I was astonished when Patagonia offered to replace my leaky jacket for free - nearly four years after I bought it. Bruna at Patagonia worked so hard to make sure I was kitted out for the Red Rose Hundred, I promised I'd share the story here.

As an unusually small male, I have immense trouble buying gear. To find a pair of shoes that fitted, I had to take a day out and travel to London (thank you, Run And Become). In Ambleside, I'd managed to find a small ladies' jacket back in 2011, but when I needed a replacement I found the jacket discontinued, and there was nothing suitable in the shops closer to my Warwickshire home. Time was marching on, and the need was becoming pressing.

On the Valleys Hundred (my favourite of the three I've done), my Patagonia jacket began to leak after 25 hours of near-continuous rain*. No surprise: I had worn it almost daily for three years and not looked after it that well. I couldn't find the same model on the internet, so got in touch with Patagonia online for advice... and was astonished when they said, "Send it back."

Tracking down the original sale details via the bank took a while; and when the suggested replacement arrived, it didn't fit: the cut of the small ladies' size on the new model was different. There was only a week left to the Hundred. Bruna suggested trying the small men's jacket - in a more expensive model. No cost to me. I took an afternoon off work, drove to Tamworth, tried on similar jacket (wrong model), and forgot that Bruna, in Holland, was on a different time zone and would finish work before I got back to confirm that I'd give the men's jacket a go. No worries; on the Monday morning, she got the order dispatched, and on the internet, I was able to track its journey to Germany, England, back to Germany, back to England, and on to my house... all within the day. The jacket was a little roomy, but it looked good (an implausibly blue blue) and I could face the Hundred feeling much more confident.

It cost me nothing, save the postage.

And if it hadn't rained at least a bit on the Red Rose Hundred, I'd have been quite disappointed.

When I paid £200 for the original jacket as a 50th birthday present to myself, I thought I'd been taken for a bit of a sucker. Not so!

*I have to train myself not to say "25 hours of solid rain". It was, of course, entirely liquid.