WINNING REPORT : Fiona Thompson (3 Guyz And A Gal)

What the judges said: "I thought the winner was colourful, and pictured the event well, especially for someone like me who wasn't there. It was also concise and interesting throughout. Generally the best written."

"An Early Start"

Well, Saturday morning and it's 7 in the morning, 7 IN THE MORNING!! I'm getting ready to be picked up for the Apex Challenge happening in the Peak District, West of Sheffield. The rest of the group will be here at half past seven, and I've been told to be ready. Due to living in Doncaster, we have to set off early. I haven't even had time for breakfast. Before I even know it, it's half past seven and we are on our way. It only takes 35 minutes to get to Sheffield, but not knowing where we are going and how easy it is to get lost in the city centre, it's better to get there early rather than late.

Half past eight, and the lads have found a bakery, eating time at the zoo. We are back on our way within 10 minutes and getting lost in the countryside. We get to the meeting point at just gone nine.

We have everything we need, the map, a pencil and the marking card. We join up with everyone for the briefing. After I fell down the slight hill, the briefing begins. There are only two network teams here today, so we have a good chance of winning something. Ten minutes later, we know where we should and shouldn't go, what to do if we get lost and lose our map. Just need to wait for our time so we can start the challenge.

It's our time, 10:58am and we have registered, had our picture taken and we're off. We decided to walk down the road heading towards the first point we can see. After working out which wall it was we needed to follow, after walking through a field and getting the first point, we're back on the road. We walked past the first challenge on our list, but we found toilets. Thank goodness, I was dying for a pee, so were the lads.

We worked out where the first challenge was, shame that we had to push the lawn mower round the cones. After all, I had to push the heaviest person around the course, yes you can all feel sorry for me, please. We walked up the hill, half way up, we thought we were going to have to call for an ambulance as Dale - one of the lads - went white, sweating buckets and generally didn't look good. Carl thought he was going to have a heart attack. But we carried on anyway after a short rest.

The next challenge was a great laugh, the disco fever one, seeing three grown men dancing on a dance mat.

A couple of hours later, we were waiting outside the forest for a challenge. It's our turn and we walk into the forest to find out that we had to carry a bomb, round the forest. A BOMB!! I hate bomb and everything to do with bomb but I joined in to carry this bomb round to the end. Half way round and Carl and I were holding it, Andrew and Dale had just passed the bomb to us, we stood still, waiting till we both had a proper hold on it, then suddenly, Dale fell over a branch and the bomb went off. When we had all stopped laughing, we carried on. We only set it off once, which I thought was good. Right, on to the next challenge.

We did another challenge, and a couple of other pointers and then it was time to get back to base. The only problem, we had half an hour and about an hour's walk if we didn't come up with a short cut. So we made our own, right through a field full of heather. Dale fell over a few times, very funny, and so did Andrew. It seemed we would never get out of the heather but we did. We made it back to camp with 12 minutes to spare. We registered and then sat on the field and relaxed. We had done it!!!

After a short while, the results were read out. We came second!!! Yah!!! Not bad for a day's work, a day out to Lightwater Valley and two games each at Hollywood Bowl!! I have never been to either of them so I'm excited to be going. I can't wait for the next challenge. I'll be going again!!!