A Day Out With Bob Graham

Bob Graham. A name synonymous with fell running. A route of 42 peaks in the Lake District England, almost 70 miles and near enough 30,000ft of ascent, to be considered as completing it, you have 24 hours in which to complete it. The full route is not to be taken lightly, many people train for a long long time before attempting a full round, and I would be lying if I said I didn't have ambitions of completing it one day, though medical reasoning will probably prevent me.

Thankfully, for mere mortals such as myself, the route is dissected by roads which break it down into five individual legs, measuring 10-16 miles each. 

Myself, AgentA and our friend Hannah agreed to run the second leg on Friday. The 2nd leg begins in a small village called Threlkeld, just outside of Keswick, and runs up the front of a mountain called Clough Head.

Clough Head from the car park

The climb up is pretty hard going, starting on tarmac, turning into boggy mulch and then a steep clamber up to the summit. We set off at an easy jog, knowing we had 13.5 miles of mountains to contend with, and an unknown snow situation on top! The climb was hampered by heavy winds, and once we reached the snow line it became apparent that under 2-4" of powdery snow it was solid ice!

Hannah & I on Clough Head Summit

From Clough Head we descended briefly and then climbed back up to Great Dodd and on to Watson's Dodd, then a shallow climb up to Stybarrow Dodd. From Stybarrow you get a nice descent to Sticks Pass and then we had a slow, icy climb up to Raise, where we chatted briefly with a guy who had ran the full route in 2005, he advised us our basic approach was well founded - fast hiking the uphills and running the rest! A nice flat run out to White Side took us to our 5th summit of the day. The ridge line up to Helvellyn Lower Man was literally an ice slide working against us! We got a boost by making good ground on some hikers with ice axes and crampons on! We got a cheer from the 5 or 6 people on the plateau between Lower Man & Helvellyn, they probably didn't expect anyone to be running up there!! 

 The View to Ullswater from Helvellyn, partially frozen Red Tarn

We hit the summit of Helvellyn after about 4 hours, so a little behind schedule, but considering the conditions underfoot, and stopping to talk to a few people, we figured we were doing OK! We descended and climbed up to Nethermost Pike and continued on to Dollywagon Pike.

Descending from Dollywagon Hannah clipped a rock with her foot and took a pretty bad fall, clearing about six feet before she hit the deck. She cracked her knee off another rock on landing and just saved a head injury by getting her arms in front of her face just in time. Panic and the sick feeling hit her straight away, and we sat for 10 minutes making sure she was OK and reassuring her the sick feeling was just the shock and panic at taking a tumble. 

We continued with the mindset to complete the route and bag the last 2 peaks, but the steep decent to Grisedale Tarn in knee deep snow took its toll on Hannah's knee, and we decided to follow the Raise Beck down to Dunmail Raise to the other car.

All said and done we bagged 10 peaks, slogged out 11.6 miles and hit 4603ft of climb! Hannah is thankfully fine, a bit bruised but no damage, she was out cycling yesterday! 

Agent A on the descent to Grisedale Tarn

I took yesterday (Saturday) as a rest day, apart from work! But tonight myself and Agent A decided on a little shake out run! My legs felt pretty good considering Friday's exertion, so we rocked up to Spooney Green Lane to run Latrigg.

The initial ascent (about 1000ft in 1.75 miles) went pretty well, my legs felt about normal and no where near what i expected them to feel! At the start it was raining and as we ascended the rain turned to sleet and then to snow. When we hit the summit it was coming down pretty heavy and settling fast, also blinding us as it reflected our headlamps! Descending off the back of the fell i took a pretty ridiculous tumble, sliding on the snow covered grass, Agent A soon followed as his laughter at my misfortune ended up with him flat on his back about 10 feet behind me! Once into Brundholme wood the snow turned back to rain and the trails became a lesson in keeping your footwear attached in some serious MUD!

No one does mud like Great Britain, it sucks energy almost as well as it tries to steal shoes from your feet!! all in all we did 5 miles for about 1300ft of ascent and ran all but the 2 staircases in Brundholme Wood, not a bad shakeout!