Mountain daze

After the battering we took on BGR leg 2 in the heat, I rested for 2 days. My next run was a pretty enjoyable romp up the little fell out the back of town, nothing too sinister with about 600ft in 3.5miles. The next day, and my last holiday day, I had decided on Coledale Horseshoe. However upon reaching the summit of Grisedale Pike I had zero motivation to do anything other than head straight back down to the car! I posted my 2nd fastest ascent on the climb up, but the 11,500ft of climbing in the 7 days previous to this run had my legs at their limit!

I had a new energy drink with me on Grisedale Pike, Mountain Fuel (mountainfuel.co.uk) Extreme Energy, a powder you make up into a drink, it was a good first test, a second fastest ascent on battered legs!

Speaking with the man behind Mountain Fuel, Rupert Bonnington, he said it was best to sip away at the drink before my run to allow the drink to be absorbed and to work properly. So before myself and Byron headed out after work one night, I sipped away for around 2 hours before we set off. We headed over Walla Crag to Ashness Bridge and back along Falcon Crag, a usual after work jaunt of 6miles with 1300+ft of ascent. I smashed over 6 minutes of my PB, rocket fuel!!

Further to the energy drink there is also Morning Fuel, another powder to be added to your breakfast before you run, so on my next day off I added it to my breakfast, and made up the drink in 500ml of water. The plan was a double ascent of Skiddaw from Keswick, but I had woken not feeling great, and the weather on top was awful was awful, so I stuck to one ascent! Hitting Little Man on the descent, still ok for 3077ft in less than 9 miles.

Windy at the top!

By mid afternoon I felt better and I was raring to go, so I headed out and tagged Latrigg in the sunshine, setting a faster than average ascent time.

View on the Latrigg climb

A rest day then myself and George headed out after work to reignite the 'Sunday Skiddaw' tradition. 2 days earlier I had hit the summit only 57seconds slower than my PB and gone on to run Latrigg again that night. On Sunday, after a busy day on my feet at work, I hit the summit only 20 seconds slower than my PB! Once again with the Mountain Fuel energy drink on board. We tagged little man on the descent as I had on Friday, and finished 5minutes quicker than Friday.

Another Stella Skiddaw summit in summer!

Game of Thrones- Little Man edition

Out of the clag and hammering down Jenkins Path

The long run this week would be a solo jaunt, so I decided to head to my favourite playground, Buttermere! I often run the 9 mile circuit up Red Pike and across to Fleetwith Pike and and back along the lake shore, and always wanted to add in the 3 peaks on the final leg of the BGR. 

Setting off in the opposite direction to usual I headed straight up Snockrigg, a surprising 1200ft climb in a mile to start the day.... 

Unassuming but steep!

After Snockrigg you traverse a bone chillingly cold bog and then climb up to Robinson, descend and climb Hindscarth and finally descend and climb Dale Head - the 3 summits of BGR leg 5, albeit in reverse. From Dale Head there is a fun & fast descent to Honister Slate Mine, where I made use of the facilities and had a can of coke as a wee treat! 

As you leave Honister

From the mine there is a boring stone staircase until you reach the trail headed out to Haystacks. One of my favourite fells, it encompasses running with easy scrambles, but it breaks the climbs into fun sections rather than just plodding up hill!

The view over Innonimate Tarn

Buttermere & Crummock and the last big climb 'Gamlin End'

After Haystacks there's a sharp rise upto Seat, a small drop and then you're faced with Gamlin End. Coming in at less than 400mtrs long it climbs 800ft, and after 4000ft and 9 miles already, I wasn't thrilled!. As it happened I just put my head down and put one foot infront of the other and soon enough I had crested the summit and was running again to the Comb Crag ridge. There's a small incline between high Stile and High Crag, and then onto the final summit, and my favourite- Red Pike. Atop the summit I stopped to talk to a family who were doing the C2C and left them with the last of my energy pancakes as I shot off down the 2 mile 2400ft descent into Buttermere, where I finished with a swim!

The energy pancakes are a mix of the Morning Fuel, banana, dates & cranberries made into what I would call drop scones, rather than what I call pancakes. I had one with a banana for breakfast, another climbing Dale Head, one on Haystacks and a final one on Redpike, that was all the food I ate, and they aren't big! I had miscounted the energy sachets I had though, and ended up resorting to my previous set up of water and a hydration tablet. I could feel the difference on the run, my legs were a hey much quicker, and even today they are stiffer than any previous outings when I have used the drink. I'm yet to try the other 2 products from mountain fuel, a recovery powder and a night powder, both aimed at recovery from big days out. Main reason being that I keep forgetting to pack them when I go out running!

After the Buttermere Horseshoe I went to see Rupert again to report back on my testing of Mountain Fuel, and can happily state that they are committed to being supporters of my HeartTransplant Bob Graham training and attempt! 

 

The Start Of Something Big

So in my last blog, back in May, I outlined my intention to hopefully complete a fabled Bob Graham Round on my 25th transplant anniversary in 2017. From that point I continued on with my regular running, a couple of Walla Crag ascents, a 5k and a longer run each week, not diving into big miles and big climbs immediately. Unfortunately after running the 25km route at Ennerdale I over worked a tendon in my left ankle, which led to over 2 weeks in June without so much as a jog.

Once the swelling, and pain started to dissipate I gently eased back into it with a couple of days just running 1 mile at a time, then up to a 5k and then back to Walla Crag, suitably impressed that my ankle was holding up, I made the decision to start training more towards a possible BG attempt!

25th June 

9:10am I set off up Spooney Green Lane below Latrigg to complete my first recce of the first leg of the BG. As it would be my longest proper fell run in quite a while I set off pretty easy, fast hiking to the top of the Jenkins Path zig-zags and the running to the final climb just below the summit gate. I was about 15 minutes off PB pace, but my legs still felt quite fresh, and I still had 8 miles and 2000+ ft of climbing to go!

The descent to the bottom of Calva went really well despite the expected boggy conditions, and I had gained quite a lot of time back with the speedy downhill. At the top of Gt Calva I was only about 20minutes off a 4hour schedule for the leg, which boosted my confidence. Following the fence line down too far left me way off course for Mungrisedale Common, and I had to track sideways whilst headed to the river to cross.

At the same time my colleague and friend George had set off about an hour behind me (turned out to be 54 minutes after me) and we had guesstimated that he would have caught me by the climb up Mungrisedale, and I was often looking backwards to see if he was near! Mungrisedale Common is a boring expanse of big tufts of grass on a reasonably steep incline, and it really drained me, I couldn't find a rhythm and felt like I was making no progress at all, and in fact posted my worst mile time of the day on there! Once I made it to the flattish plateau I found some more speed and then began the incline to gain the summit of Blencathra. AboIt 100mtrs from the summit George final caught me, and I was glad to see he was just as wasted as me! A quick photo on a zero visibility summit and we headed off down Halls Fell Ridge.

Coming off the summit we could see nothing and took our time picking our way down the damp and slippy ridge line until it opened out into the more runnable trail down to Threlkeld. We walked through Threlkeld, grabbed a couple of cokes and then ran back to Keswick along the railway line. I say ran, it was definitely a shuffle :-)

The next day I ran my local 'Turkey Field' 5k and felt surprisingly good, though my quads were protesting a touch, after a rest day we went out after work and hit Walla Crag where I set a new PB for the route, only really finding the steeper stuff hard on the legs.

Another rest day then myself and Matt from Lakeland Mountain Guides headed out to Loweswater for another of my favourite short routes, over Fellbarrow and Low Fell, a 5.3 mile run with 1300ft of climb, mostly in quite short but very steep inclines. I felt ok, but a little achey on the climbs.

2 days later on 1st July it was long run time again.

The heatwave had landed! 26c when we left Threlkeld car park to run the second leg of the BG, myself, George and another colleague Dan. We had decided on a 5-6hour schedule considering the heat and the sheer amount of water we all carried!

The initial climb up Cloughhead took me an age, partly due to feeling water dripping from my bag, stopping to investigate and to check my hydration bladder took me a good few minutes as I wanted to be certain that the leak wasn't more serious than the hose not being fully tightened up. After that hiccup we moved swiftly over the tops, reaching Helvellyn faster than on any of my previous outings on this range. After the long descent from Dollywagon Pike to Grisedale Tarn we dropped the bags and had a few minutes in the Tarn to cool off. We had already decided the direct approach to Fairfield up Cofa Pike, and we felt good having made good time to this point. However sheltered from the wind the sun had us at its mercy, and all 3 of us struggled to the summit under the relentless, energy sapping heat. 

Descending Fairfield and looking up to Seat Sandal was pretty depressing, my legs still felt good but I was beat from the sun all day, it was a true slog to the top, and then the final decent back to the car waiting at Dunmail Raise, where we all promptly laid on the grass verge eating & drinking the supplies we had left in the car there.

Physically I felt better after the 2nd leg recce than the first, despite eating less, being abused by the heat and the extra 2000ft of climbing. And the day after (today) apart from my body craving food all day, my legs felt fine, no DOMs no tightness and no need to walk downstairs backwards! I did however err on the side of caution and took today as a rest day, but fear not, I'll be back out there tomorrow! 

It's going to be a long journey...