years (21 hours 2005, 18 hours 2006 ... 2007?). What really impressed me however were theat no less than five former pupils of DGS took part this year: Andrew Maddox, Steven Low, Ben Mincher, Ian Thompson and David Bower.

The five pupils have no doubt raised hundreds of pounds for a very good cause, and are a credit to Dunbar Grammar - well done lads. Only two managed to finish the challenge, but all five done very well, in fact they all got further than even I honestly expected.

My personal highlight of the challenge was meeting up with a nice fellow from Duns, who would become part of the challenge folklore. Half way round, he lost his ankles. they just disolved, vanished, disappeared in a large pool of blood. No joke, they were the worst I'd ever seen since I managed to hospitalise myself breaking in a new pair of boots by trekking across two munros! (note to self - bad idea). I had to patch them up on the hill - only half way round remember - using the only first aid kit I had - two wound dressings and a flask of 12 year old Glenfiddich. Amazingly, he finished the walk! Certainly a braver man than me!

Anyway, I'll leave you with a couple of photos from the walk: The ankle-less man, and four of our former pupils at the finish line, proping themselves up against the first thing to hand!!