Cathy Tibbetts

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Yesterday top female contender Sue Exon of Great Britain was charged by a dog along the trail and bitten. Team doctors arranged for a helicopter evacuation to Kathmandu for further medical attention.

Meanwhile her personal gear was somewhere on the back of a Sherpa. Joe Brooks, a member of the Royal Marines biathlon team, and Garry Wilkinson, a British trail running record holder, donned their running gear and raced off through the mountains to retrieve her kit. After 14 miles of steep climbs they never did find it. The Sherpas were taking a short cut through the forest and were nowhere on the trail. 'We are absolutely knackered' said Gary, 'It was like getting a week of training in one day.'

With this group, daylong grinds up and down the mountains are followed by an evening run before dinner. They're called fun runs, but it's more a matter of seeing what the competition is made of — great fun for a group of runners, right up there with late night drunken card games.

— Cathy Tibbetts, Mountain Zone Correspondent

MARATHON DISPATCHES