The Brecon Beacons weather lived up to its reputation as Lucy and I met up with Tom Beaver who I am coaching for the Enduroman Arch to Arc Triathlon and Greg Woodward who apart from being a great friend, is supporting me at both the ONER, the Sennie Extreme 200 and the Enduroman Deca Iron 2008.

The Fan Dance is a route over the Beacons that I had ran across many times with the army, but even the best can get i wrong sometimes (slight navigational error)

For me, it doesn't get any better: great company and the mountains.  It was great to see that Tom's ankle injury had cleared, so it is all systems go for the ONER.

You read many articles about peaking for your race, how you need to do your last long session 7 or 14 or 21 days before your race.  Last year, a good friend told me that your endurance base could last for up to 10 weeks without training.  As an experienced coach who researches scientifically, I  thanked him for his advice and promptly discarded this information.  A few months later, there I stood on Shakespeare Beech, just about to swim the channel.  My last long swim was 7 weeks previously, and this was for 8 hours.  I then went onto complete a 16-hour channel swim, getting faster and stronger all the way as the weather deteriorated.  The lesson I learned was that you still need to condition your body, but once you have it in the bag, leave it there, and focus on another element.