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...
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