The Bob bug - did I catch it?

I've not previously understood the attraction of doing the Bob Graham round.

For those not aware of this, it's an endurance event which you can undertake at any time, where you run up and down 42 Lake District peaks. It starts and finishes in Keswick and the challenge is to do it in a 24-hour period.

Many people have told me that once I support someone on a Bob Graham, I'll understand it all and it won't be long until I too am putting in the ridiculous training sessions that are needed before trying one.

So last weekend I supported Lisa's Bob Graham attempt. She was going for an anti-clockwise round starting at 8 in the morning. I was supporting leg 2, which included 9 summits and took about 5 hours.

For those who can't remember, last weekend was exceptionally rainy. In the end it was the conditions that led to Lisa falling behind schedule and eventually taking the sensible decision to abandon the attempt after about 20 hours (20 hours!!). All credit to Lisa for getting so far in such horrendous conditions - I have no doubt she would have done it if hadn't have been such a shocker of a day.

So do I now understand it? Well I think I do. From what I got out of the day, it's a lot to do with the sense of cameraderie. I cetainly enjoyed it, despite the conditions on our leg. And I can appreciate that the sense of achievement must be massive.

But having said all this, I'm very happy to support the odd Bob Graham rather than do one myself. For a start I'd have to train a lot more, and I'm rubbish without sleep. So come on Lisa, pick another date, and we'll pray for a clear day this time.