As most of my friends know I'm a massive fan of Patrick's & Chris's Thunder & Lightning 24 & 12 hour events & the atmosphere is always brilliant & this weekend lived up to expectation.
I had originally entered this as a solo runner but due to having a few rubbish weeks & Dnf'ing at the London marathon & been taken to hospital ( twice ) I made the sensible ( yes I know when am I sensible ) to run with my best mate Heather in the pair category.
We arrived at Saturday Lunch time & got the best pitch in the solo field ( yes I was allowed to camp here ) as I was sharing a tent with my dad who was solo & saved a big area for the rest of my mad ultra buddies. I soon got the area taped off with my Buff tape and before we knew it Tony & Nat wallbank ( part of team buff uk ) arrived & Jayne who was part of the support crew. ( Jayne is now addicted to buying Buff's & Bloc sunglasses lol )
Next to arrive was Heather & Harry & later in the day Chris arrived & last but not least Louise .
I must say our little ultra running family are brilliant & the banter & general good laughs before the race even started was brilliant.
It was great to meet up with fellow Team Buff athlete Al Pepper too who was running solo & who had some rather nice new original power cookies for me to test & try !! 
This is the dynamic duo of me and Heather just before the start .
Please like there new Facebook page & if you get the chance I highly recommend them as an alternative to gels & power bars. More about these in my next blog.
Back to the race :-)
The race started at 6am on the Sunday morning and after a freezing cold night in our little tent I woke up at 4am ready and alert for the 12 hours ahead I love the buzz and excitement before a race .
I was really looking forward to giving my new Team Buff uk 2014 kit a good try & I'm honoured to be part of the amazing team for the 3rd year running www.Buffwear.co.uk.
So 6 am and off we went I was running the 1st lap and I quickly got into a nice pace .
The course is 10k route and it's made up of ups and downhills and through the most gorgeous bluebell wood .
My 1st lap was run just over 54mins and I was pleased with that and I handed over to Heather & went and re-fueled this seemed very strange as I'm so used to running solo and not having much rest .
Just over an hour later Heather returned and she had a great lap and looked good but a slight injury to her leg was worrying us both fingers crossed it holds out I thought .
My 2nd lap I had the pleasure or should I say Duane had the pleasure of me running with him ( he was running solo) & we chatted the whole way round I hope I didn't drag u ;-) I think it was the other way round to be honest but it was a very enjoyable lap and once again it was run around 55mins & I handed over to Heather for her 2nd lap .
More refueling for me also known as chatting to Harry & Henry on the Buff stall lol .
As time went on I was starting to get a bit concerned as Heather was taking longer than expected :-( & I was hoping her leg had held out unfortunately my fears had been come true & I could see her in the distance limping really bad gutted was a understatement and I could see from her face that she was in pain .
I had left instructions with Harry her hubby to send her straight to the physio to get checked out & off I went on my 3rd lap .
I was getting into a nice steady pace now & was feeling good & when I approached the end of my 3rd lap I could see that Heather was standing at the side and not looking happy , over I ran to be told she had torn a muscle in her leg and the physio had told her not to run any more laps :-( she was gutted & kept apologising for letting me down .
Heather we were team and team mates look after each other so gave her a best buddy hug and told her not to worry and I would do my best for our team & now she had to be my support crew each lap lol .
I carried on and eventually I ended up doing 6 laps we still had 2 hours + left when I finished and our team ran 8 laps .
My dad did awesome to run 7 laps solo go Buff daddy go.
The main aim for me this weekend was to feel ok & not to push myself after been ill & I feel this was achieved .
Thank you to all my family & friends who supported me this weekend & have been asking about me and generally keeping an eye on me since not been 100 percent your all stars & it's much appreciated .
I feel confident now that with some good training over the coming weeks & some training in the sun next week , I can look forward to some good races .
My next race is the endure24 where I am running solo & my main aim for 2014 is the Buff epic race in Spain in Aug 
Where I will be running for Team Buff uk .
Please get liking Team Buff uk on Facebook & keep an eye out for competitions on the page as I'm the Buff competition angel too & love sharing the Buff love .
Catch u all soon & hopefully I will have some good news about some new products which I'm testing and reviewing.
Enjoy your running .
This goes out to all my running friends 
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