New Year in Grenada

Decided to surprise Chris and take him off to Grenada for a week over New Year. It was fabulous. Great weather, great island, great people and great just to have a break from the daily slog. As you'd probably expect, we didn't completely switch off. Had a regular pre-breakfast 'Aquathlon' consisting of a 700m open-water swim and a run on the beach! First time we've come back from holiday actually losing weight! All good London Marathon and Ironman France (just Chris!) preparation!

Sophie becomes a Half Ironman!

Sophie's big event for 2006 has now happened. I did the Vitruvian Half Ironman on 9 September 2006. It was a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run. My target time (despite pre-race nerves announcing I couldn't go through with it - which fell on my husband's deaf ears) was 6 hours so I was delighted with my finish time of 5.50.03. It's a great feeling and I have a great t-shirt to prove it. Here's my finishing photo.

Training, racing and more racing

Chris and I seem to be spending a lot of time training and racing. Chris decided to defy convention and try to keep himself sane by keeping fit even with the Ilizarov frame on his arm. He's been focusing on my training and racing by pacing me in one or two events. We also did a 9 mile race called the 'Black Death Run' which involves lots of hills and no more explanations as to its name!

This is us on the Thames Towpath Ten in April storming home to a new personal best for me over 10 miles (74.57 mins).

New nephew

On 18 February 2006, Gabriel Phillip Roach entered the world and the family. It's all very exciting and he's wonderful. Gregor is the doting brother.

The first 6 months

Life has been busy - with 'Up and Running' opening its second shop in Dulwich, Christmas and then Chris going into hospital on 28 December for the 4th operation on his arm. He now has an Ilizarov frame which we later found out has to stay on for up to 9 months. It's been a tough start to 2006 for him.

Honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies

We got married on Saturday 17th September 2005. It was a fantastic day and we wish we could re-live it. We then had 10 days in the Canadian Rockies which was amazing.

Here are a couple of photos

Hello - have decided to get into this blogging thing, particularly as firewalls prevent photos being sent - and it seemed like the latest craze so didn't want to miss out!