Held in Exmoor National Park, one of the most picturesque but also the bleakest areas of the UK if the weather is not in your favour, 3 hardy Viceroys battled heavy winds and torrential rain during this already challenging event. 
Despite this, Helen Blamey and Lloyd Cosgrove both claimed to have a ‘good’ swim, but both faltered at the bike course whose ‘challenging reputation’ precedes it: the bike course has 53 hills in 56 miles, 1750m of climbing!! None the less, Andrew Pirie managed an astounding 24kph average and smashed 3 hours 45 which he was thrilled with (not bad as he had only cycled with the Viceroys twice on a Tuesday, once on a Sunday plus some spinning classes – not the best preparation for 3000 ft climbs!). Helen’s bike was nasty, not only was the weather against her, but the deteriorating road conditions caused three big crashes around her: ‘ I had to stop going down the steep hill with the left hand turn at the bottom of it as a girl lost control, crashed and went straight under a car – quite scary’.
Despite the dramas (including Andrew ‘doing a Paula Radcliffe on the run section due to pushing myself too hard and ingesting enough gels to kill a small continent’) each did their pink jerseys and club proud to finish such a challenge… Helen coming 5th in her age group too. In Lloyd’s words:
This race could be summed up in one word “BRUTAL.”
