news
crisis
03 October 08
Matthew has gone to University and the place needs hoovering. what am i going to do?
i was just about coping with the lack of tea, but this, I did not consider. Matt when are you back?
I wonder if it can wait till December 19th?
can i have that banana?
16 June 08
When I’d just started running I found it very difficult to eat on the go. I would get stitches and stomach cramps and the whole prospect of eating seemed so awful I never really felt like I needed anything. I survived on energy gel (a snot like chemical goo) and then later, chocolate. I discovered Mars Bars. The Mars Bar strategy went on for a while, until one day I discovered that firstly, there’s a limit to how many Mars Bars you can eat in a day, and secondly, it is possible to reach a level of hunger experienced only by cave men. On a cold day in January, a long way from my car, I became… murderously hungry. Things went back to basics. Choices were simple. Must have food. Must have it now. The person I was with seemed to have 12 litres of buffet strapped to his back, and I’m not sure if he ever realised how close to death he came.
That day was a turning point for me, and since then I’ve always had a full packed lunch on training runs – sandwiches, crisps, dried fruit, malt loaf. You name it I’ve ran and ate it.
When packing my bag for the Ennerdale race, I looked back at what had taken me round last year – three gels. Although now able to run and eat, in a race things are a bit different and it’s hard to chew and swallow when you’re breathing hard, and so a cheese sandwich was out of the question. I packed 5 gels, some jelly babies for near the finish (too sugary to eat before then as they make your blood sugar peak and then trough) and at the last minute, as an afterthought, I put in an emergency muesli bar.
Less than half way round the race, my belly told me that it had never eaten a meal in its life. Instead of a stomach, I had a huge echoing cavern that threatened to implode. Gels do nothing to fill you up, it was too early for the babies, and so I had to use my emergency ration. I knew it was a bad sign though, to have had it before half way. I was not going to last.
Two hours later, and the feeling was back – a frightening emptiness in the gut, now accompanied by the dog-tired weariness of 18 fast miles across some mountains. It was going to get tricky. Going up Haycock, the last two supporters of the day were waving a bag of jelly babies at the long line of haggard runners – they held out the bag to me, and my rather rude but unblinking response was “can I have that banana?”. I’d spied it from 100 yards away, lay on the ground. My salvation. They were so shocked, they gave it to me – thank you – it was for your own safety you understand. Lord knows what might have happened if you’d said no.
Happy Birthday, again
09 June 08
That was a quick year wasn’t it?
I’m here alone today, and so felt there was no need for celebration and a cake. But later in the day I felt a bit bereft and bought a Magnum (for me) and a mini milk (for the dog). We passed on the champagne.
This time last year I was running the Ennerdale. I had probably just finished in fact. That trial by ordeal is next Saturday and I can feel the blisters starting already. But at least i’m older and wiser, and I know that you can’t drink 4L of lucozade in one day and retain either your sanity or your teeth (never touched the stuff since), and I know that Gamlin End is still shit, and will always be shit no matter how you go down it. I also know that my down is better, and that Bob Graham has ruined my ups, but most importantly that I can do it. It’s a long way, but I can get there, and although not quickly, perhaps with a small amount of grace. Never crawl, and never cry!
riddle
24 May 08
i had a nasty accident this morning involving a dog, a badger and a hot cup of tea. The badger’s life flashed before it’s eyes, i was scalded in a place that’s never seen the sun, and dog slept on oblivious
The Esk
16 May 08
If you’re going to fall in, you may as well do it properly…
Hot or Cold ?
15 May 08
March 23, Easter Sunday
At Dunmail Raise the snow was six inches deep on the road. With the steep hills rising either side it looked more like the Alps than the Lakes. Pete and I exchanged worried questioning looks, but decided to have a go anyway.
My kit choice might have been slightly different if I’d known it was snowy when I left home, but it was clear and bright and so although I’d packed well, it was not quite for the conditions that faced me now. I put on everything I had with me, and we set out up Seat Sandal. With a foot (or more) of fresh powder snow on a very steep slope, it felt like we were trying to swim uphill. One foot forward, slip, hands in snow up to shoulders, stand, next foot forward…and so on. It was exhausting. Even the flat bits were exhausting. I was wearing thin running gloves which soon iced up, and of course, fell shoes. I didn’t feel my feet all day. Sometimes I would stand in a patch of icy water and get an odd tingling sensation, but not one that told me my feet were freshly wet.
Helvellyn was a mass of balaclavas and ice axes. People were skiing on the back of Raise. We glissaded down Dollywaggon Pike, and finally back to the car, tired, blind and a little bit numb.
May 11
By 10am I began to notice how warm the rocks were to touch, and by late morning I didn’t need to touch them to know how hot they were. The heat was radiating up from underneath me, and beating down from overhead.
The Ennerdale Horseshoe is notoriously dry, and having drank two litres by Black Beck Tarn, (one third of the way round), I realised water was going to be a problem. We found the mythical spring at Black Sail Pass, knowing it was the last water till the end, but on inspection it turned out to be brown and chewy, and not fancying it much I thought I would make do with the litre or so I had left. Rations.
The dog, not being fussy like me, had done well for water most of the way by drinking from horrible bogs, but from Pillar onwards all the bogs were dry, and going up Haycock I began to worry. It was like the desert. The ground was parched, the sun directly overhead, no shade for miles and a hot breeze. The dog looked hot and was panting uncontrollably. I began to wonder what would happen if she collapsed. I couldn’t carry her, but I also wouldn’t be able to leave her. I decided to give her a drink from my camelbak knowing that I didn’t have enough for myself. She is a fairly proficient camelbak drinker, for a dog, but it’s still not efficient and a great deal was lost to the dust – galling to see when you are thirsty yourself.
After thinking we were never going to get there, Ennerdale Water was the oasis at the end of an ordeal. Except instead of the calm and tranquil scene we anticipated, it was full of day-trippers with footballs and ice-cream, wondering why the hell we looked so bad.
Hot or cold then? Cold is much more dangerous, but hot feels so much worse. Cold makes you feel alive and run quicker, wheras hot makes you dizzy and lethargic, encouraging long sits and eventually giving you the impression that you’ll never finish the run.
phew!
08 May 08
hot today.
My shop has the thermal insulating properties of a plastic bag. I spend winter (autumn and spring) scraping frost off the inside of the windows, and summer with all the doors open trying to revive the dog with buckets of iced water. Ok I’m exaggerating again, but you get the picture.
It’s too hot for working. It’s a good job i have a deck chair or I’d have to close up. Someone bring me an ice cream…
Scafell Pike
01 May 08
I’d never been up Scafell Pike until last year, which I now find very hard to believe given that since then I seem to have been up there twice a week. Ok that might be an exaggeration, but many fell races take you that way, and also one of my favourite days out takes me up there from the Langdales and back to Cockley Beck via the Great Moss. Anyway, to the point…
It’s never been my favourite hill. In fact, I would put it near the bottom of the list. You never get a good view of it, when you’re up there its barren and rocky, if it’s raining it’s incredibly treacherous, and the worst, worst, worst thing is the 50 people who are up there too, talking loudly into mobile phones. “ Guess where I am. No. No. Scafell Pike. SCAFELL PIKE. Britain’s highest mountain. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing”.
Hmmm. I don’t see the fascination with it, but then I’ve never stopped before, just nodded at the trig point and scuttled past trying to not make eye contact with anyone, (after the time a strange man tried to engage me in a debate about whether it actually was the highest mountain in England “because that one there looks bigger”. Persistent he was)
But last Sunday night, for the first time in perhaps 20 ascents, I was there completely alone. It wasn’t a fleeting moment either – it was 6 o’clock on a drizzly Sunday evening in April and everyone else was in the pub. The desertion felt wrong, like I was on a different hill altogether, and I started to look at things afresh. It was thick in cloud and softly raining, but there wasn’t a breath of wind or a sound. It was eerily silent and very atmospheric in a way I could never have imagined on that hill, like I was trespassing in a place I wasn’t meant to be. I’d always wanted to stand on the big cairn right on the top, but never managed it before due to the crowds. I climbed up and stood on the highest point in the silence, and stood for what seemed a long time, waiting, and watching for Pete’s silhouette as it gradually emerged from the mist.
I looked down. Bonnie was eating the remains of someone’s lunch, a rind of ham, or something, and there were lots of banana skins pushed down the cracks between the stones. It was then I noticed all the ash. That’s really odd I thought, someone’s had a fire here. Until it dawned in me that that particular fire had been a long way away, as this was someone’s remains. What a place of rest! To be sat on everyday by forty bums, have tea spilled on you, and layered with orange peel and apple cores. Still, if they specify the top, then the top it must be…
So why were we there and not in the pub? (I was asking myself this question about this time). The Bob Leg 3 recce is why…
The Bob
01 May 08
1932 a Keswick publican called Bob Graham, ran 42 of the Lake Districts highest peaks in 24 hours. Just for fun, he ran 70 miles with 27,000ft of ascent, in a pyjama top and some plimsolls. This was to celebrate his 42nd birthday. (Couldn’t organise a piss-up in his own brewery perhaps?) Despite a few attempts, no-one equalled his feat for another 30 years, and then the Bob Graham 24hr club was born. It’s a very exclusive club, as the entry exam is really quite hard.
The Bob is where most of the mentally unsound fell runners end up at some point or other. It’s what you do when you’ve done all the races, and yet your joints still haven’t given in. I’m new to fell running and last year the Ennerdale seemed like the ultimate goal to me, until I did it without much fuss. It was then that I had my first Bob thought – three Ennerdales is a Bob (or so I believed then), and if one wasn’t that bad I’m sure I three would be do-able. Now I know different.
A Bob is not three Ennerdales. No. A Bob is point to point across terrain most people didn’t know existed in the Lakes. It takes you places no-one in their right mind would go. Rolling grey bogs into the valley of doom, waist high heather, 45° slopes, crags, loose scree – basically straight lines between places, and sometimes up to the top, and down the same way just to get the hill in. It is physically and mentally tough. But I don’t think the word ‘tough’, does it enough justice.
I’m not Bobbing myself, but helping with Pete’s Bob this month, which means I’ve been on some pretty entertaining runs. Or crawls. Sunday’s run was another all day classic – leg 3 – Dunmail Raise to Wasdale, via the Langdales and Scafells in low cloud and varying degrees of rain. I’m a leg 2 pacer really, but oddly, there was a lack of volunteers for this recce and so I stepped in not really knowing where it went. The fact it takes 6 hours to cover 17 miles should have been a giveaway. I started to run out of humour traversing some crags on the back of Bowfell. At Esk Hause, the dog failed to start limping at the pre-arranged point and my last get out was gone. I did manage to wanly excuse myself from Great End and Ill Crag, but still had SFP and Scafell to go.
For those of you who’ve never been, Scafell and Scafell Pike stand next to each other, and are within shouting distance, yet very few walkers do both in the same day. The reason? In between there’s a dangerous crag called Broad Stand which bars the way. Many people fall off it each year, some to their deaths (apparently Mountain Rescue could mark the spot where they all land with an X. Maybe they should and it would stop people falling off). Anyway, the alternative is to descend 600ft on steep scree, to re-ascend about 1000ft of steep scree on the other side. Pete and I were definitely not stupid enough to attempt Broad Stand without rope, but also tired enough to not want to descend all that way. So we went a different way – one which combined most of the horror of Broad Stand, with seemingly most of the descent and re-ascent of the tourist route. It was a truly magical line.
I’d been out in the rain and clag for 5 hours and was really quite weary. Pete on the other hand, had been out for 11, and was starting to look a bit pale. It had gone six on Sunday evening – the hour where you rest your Yorkshire pudding belly on the sofa whilst your dog snores by the crackling fire. Or downing ale and eating crisps in a humid pub that smells of wet gear. As the only people left out on the hill, we were crawling on the precipice of death under the East Buttress of Scafell, like two lost crabs, whilst water cascaded off the crag and onto us in tiny waterfalls. Tired decisions were along the line of “will I stand on that slimy sloping rock, or jump down onto that ledge of wet grass?” At one point, fearing I may fall to my certain and possibly painful death, I held onto a tussock of grass, to save me in case I went. Good choice! The only reason I wasn’t paralysed with fear was because it was so cloudy I couldn’t see the drop beneath us.
It saved us about 100 feet anyway, so it was worth it.
Bob Graham was hard. He didn’t even have fell shoes, and those shorts look like they chafe.
the wall
14 April 08
I didn’t really believe in the wall before yesterday. I didn’t know what it was and thought it was just people whinging when they got tired. But when it happened to me, it was so quick and so utterly complete that I couldn’t work out what had happened. It was so textbook too.
I’d told myself that I was only going to do one marathon (I hate running on the road), but I told myself that if I was only to do one, then it’d better be a good one. My over-training was going well until I nearly wrote myself off, and so at the peak training time I had four terrible weeks and only really returned to full fitness two weeks before my taper. I set my goal a little lower, and then a week ago that plan went out of the window, and I returned to plan A – 3hrs 15. I thought I could do it.
I set out to run 7.15s which for me I think is ok, but being a terrible pacer and always going off too quick, I had serious words with myself about taking it easy in the beginning. Mmmm. True to form, I went out too quickly and got swept along with the crowds and the cheering. My fourth mile I did in 6.34 (oh dear) and I knew it was too quick and did manage to slow a bit. I hung onto 7.15 – 7.30 until mile 20, which was about 2hrs 30, and I knew all I had to do was hang on for another 45 minutes and my 3hr15 marathon was in the bag. I was tired, but feeling ok and had already imagined myself running down the mall in 44 minutes time. The next 6 miles were the most awful of my life.
All of a sudden, my legs stopped working. I had no control over them and they were doing their own thing. Luckily they were running, but I had no control over the pace at all. It was like trying to whip a dying donkey into action, only to find that it was in fact dead. It was like they weren’t my legs at all, except the increasing pain told me they were. My quads began to twang with every stride, the blisters that I’d had all the way now became raw, my hips joints ached, my lower back ached, and then it got worse – nausea and stomach cramps, and I just got slower and slower. I wanted to walk but I knew if I did I would never get going again. I began to feel quite tearful. I just wanted it all to stop, but so close to the end you really can’t give up like that.
The marathon takes in some pretty dull places in London, and I was looking forward to the final stretch so I could do a bit of sightseeing but unfortunately I didn’t see a thing. I saw blurred visions of legs, some running, some walking and some, like me, shuffling painfully along. I saw tarmac, and lines on the tarmac and the odd bottle of Vittel. I saw the inside of my eyes, but I missed the London Eye, Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace. The only thing I saw was the finish, but I really don’t know how I got there. It was the longest most excruciating hour of my life.
Now I know that ‘the wall’ is the moment when your body has used all its stored glycogen, and starts using up body fat and tissue, and that it hurts. I’m sure this is no surprise to many people, but it was a damn shock to me. It was like someone flicked a switch and it was all over. I wasn’t the only one though – there were others far worse than me – good runners physically crumpling at the side of the road.
So 3.26 wasn’t bad in the end. Part of me wants a re-match, and the other part says never ever again.
NHS direct and to the point
23 February 08
I’m falling apart, slowly, but nevertheless consistently. I won’t bore you with the details, I am after all invincible, but I might have to concede that I may have over trained.
Anyway, feeling a bit miserable and not wanting to go to the doctors, I thought I’d have a go at a bit of web diagnosis. Mostly when you try to do this you end up believing that you have an unlikely but life threatening disease, which actually turns out to be wind or something, but I thought I’d try a new site – NHS Direct. Seems to make sense doesn’t it?
It started well. You tell them what hurts and then answer some yes and no questions – couldn’t be simpler and seemed very useful, until I read the questions…
Question 1: are you so short of breath you are unable to talk in sentences? Errr… no
Question 2: are you turning blue? Christ! If I were turning blue I wouldn’t be on the internet
Question 3: are you vomiting blood or soil like material? You know what, I’m starting to feel better already
Once they’ve established that you’re not breathing your last, it just tells you to phone up. Not actually very useful at all.
balls!
18 February 08
About the only thing below the waist that doesn’t hurt, and that’s only because I haven’t got any. In the last few weeks every time I’ve gone out running I’ve hurt myself, and it’s getting to the point where, combined, the injuries are making running unpleasant. I’m in the carry on regardless school when it comes to injuries. I’ve run with niggles for a while and most are not enough to really bother me, but yesterday I had to admit to myself that not running would be more pleasurable than running, and defeated I had to bail out. That has never happened before, and it was such a glorious day too! As soon as you’ve admitted it and said it out loud, everything becomes much more painful, and I sort of went to pieces, and walked off the mountain with my bottom lip out. It might possibly have been wobbling a bit too.
Here’s a picture of the day I left behind, so you see it must have been bad for me to walk away from that…
When dogs go bad
07 February 08
This is what they looked like before..
they aren’t the dogs either btw, but perhaps you can understand her confusion. She took them out of a laptop bag, so i suppose when you look at it like that it could have been a lot worse.
That's Lyth
31 January 08
I’ve discovered the way forward – Long Distance Walkers Events. What an excellent day I had last Sunday. It was like a fell race, but with hot tea and doughnuts at every checkpoint. What could be better? They even had chairs, and we did take advantage of them. It was all very civilised with no elbowing at all. If there had been tablecloths it would have topped it off, except we would have dripped sweat and snot on them and made them muddy, and then I would have felt bad, but still, china cups and plates of party food are hard to beat. All race organisers should take this on board. (I can just imagine the top of Gable on the Borrowdale, with four hundred runners trying to pour tea in a gale force wind, before negotiating wet loose scree with a jam doughnut in each hand. )
I didn’t think I could stomach it actually, but caved at the sight of the first plate of slightly squashed very sticky jam ones, and washed it down with two cups of tea. I’ve never had a fried dough product whilst running before, and nor for that matter, one at 9am on a Sunday morning, but it went down well and I ran on it fine. By checkpoint 2 I was feeling peckish again, and had some crisps (for the salt you understand), a mini doughnut and some jaffa cakes, all washed down with a couple of glasses of orange squash. I think it might have been the orange squash, but I started to feel a bit queasy after that stop, and by checkpoint 3 had resorted back to tea.
The scout hut at the finish was a similar diabetic disaster, and I couldn’t help but eat more iced cup cakes and pink wafers. Now I know why children at birthday parties behave the way they do. I was almost hallucinating on the sugar and E numbers, and decided I needed to eat something proper. So what did we have at the pub? Chips and beer!
Have you ever seen that programme ‘You are what you eat’, where that strange nasal Scottish lady puts everything you’ve eaten for the week on a table, just to make you feel sick? Well if you’d done that to what I ate last Sunday it would have looked really quite similar. I feel ill thinking about it, but I did have a great day. It was all very sociable and I’ll definitely be doing it again next year.
Wetherlam yesterday
17 January 08
mmm
14 January 08
Do you ever feel like there’s something missing from your life? I find most often, the answer is cake.
weather
14 January 08
When you’re out on the mountains, a good reliable forecast is essential, and checking the weather is now as much as part of my routine as eating porridge and tying my laces. After a few trials, I found a web forecast which is extremely accurate but which does have a tendency to be a bit on the pessimistic side.
The bad forecasts have become something of a joke, and I think last Wednesday wins the prize for being the worst I’ve seen since I started using the site. Just in case anyone was tempted to go out, the headlines for the lakes said “hurricane force winds with snow showers”, windspeed 50-60mph gusting 90mph, making “any mobility in higher areas impossible”. Temp -3° but will feel as cold as -24° directly in the wind.
-24°!! Are we at base camp? Should I dig out the down suit? They really didn’t want anyone on the hill did they?
So I went out anyway, just changed my route to something with a sheltered ascent. It was quite a nice day really, bit of sunshine, a bit of buffeting, but really not so bad.
(Caveat – it was a short run, not too far from roads on any side and I knew it well. I wouldn’t like to encourage anyone to go out in such conditions – that would be irresponsible)
Hypothermia on Walney
09 January 08
Fell runners have a bit of a reputation for being tough, and it’s probably a well-deserved reputation too. Vast distances can be covered in a few hours, with immense ascents and descents over difficult and often pathless terrain, sometimes in terrible weather, wearing essentially light windproofs and a pair of pumps, not to mention going without lunch and sometimes even water. But luckily, most fell runners don’t believe that they’re invincible, and carry with them a healthy respect for the mountains and an understanding of how things can turn very serious very quickly.
Although it might seem to a passing walker than runners are underdressed and under-prepared, in fact in many cases the runner might be more prepared than the walker. A runner’s gear tends to be lighter-weight and pack down smaller, but it does exactly the same job, and they’ll have all the same safety equipment, just not the lunchbox and thermos. I have a vast array of smocks and coats for every occasion, super-lightweight trousers etc, and any winter run in the mountains would be accompanied by a proper Paramo coat at the very least.
So having said that, where did I leave my brain last night? The club social run was a road run from Barrow to Walney Island over the Widows crossing. I was a bit late and when I got out of the car it seemed quite mild, so I made a half second decision that I didn’t need a wind or waterproof, or gloves, or any of the other amazing bits of expensive kit I had in my car. We were, after all, doing a road run, not the Helvellyn ridge.
Five minutes later it started to rain, not a little rain, but stare-rods, and accompanying this rain, was a near gale force wind. By the time we got to the crossing I was soaked to the skin and dripping wet. As soon as we put one foot on it, a storm of biblical proportions whipped up, with horizontal stinging hailstones and thunder and lightening. We carried on onto Walney, and to be honest, I may as well have not been wearing any clothes, and started to feel like the life was bleeding out of me. I’ve been like that once before, and recognised the signs early enough to know that this was bad. Someone lent me a windproof, and I turned back early for my car, running as fast as I could. It was a very odd sensation. I was nearly sprinting, and was breathing very hard as a result, but couldn’t feel a thing anywhere – total numbness of the whole body. There was no pain of fast running, no sensation of effort, just the sound of my breathing, which was a bit like listening to someone else’s breathing. I suppose it was like an out of body experience, except I was in the body it just didn’t feel like mine. I didn’t even feel cold, I just didn’t feel anything.
How embarrassing. I’ve been on Scafell in the snow with bare legs, been lost in a gale on Kirk fell, crawled across Wind Gap, but I nearly got Hypothermia in Barrow-in-Furness. So the moral of the story? Never go road running in Barrow…
oh-uh
29 December 07
Ben ill. I don’t think i’ve poisoned him, but i can’t be sure. Animals seem ok and so it’s maybe not the turkey.
(We didn’t cook the cockerel after all btw. I think he got wind and left home with his brood the week before Christmas)
turkey
28 December 07
day 4. even the animals are fed up of it now. the cat is looking at me with sardonic disdain. the dog is starting to wince at meal times.
fa la la la la, la la la la
15 December 07
Why do Christmas trees always look so small in the yard, but by the time you have them home they’ve grown to the size of giant redwoods?
Normally Ben does tree things, but as he’s in South America or Asia or somewhere (I’m losing track) I had to go it alone. It didn’t seem like much of a problem until I remembered the tree base was an oak tree trunk section, and it was somewhere in the log pile. Have you ever seen the world’s strongest man competition where muscle-bound hulks heave huge boulders across a car park? Well it was like that but without the cheering. It was as big as my torso, and I had to lug it up two flights of steps, making all the necessary grunting sounds. Having made it to the front door with all my ligaments and vertebrae intact, I congratulated myself to a job well done, until I realised that the hole in the middle was….square. Round peg, square hole. Damn. Fearing for my limbs, I passed up the chainsaw in favour of a trusty handsaw. ‘Only take me a minute’ I thought. Mmm. I can tell you that trying to make a square peg out of a 7ft Christmas tree with a rusty nailfile, to the tune of cock-a-doodle-do, is no way to spend your day off. As soon as it would go in the hole I decided the job was done, and the tree now stands pride of place in the front window at about a 45 degree angle, and I like it that way. To complete the effect, the outdoor Chistmas lights have been thrown up with similar chaotic flare. If it all remains up till the New Year I shall be amazed.
Haven’t bought a single present either (except a packet of Paxo for the cockerel), but there’s no hurry is there?
Winter
04 December 07
I keep telling myself that winter is ok. It’s a bit like a mantra that goes “it’s not that bad really, it’s not that bad really, soon be spring”. But some days I have to admit to myself that yes, it is that bad.
Anyone who lives in a town perhaps doesn’t appreciate how much you can be affected by the seasons, but when you live half a mile from the nearest streetlight you really start to notice that it’s December. Broughton’s so dark that I trip over my own dog on the way home from work. The only reason I get home at all is because the lane is so narrow that too far left and I hit a hedge, and too far right and I hit the wall.
Then there’s the wet. It seems to have been lashing it down for days, and everything is waterlogged and a foot deep in mud. I’d forgotten about this, but I seem to spend the whole of the winter covered in mud, and so does the house. I take my shoes off when I come into the house, but the dog’s just not in that mindset, nor the cat, and everything is covered in muddy footprints. The cat even makes pretty patterns on the duvet. This morning I went to let the chickens out and mud-surfed (uncontrolled) down to the coop – a move I’ve never completed in pyjamas before and one I’d rather not do again. As large puddles appear on what was my lawn, the hen house is starting to look more and more like an ark. More of an ark than my house anyway – I need more buckets for the drips, and if it gets worse I’ll be bailing soon.
But it’s not all bad. I have a nice fire going at night, and er… I have a nice fire going at night, and….it’ll soon be spring.
Smoke and no fire, again!
08 November 07
There I was experiencing a post lunch lull, my eyes slowly shutting in my warm office, when a 100 decibel alarm went off next to my ear. The alarm is set at such a level that people really would run from the building screaming, fire or no fire. Except if I ran from the building screaming then there would be no-one left to sort it out, and I wasn’t going to call the fire brigade again, even though it was quite amusing the last time.
Once the alarm was off and my ears had stopped bleeding, I did a tour of the building. Although I couldn’t see any smoke, there was a smell of smoke – not electrical, not paper or plastic, but something closer to a Saturday night burger van. I suspected my neighbour, and just to make sure no-one had thrown a smouldering kebab down my basement window, I went round to check. He emerged from a thick pall of blue smoke, obviously flustered, having annihilated some Chicken Kievs. I imagine he’ll have that smell indelibly printed on his mind, and his soft furnishings, for the rest of his life.
It makes me wonder if I maintain the smoke alarms for the street? Or perhaps all of Broughton. It is quite a big alarm box with lots of flashing lights, and it is in a place whicb resembles a bunker. Aha. Now it all becomes clear.
A year of fell running
07 November 07
The Dunnerdale fell race last Saturday marked my one-year anniversary of fell running. It’s the only race I’ve ever done twice, and the only one where I finished less than half way down the field.
It’s been quite an interesting year all in all. I’ve gained an addiction, dropped a dress size, and in most people’s eyes appear to be insane. The high mountains were a scary place then, and I still have a healthy fear of them, but I now have the skills and ability to deal it, and can do things that I would’ve once thought impossible. It’s also amazing what can become normal after a while – drinking from streams, running with blisters, bare bottoms in village halls, snot, wearing lycra in the pub and banana sandwiches to name a few.
I’ve done 16 fell races in total, covering 147 miles with 52,000ft of ascent. I was forced to re-hydrate afterwards with 40 pints of ale. Here are a few highlights:
Dunnerdale 2006 – my first fell race. I realised that I could do it, and wasn’t that bad either. I celebrated by getting blind drunk and throwing a bottle of red wine all over my pale carpet. I have a commemorative stain.
Fairfield Horseshoe – the race of the bum. The stiff breeze blew everyone’s racer shorts up, and all I could see was a long line of skinny pale bottoms up to the summit of Fairfield. It would have made a great photo.
Ennerdale – it was a lovely day out and I didn’t feel a thing. The morning sun shone from the east as we stood nervously in the rough bracken at the start. As I was nearing the finish (well about 2 hours from it) the late afternoon sun came out again, and gently baked the ground for the long grassy run back to the lake. Afterwards we drank beer and paddled.
Lakeland Country Fair – 1st lady! (because no decent runners turned up)
Three Shires – five pints good, six pints bad, but it was worth it to see Pete Tayler’s eyes point in different directions.
There have been a few memorable club social runs too, such as the night the whole club swam in Beacon Tarn, and particularly the one where we all got lost in a cloud on Birker fell and it went dark. Twenty people lost, and not one with a compass, whistle, phone or torch.
The season is all but over now, and next year is going to be challenging in a different way. I have results to compare against, and improvements now will be slower, but there will be improvements – watch this space!
The best thing about fell running...
24 October 07
…is getting really muddy, and then getting clean again. I’m not talking just a bit of mud here – I mean a lot of mud, so much that you have to actively scrub it off in the bath. Maybe this is just a weird fetish of mine, but there’s something very satisfying about it. The only downside is having to clean the bath afterwards. Even Ben, who is rough and ready, with a relaxed ‘man’ attitude to personal hygiene will refuse to get in the bath after me. Perhaps I ought to lobby for the return of the 1970s chocolate brown bathroom suite. (Incidentally I used to live in a house with one of those, complete with candy pink tiles. It was like bathing inside someone’s small intestine, and was a not a place you could ever visit if you felt queasy after a few pints.)
There are a few other good things about fell running of course. The views recently have been spectacular. Today I went on a recce of the Langdale fell race route (which was either a month too late or eleven months too early) and the weather couldn’t have been better with sunshine and perfectly clear skies. It was too good in fact, in that I was in no hurry at all, and kept stopping to admire the view. I think you could see just about every mountain in the lakes, and later as the sun sank low in the sky, the light made everything look bigger, more dramatic and far more beautiful. A few weeks ago, on one of the last hot days of the year, I was dreading the arrival of autumn, but now I take it all back. Running in cold sunshine is exhilarating.
The Bad Step – a small rant
24 October 07
I’ve never done the Langdale fell race, but today I went for a small look at it. I have a ‘race map’ which is very informative, marking all the shortcuts and with quite a bit of narrative about the course. It devotes a whole line to ‘the Bad Step’ off Crinkle Crags, which is, (and I quote), “a 10’drop into a gully that can be down climbed or possibly jumped”. Now forgive me here, but having looked at it and been down and then back up it, my verdict is that it’s a ‘F**king Awful Step’. Perhaps the narrative should read “a 10’ drop that can be abseiled or jumped by the mentally unstable and those able to take six months off work”. Jump onto what ? The 9 inch gap between that blade shaped rock, and that spear one? Or onto that 45° slope which will bounce you to infinity and beyond ? Yes, you can down climb it – if you have 36” legs, Mr Tickle arms and happen to be wearing rock boots.
I looked and didn’t like it, and was about to find a way round when a pair of far less nimble walkers managed to get down. Not to be outdone, I went too, trying to copy what the last lady had done. I put my leg down trying to find the ledge the lady had used but couldn’t find it. All my weight was on my arms, on two dubious handholds, so it was a relatively committed move. The husband was still there (luckily), and I asked him what ledge his wife had put her foot on. “My hand” he said. Great. He was very obliging, and offered his hand to me, which I gladly stood on to get down, but it wasn’t quite over yet.
The dog refused to come. She’s very agile and she’s scrambled before – but always up, and never really down. Anyway, she was terribly afraid and no amount of coaxing would get her even near the edge. We were creating a bit of a chimney-jam, with other walkers arriving to go up it, so I asked if anyone had a sausage roll. No-one. What kind of walkers are these ? No sausage rolls on a day out ? Anyway she was getting anxious as I think she thought I was going to leave her, and so I had to go back up.
But don’t listen to me. I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t get down on my own. I’m sure if I saw everyone else do it in a fell race, I’d hurtle myself over the edge too. In my mind, it still looks scary though.
Winter Opening Hours
13 October 07
It seems that winter opening hours will be on average 10 minutes later than summer opening hours.
It’s too dark in the morning, and I just can’t get up. Ok, so I don’t open till half nine and I have a 5 minute commute, but er… you shouldn’t buy anything before 10 anyway, it affects your credit rating.
(Forget the last bit, that was a lie. I have no reasonable excuse, only a goose-down duvet and a fat cat.)
what goes up...
08 October 07
If you’ve read the rest of this blog, you’ll know that I haven’t been fell running that long, and I suppose until now I’ve been riding on the crest of the wave. I’ve been working my way up the field all year, and the long races which seemed so unattainable in spring, came and went without any real pain and really without any huge degree of effort. I’ve never had cramp, I’ve never bonked, and I feel the same after five hours as I do after one. It made me think that I had an aptitude for it, and perhaps I was becoming a bit too nonchalant about the whole thing. I should have realised that sooner or later I would fall off the crest and get churned up and spat out, and that day was yesterday.
It wasn’t actually a fell race, but the Ian Hodgson Mountain Relay in Patterdale which is a team event in four legs where you run with a partner. I was put on last leg, and thought at the time that it was a good leg to be on because you get to go to the pub straight afterwards. But what I didn’t realise is that you arrive at the start at nine and then have four or five hours of build up and race nerves to contend with. The finishers relaxed and ate sandwiches, whilst I was checking and re-checking kit, and wondering whether it was banana-o’clock yet. The whole food thing is quite hard when you don’t know what time you’re going to start, and I was so afraid of breaking the routine that I ended up cooking porridge in a trangia by the car. It also didn’t occur to me how pressured a team event would be. If you stuff up in a fell race then you’ve only let yourself down, but in a team event you’ve let the others down.
There were 70 teams overall, and by the time we started the field was understandably quite spread out. (Borrowdale had already finished by that point). There wasn’t the rush that you get at the start of a fell race, just a feeling that you’d better go quickly, and for some (still) unknown reason, I just couldn’t. There was nothing wrong with the legs, I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t keep up, knew I was shockingly slow and then the demons crept into the head and made it all worse. I started to doubt myself, and as I pushed myself on the discomfort turned to pain. Mentally, I’d had it, and physically I wasn’t in a good way either. My lungs hurt, and I felt like my head was under water. I was also sweating, which I just don’t do (I’m a lady don’t you know).
By Cofa Pike I was nearly in tears – because I didn’t want to let everyone down but also because my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to. I was desperately thirsty and asked a walker for some water. His water had been chilled and carefully packed away in an insulated bag of it’s very own. I snatched it from him and drank like a man who’s just crawled out of the desert on his knees. It was going all over, and I imagine he was a bit disappointed I drank so much (and wasted so much down my front) but I just couldn’t stop. I did the trick though, and I started to cheer up. By Hart Crag, I finally felt like I was easing into things, and I ran the immense downhill faster that I’d ever done in my life. It didn’t make up for it though, and our time was disappointing.
So I still don’t know if it was physical or mental. Today I have a bad cough, but that might be because my lungs screamed for an hour and forty minutes yesterday. I also feel knackered, so it could be a cold, but then again it could also be a hangover. Did I do too much beforehand? Am I sickening for something or was I just having a bad day? Or was it all in my head? I’ve no idea, and am not sure I ever will know.
I was going to upload the picture, but didn’t want frighten anyone so i did a bit of selective editing. This is the sprint finish. You’ll just have to imagine the pained faces. Shortly after this was taken, I crawled behind a tree to die.
Solitude
11 September 07
I’m quite a sociable person in all aspects of life bar one. When I’m on the hill, I like it to be mine and mine alone, and for that reason I tend to stay off the beaten track if I can help it. Certain mountains fill me with horror. You know the ones – Coniston Old Man, Great Gable, Scafell Pike etc etc. On any given day and at any given hour, there are about 20 walkers, talking loudly in their lovely warm jackets, eating huge fat sandwiches and drinking hot tea. Do you think this could just be jealousy, as I shiver in my ultra thin windproof, suck some lukewarm water from a tube and swallow another chemical tasting gel? Possibly, I admit, but there are too many banana skins and people taking photos, and I always feel underdressed and conspicuous, so I tend to avoid them. Anyway, to the point…
On Sunday, I decided to do an early run from Patterdale, to beat the crowds, but also to get out and home before I was missed. It took me 45mins to get from Broughton to Patterdale, and during that time I saw two cars. Patterdale was silent and deserted, and it felt like the whole world was asleep. I set out from the car at quarter past seven, and ran up St Sunday Crag in glorious sunshine and solitude whilst the early morning mist hung in the valleys below. It was magical. I reached Fairfield shortly afterwards, and was just thinking of having a pee (is this too much information?) when a man waved at me from a cairn shelter. Now Fairfield is at least a two-hour walk from anywhere, and it was still before nine on a Sunday morning. Weirdo, I thought.
I ran on towards Hart Crag, and in the next ten minutes I saw five different groups of walkers. Now it’s just not on. What time do you have to get up these days for a bit of peace and quiet? I reached Sykeside half an hour later (so its still only quarter past nine) and there are two hundred runners in the Mountain Trial running about the campsite in random directions. I had to run through the middle, with people telling me I was going the wrong way. By ten I was back in Patterdale, to find I’d parked my car in the middle of a triathlon event that was now in full swing.
The journey home was quite stressful. The road was full of cyclists, and cars that couldn’t overtake them. I got stuck in a traffic jam at Kirkstone Pass, which seemed to be a change over point for the triathletes, but where the Mountain Trial men were also crossing the road. To add to the confusion, there seemed to be a Vespa Scooter convention outing or something, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse a bus load of tourists spilled out into the chaos, weaving in between the cars, bikes, scooters and runners, waving cameras. I hadn’t even had breakfast, and it was all getting a bit much.
Ambleside was like city centre London in rush hour. Couldn’t turn left at the roundabout. Never seen so many people, or Motor Homes. I did 20mph all the way to Coniston, behind a camper van which I’m sure its passengers were peddling, to find a charity bike ride in progress, so more cyclists, but this time ones who couldn’t ride in a straight line. It was eleven by then, and my ‘popped out for a newspaper’ story was going to be difficult to pull off. I didn’t even have a newspaper.
What has the world come to? Surely Sunday mornings are for lying in bed with a hangover, nursing a cup of tea and casting one eye over the paper. When did everyone get so active?
Notice to Reps
11 September 07
bring cake
where there's smoke...
27 August 07
...there are smokers, but not necessarily a fire.
After my great day out on Dow, I was on my way to The Prince for a calming ale, when someone told me the alarm at the shop was going off. I gave Tom my pie and pint order, and told him I’d see him in 10 mins. I thought it was odd that the alarm people hadn’t called me, but I soon realised it wasn’t the intruder alarm, it was the fire alarm. Weird, I thought. Shop was fine. I went downstairs and all was fine in my office and the kitchen, then I opened the next fire door to store room, and couldn’t see for the smoke – a thick wall of it.
I may have muttered an impolite word, and went outside to phone the fire brigade. The next bit could have been from a film. It was like Hot Fuzz, but with firemen. About twenty seconds after I called 999, Broughton’s part time fire service ran out of the Manor pub, and down the road past me. They returned after what seemed like another twenty seconds, in full firemen outfits, in a fire engine.
It wasn’t so serious as it turned out. A tremendous amount of smoke, and not really any fire. Someone had flicked a lit fag end down the grate covering my basement window, and it had set fire to the window frame. Amazingly the curtain hadn’t caught fire, because if it had the whole shop would have gone up, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of smoke it created.
So as they say, smoking kills, and setting fire to someone’s livelihood, no matter how un-intentionally, is a bit sh*t too.
Short day on Dow
27 August 07
I’d been pestering my brother-in-law (Tom) for ages to take me climbing, and finally he succumbed. I’ve not done much climbing, but every time I have been I’ve really enjoyed it and never felt worried at all. We settled on a Mild Severe on Dow Crag, which should have been within our capabilities – Tom leading, and me seconding, although it was a five pitcher which in itself would have been quite a challenge. Are you noticing the would haves and should haves here? You can see where this is going.
Tom set off and sailed up the first 10 metres or so, getting in two pieces of gear, neither of which he was particularly happy with, but he was doing fine and it didn’t matter. Then he came to a choice – crack or arête, and as the guidebook had talked about an arête, he went for that. We’re still not sure if it was wrong or not, but he got stuck on a fairly clean slab. He went a bit higher and just couldn’t find any holds. I began to notice that something wasn’t right, as he’s normally quite quick, and then began the awful commentary with rising terror in his voice. He couldn’t get any gear in. His last piece of gear was quite a bit below. He couldn’t get up, or across, and he was stuck on an exposed corner with his calf muscles about to give in. I felt completely powerless, and the fear in his voice was awful. When his leg began to pulse he had to move and it seemed the only way was down, but down-climbing is impossible, and we both knew where it would lead. He got down about a metre, and I was taking in rope when he went over the side and out of view. I saw it almost in slow motion, as he just slowly peeled off, and then saw rope running through my hands, which I quickly did something about.
He’d fallen eight or nine metres, and was upside down with his head inches from the ground. Foolishly, he wasn’t wearing a helmet. If he hadn’t have climbed down so I could take some rope in, he would have hit the rocks with his head. If I had let two more inches of rope out, he would have hit the rocks with his head. If the piece of gear had come out, he would have splatted on the rocks in spectacular fashion. Although not dead, he had a badly cut hand, rope burns and bruises on his legs and a sore back.
Mmm – a very sobering day, and a side to climbing I’ve never seen before. I’ve never felt afraid when seconding, but I was afraid on Dow, and watching someone else have a nightmare was almost as bad as having it myself. So 10 minutes into our long day on Dow, we packed up and left.
When running, I’m always amazed at how robust the body is, what it can withstand, and what it can do for you if you ask it. Yesterday I saw a different side – how fragile things can be, and how fine the line is between being well, and being dead. Maybe I should just stay in and watch the telly in future.
a customer just asked me...
20 August 07
if i was bored! That’s not good is it ?
I’m not bored, but once again my legs aren’t working, and I have the gait of a 75 year old arthritic man. Not very fast to say the least. Bit tired too.
Yesterday was the Lakeland Country Fair Fell Race up Consiton Old Man and back. Not very long i grant you, but it’s still taken its toll. I don’t know why, but i don’t sleep well after races. It’s either to do with the stress of the race on my body, or the five pints I have afterwards.
p.s. I won too, but perhaps because no-one good turned up. This is the advantage of being a woman in fell running. Just turn up and you’ll probably get a prize. I got a prize at the Broughton Mills race last week for second lady – second and last that was.
gorse
11 August 07
Anyone know how to remove gorse from hands? What evil stuff it is. I fell on a narrow path and stuffed my arm into a gorse bush with extreme force, leaving me with about twenty spines in my hand and fingers. The worst two were on the end of the thumb and forefinger on the right hand, meaning I couldn’t hold a pen (which is no great tragedy for me actually).
Last night I persuaded my sister to have a go at getting them out, and although she does have a passion for picking scabs and the like, she just couldn’t do it for fear of hurting me. Lucky then that Ben was there, as he had no inhibitions about hurting me at all. He pinned my arm to the table with glee, for this was payback for the time he had to go to the dentist after a 15 year lapse, and I jokingly told him only old ladies have anaesthetic for fillings. (I didn’t honestly think he would believe me, but you can still see the grip marks on the arm of the dentist’s chair.)
It was brutal and extremely painful, but effective. He got the worst ones out, but after half an hour my nerves couldn’t take it anymore, (despite downing a bottle of red wine during the ordeal) and so I’ve still got a few deep ones in.
As a result of the gorse removal I’m hungover today, and I have a race later. Bum.
first time for everything
05 August 07
I’m 31, and never before in my life have I had mud in my eyes, let alone tried to run with mud in my eyes. When doing the Wasdale fell race, I thought conditions were bad underfoot, but after Borrowdale I’m re-assessing my idea of bad conditions. Before we’d even started, I had wet feet and was covered in sheep sh*t, and so I should have had an idea of what was to come. (Also they announced that we wouldn’t be going up Scafell as Mountain Rescue had said it was too dangerous, so that was a big clue).
Bessyboot to Allen Crags was like trying to run in treacle. If it was ankle deep on Wasdale, then it was knee deep on Borrowdale, and for every time i was lucky and slipped but didn’t fall on Wasdale, I fell without even slipping on Borrowdale. I spent so much time on my knees, I should have crawled the first half, or swam it. Then came my most spectacular fall ever – think of the biggest, stickiest, blackest bog you’ve ever seen and then imagine throwing yourself face first into it. When I emerged, I was completely black, with mud and ‘bog bits’ in my eyes, ears and all over my face, not to mention all down the front of my body. I would’ve stopped for a bit to try and get the worst of it off, and at least the bits out of my eyes, but this fall took place in front of a huge crowd of spectators at Esk Hause, and so I made a sharp exit, and tried to run downhill blind. My downhill improved a great deal for it actually.
The next fun bit came on the descent off Dalehead. I slipped running downhill on wet grass and slid about five metres on my bum. It reminded me a lot of snowboarding, where you fall and are too frightened to dig your board in to stop yourself in case you go over head first. Sliding down on the bum was quicker than running and if I could have done it in a controlled way, then I would have. There was also a very interesting bit on a narrow path through the bracken. By the time I got there it, the path was foot-deep sludge, and every time your foot went down it slid about 10 inches. It was like scree running but on mud.
So, a good time was had by all, but no-one was really sure how they’d done because the race was two miles shorter. A mere 15 miles. So why won’t my legs work today ? I don’t normally do Sundays in the shop, but Marie’s gone to Shetland (bad luck Marie) so I’m here on my own, with my legs acting independently of the top half of my body. They’re refusing to use the stairs, and just sort of dig in at the top, unable to bend.
And I’m mildly hungover, insatiably hungry and unable to string together a coherent sentence. But hey, what’s new?
Dear customers,
30 July 07
Why do you only come in when I’m here on my own? As soon as Matthew comes in it’s like High Noon, (complete with tumbleweed), but when I’m here on my own, people spring from every direction, and they all want to try on boots at the same time. It looked like a boot bomb had gone off earlier on, or that I’d cobbled the floor in boots. Thirty pairs at least were on the floor, all out of their boxes, which again were strewn everywhere. I’d just finished putting them all back (i hope in the right boxes, but we’ll see) when Matt came in, and i then realised that everyone had gone away. I don’t think its Matt’s fault, he’s only mildly frightening.
At least I get lunch though, and a bit of blogging done. This is my second blog without mentioning the f word. (Fell running in case you’re not sure). It’s nearly Borrowdale though, and so I’m sure there’ll be more tales to tell soon.
p.s. Matt isn’t frightening at all. Please don’t stay away when he’s here.
Where has summer gone ?
21 July 07
I’m sure its not November, and yet an icy wind has blown through the shop all day, and now it appears that someone is throwing buckets of water at the windows. I was going to turn the heating back on, and then I remembered we didn’t have any.
The rain is deafening on the roof, and I’m not sure if I’ll be paddling or floating home tonight. It could be worse though – I could be camping. Awful. Poor campers.
I was just thinking that it’s amazing the roof hasn’t leaked after that downpour, but no, here it comes. I’ll go and fetch the bucket….
p.s. my shop is nice really, I just wouldn’t want to live here.
Wasdale & Coincidences
20 July 07
Isn’t it amazing how fear can turn to nonchalance? Wasdale, yeah, no problem. Just you know, ran round. Didn’t hurt a bit.
You see, I’ve forgotten already? To be fair, I did remember a bit of pain at the time – it was very wet underfoot, and for the first two hours my feet seemed to be under water. I couldn’t wait to get onto the ridge to find a bit of hard ground, but then began the dance of a thousand wet rocks. After three hours I was on Pillar, and it was then I realised that I still had about three hours to go. My mood blackened somewhat and I may even say that I became a bit grumpy. The traverse around Kirk Fell was awful. You couldn’t reasonably get off the path, but the path itself was impossibly wet and churned, and I started to lose pace in amongst a gaggle of people. (Apologies to Wendy Dodds at that point, I may have accidentally stuck out my elbow to stop you passing, but you did exact your revenge in very fine style later on). I struggled up Gable, struggled even more down Gable, and then on the way up Scafell got a second wind from somewhere and just took off, much to everyone else’s annoyance. It was great.
So, coincidences. During the Ennerdale race, I was ascending Pillar when the man in front of me collapsed screaming with cramp, so I stopped to help and so did the next man behind me. On Wasdale, I was descending Pillar, (so on the same piece of mountain) when the same thing happened. Different screamer, but the next man behind was the same man who helped the last time. What are the chances of that ? Was he real, or was he a figment of my oxygen-starved brain ? Perhaps he’s the ‘arch-angel fell-runner’, who comes down from heaven (which on Pillar, can’t be that far away) to help runners in distress. Or I could have just been high on endorphins and gel. Anyway, if he is an angel, he’s from Liverpool.
…mmm, this does seem to be turning into a fell running blog doesn’t it ? It seems I have nothing else to talk about, which either makes me boring or obsessed. Probably both. To give you a bit of background, this is all new to me you see. I’m an offcomer and used to work in an office, in skirts and high heels, and then I found myself in a very rural area on the fringes of the lakes. Why not go the whole hog, I thought, and lets forget the well-paid skirt and high heels job (I was an accountant, not an escort by the way) and work in an outdoor shop and be really poor. No f*ck it, I thought, lets be really really poor and buy the shop, sell everything I own, cash in my pension, and scrape every last penny out of the bank account, so could spend the next few years on the wages of a sixteen year old pot wash. That sounds a bit negative doesn’t it ? In fact it was the best thing I ever did. Money is vastly overrated. Anyway in the middle of all this getting involved in village life, I also got involved with a fell running club, and did my first fell race in November last year. So fell running is very new to me, and every race is my first attempt at that one, which is why I can’t stop going on about it. And because I’m addicted, of course.
Fair weather fell runner
18 June 07
To fill the gap in my life where Ennerdale used to be (how sad am I?) I’ve decided to do Wasdale, and thought that yesterday I would have a quick jog round it. All I can say is – Seatallan – what is the point of that hill ? On the map, there are no footpaths marked, and not even any faint trods. Now I know why. It is the most bleak, featureless, useless piece of mountain there ever was. Especially when you are in a rain cloud. Boggy, tussocky grass, sheep, dense cloud and rain. It was Kirk Fell all over again, but with a better coat, and less panic. I found the top by sheer chance I think, but then took a very very bad line down to the path (looked good on the map) which involved wading through waist high scratchy bracken, and sky-diving (nearly). By the time I reached the path, Seatallan had taken all my energy for the run away (…and I was wet through…and my map was de-laminating) and after a 10 minute think, I decided to go down rather than up. I’m not sure it was all Seatallan’s fault. I think I am a fair weather fell runner.
And of course, by the time I reached the car, Wasdale was bathed in glorious warming sunshine. Bugger, said I. That’ll teach me.
and it was too...
11 June 07
Well, I don’t know what I made all that fuss for. It was no trouble at all. (I have this theory that child-birth and fell running have a lot in common. At the time you say never ever again, but one sleep later and you seem to think that you had a lovely time and that it didn’t hurt at all. Not that I’ve done the child-birth thing.)
No but really, I think I did have a nice time. The weather was as good as it gets, if not a little too warm, but considering that on recces I’ve been lost in cloud, had to crawl across the aptly named ‘Wind Gap’, and have been pelted in icy rain, I couldn’t have asked for more. The first climb was gruelling, but after a couple of hours i started to relax and enjoy myself. I ran most of the last two hours and finished in fairly good condition. My legs are amazingly fine today, I’m just a bit wiped out still, so apologies again to anyone who’s been in the shop today. I’m no longer nervous, just a bit slow on the uptake.
My only grumble is that I can’t sit down in comfort due to a massive bruise on my derriere, or kneel down due to bruises on knees and ankles, or in fact lie down due to missing bit of skin on my back (hydration + cropped top issues). I’ll just have to stand, or run.
Now its all over, I’m actually a bit sad. I’ve thought of nothing else since March, and I’ll miss the endless discussions in the pub over battered OS maps, about the best way down Gamlin End, (there is no good way down Gamlin End), debates about kit, ‘fluid strategy’ and whether licking your own forehead is useful on a long race.
I suppose I’ll have to choose a new challenge. Problem is, it’s like a drug, and you have to keep moving onto harder and stronger stuff to get your kicks. Who knows where this will lead?
Happy Birthday
08 June 07
Today is my 364th day as owner of the The Mountain Centre, and all in all, it has not been a usual day. For a start i have done no work, spouted gibberish for most of the morning, checked the weather four hundred times, and have seemingly been in some kind of bizarre and unpleasant eating competition with myself. So apologies to anyone who came in today (including Pete from Vango who waited patiently for an hour for me to compose myself enough to compile an order, and eat a couple of pastries, of course).
Those who used to work with me would recognise all the signs of a monster hangover (apart from the weather fixation), but i swear it was only two glasses of wine. No, these symptoms have been brought on by a prolonged period of insanity which caused me to enter, and then recce/train for the Ennerdale Horseshoe Fell Race. It’s tomorrow and I don’t think i’ve ever been this nervous. Last night, when preparing my map (under the influence of the aforementioned two glasses of wine) i put all the wrong compass bearings on it. People like me shouldn’t be allowed on the hills. Maybe they’ll turn me away at the start, recognising that on my last recce i nearly died in a blizzard on Kirk Fell (ok, so it wasn’t snowing, but it felt like it). I think the heat will be the problem tomorrow though.
So this could be the first and last blog entry. The beginning and the end. I didn’t mean for my first year anniversary to be spent this way, and i would have had a small party in the shop if i’d been in. I’ll have my small party at Ennerdale Lake instead, or maybe in Furness General.
I hope I make it…
