Took a few days off as I knew on the 7th and 8th I would be run ragged, an I was! I was asked by Jim Hall from Salomon if I was available to join the Salomon elites, who were in town on their annual advanced week, on a few runs as a local runner and being fairly knowledgeable on routes. I was informed it would be 'really slow, about 10k, and lots of photography stops' famous last words!
I rocked up to the hotel on the morning of the 7th and walked into the dining room, where all the athletes and behind the scenes staff were eating breakfast. My first thought was 'I'm so out of my comfort zone' surrounded by people you only see on videos and in magazines, all just chilling out and eating! I was given a care package by Salomon and went off to get changed ready to run about 30 minutes later.
The group I had was made up of Ricky Lightfoot, Tom Owens, Ryan Sandes, Remi Bonnet and one of the footwear technical guys, Felix. Joining us was another local runner, Phil Winskill, who I had heard of but never met. Ricky immediately suggested Bob Graham leg 1, which is fine, at my own pace, not with some of the best and quickest guys on the planet though! Thankfully, for filming purposes they decided to head up from the village under Carlside, so whilst they ran across the fields from the hotel, I bummed a lift with the photographer and got a head start on the climb to the summit.
They eventually caught me just after the tarn, and whistled past having a crack as if they were running downhill at leisure! Conditions at the summit weren't great, super cold, visibility zero and the ground a mixture of snow and slush. Tom & Ricky said they would carry on and the rest of us turned and headed back via Jenkins Path. I absolutely walloped my big toe on a slab hidden in the slush, and by the time we had decended to the shepherds monument my foot was pretty sore, so I ran on well behind the group.
The next day the group I was with consisted of Rickey Gates, Max King, Remi Bonnet, Martina Valmassoi and Greg Vollet - the team manager. My foot was still mega painful, but I headed out with them up the side of Latrigg towards the car park, not surprisingly they dropped me before we even got over the A66 bridge, but to my surprise they did come back for me! Talking about how they had seen my video, and asking what the transplant means in relation to running, and how, when I run so much, it affects me so much on the climbs. Once we hit the car park I pointed out the route up Jenkins path, and the sheep trod which would take them to Lonscale Summit, and I would meet them on the Cumbrian Way below Lonscale. Also at the car park the Barefoot Maestro Aleks Kashefi and Lucy Stephenson had just finished up a run, so I stood and talked to Aleks about his upcoming E1 trail challenge, a ridiculous 4000mile run North to South through Europe!!
The two days with the Salomon athletes was a runners dream, they are all super nice people with no ego's at all, just people that love running, and who are fortunate enough to do it for a living! And getting run with Rickey Gates was just awesome, one of my running idols without a doubt, and genuinely one the nicest people on the planet.
Following on from this I was feeling psyched up and wanting to push myself, so I set myself a mini challenge, 5 Skiddaw summits in 5 days, each after work. Joined on the first day by George and Adrian O'Brien we had a leisurely ascent and then tried to teach Ade the art of downhill skipping, which he thought was hilarious, but ultimately very effective! I don't know how, but I managed to impale myself on the gate latch, of a gate I was actually holding open, no broken skin, but the bruise was appearing almost instantly.
The 2nd day I was on a solo mission, George was at Mountain Rescue training, so I powered up the hill to be met with a wonderful sunset. The descent was a painful affair though, the bruising in my leg made descending quite comical I would imagine. It was right over my ITB and every downhill step it just pulled like crazy. I lost a full 6 minutes just on the Jenkins zigzags.
The third day, even at work I knew I couldn't go out that night. Limping all day sealed the fact that a night off was necessary. On the 4th day I hit up Grisedale, figuring at half the distance and if it was painful, I only 2 and a bit miles of descent to grit my teeth through! Day 5 I hit Grisedale again with George and Zoe from Wilder Guides. We had planned on Skiddaw, but as it was ensconced in a snow/hail storm we decided to go to Grisedale which was bathed in sunshine! It turned out to be the right choice as we never saw any of Skiddaw from the climb up Grisedale, and friends who'd ran Latrigg that night confirmed how horrible it had been! Instead we were treated to a beautiful sunset with views over West Cumbria.
A few more runs in the latter stages of the month managed to get me up to:
88.29miles
28,152ft
16 runs.
Still running virtually every mile in the Inov 8 terraclaw, starting to feel quite a lot of the ground through them now, but 330+ miles and over 105,000ft of ascent & descent on them since I got them! Time for some spending!
A 7 day slog at work, including 8:45-23:00 on the first of 7 days pretty much rendered the final week run free, but myself and George snuck in a Walla circuit, on which I matched my PB despite feeling tired and slow, good signs! Which reminds me, set a 6 minute PB on Coledale Horseshoe in there somewhere too!
Remi, Ryan, Ricky & Tom
Breezing up Carlside
MMB, Micha, Yngvild, Matina & Mira
Mira Rai
Myself, Aleks, Rickey & Max
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