444m of ascent this week please if you’re doing the virtual 3 peaks challenge. (if you want to go harder 694 m from sea level to the summit)
We’ve made it to Yorkshire without Phil Dawber crashing the minibus. Ian Ringer had a moment where he realised he was reading the roadmap upside down, but a couple of hundred miles of detours later and we’ve made it!
Pen-y-ghent, probably meaning ‘Hill of Terror’ (or maybe not) is a short sharp run out of Horton in Ribblesdale, the starting point for the challenge. Its only about 2.5 miles to the top but its pretty steep.
Give it your best and we’ll meet at the top. Let us know how many metres of ‘up’ you’ve done by Sunday.
Tom Sparkes
Things got a little steep on my run yesterday! (Tom) 
Made it to the summit! Amazed there’s solar panels at the top of a Yorkshire dale! (Phil)
Woop woop! Amazing effort Virtual 3 Peaks team We’ve made it to the top of Pen-y-ghent. The weather’s been phenomenal, the trails have been dry. Jane’s drunk pretty much all the beer but still made it to the top and everyone got slightly carried away! With a team of 23 (a few people haven’t quite made it out of the car park) we’ve pretty much all got to the top and done 20 loop backs to the village between us to pick up the stragglers. Between us we’ve climbed the same as two Everests. Amazing. Anyway, don’t stop now. Do your celebratory handstand then on to week two and Whernside
Not that we’re competing, but here’s the ranking with everyone’s ascent in feet. (Apologies if I’ve missed you off the list or made a mistake). Ian Ringer claims King of the Mountain and gets the honour of wearing the King of the mountain pants for the next stage! Thanks for joining in and looping back everyone.
Ian Ringer 4744 ft
Chris Madeley 4728
Jane Stedman 4570
Marty Barnfield 4310
Damian Philip 4209
Phil Dawber 3701
Tom Sparkes 3184
Stuart Thomson 2844
Kerri Rowe 2678
Emma Stephens 2585
Rebecca Bateman 2428
Jane Stephens 2405
Andrew Ross 2343
Alan Hughes 2284
Nicky Brenton2023
Louise Richardson 1998
Nicola Sinclair 1991
Steve Allsop 1965
Katrina Verra 1661
Stefan Palmer 1608
Dee Smith 1604
Vicki Sparkes 1456
Helen Stevenson 1011 ft
Total 62330 ft
Race Report and Race Organisation by Tom Sparkes