An update on the adventures of the orange rucksack and I, now I’ve made it through the past few weeks in one piece! I’m looking happy on my photo……why am I looking happy…….I’m in the mountains of course, adventuring and not getting lost!
I’ve spent the last few weekends in the British Lake District again, and I have to share some photos of what you know I consider to be the most beautiful place in England. If you ever get the chance to visit, you must go! I haven’t always felt this way about the Lake District. I’ve only really appreciated it as I’ve got older. I remember going when I was younger, when all you want is excitement, and and thinking “Gosh, this is so boring!” It’s only as you get older, and you long to get away from it, that you really start to appreciate it. Mountains, water, clouds, silence, wilderness, lovely people, never ending places to explore and good food. The perfect combination. And of course, I needed to practice my navigation from my recent course because I’m still cross with myself for not completing the orienteering task! I can’t let it go!😂
I don’t normally go for two weekends in succession but there was a reason for it. I was going up anyway, because I was running in the Ullswater 10k on the Sunday, so I thought I’d make it a full weekend and go up on Saturday too.
Then a rather unexpected turn of events occurred. The running club really wanted to enter a ladies team in the British Fell Running Relay Championships 2023, in addition to two men’s teams, the weekend after my Ullswater race. They have not entered a ladies team for a number of years. I said if they were short I would be a substitute, because even though I’m one of the golden oldies of the club, in my mind I’m Eliud Kipchoge!😂 My saying is……………you’ve got to be in it the win it! I volunteered to go as a supporter and be both cheerleader and official team cake baker. So that was the deal until about a week and a half before the championships when I got the message that said, “Please can you run, we are one down?”
My first thought was, “You’ve got to be joking!” surely there is someone else in the club that can take this one on that’s a couple of decades younger than 52 and a bit faster. But I was told “No, you’ll be fine, we haven’t got a hope of winning anything we just want to go for a good fell running day out! No pressure, so you’ll be amazing.” So I excitedly agreed to take part, and just told them to let me know which leg I was running. “Leg 2 with Helen”, was the reply.
Well to cut a long story short “Holy Shit” is what I actually thought. Never in my life have I actually lost so much sleep about an event and woke up dreaming and sweating in the middle of the night thinking about it. It’s run as a relay with four legs. Leg 1 was a fully flagged 4.6km and 470m of ascent, Leg 3 (run as a pair) was a navigational leg of 10km with 705m of ascent, Leg 4 was a part flagged 6.9km and 560m of ascent …………….and guess what……………..Leg 2 (run as a pair) was 12.6km with 1030m of ascent. Not to worry I thought, I’ve absolutely got this….our esteemed leader and race organiser knows what he’s doing and he’s obviously put me on that leg for a reason, I’ll just give it my best shot.
The maps were released a couple of weeks in advance for all but the navigation leg so I had a cunning plan. On the Saturday, before the Ullswater 10k, I would have a steady walk around Leg 2 just to familiarise myself. So the Friday night before was spent with a cup of tea, compass, bar of chocolate and my map………..I know how to rock and roll on a Friday night! The directions for Leg 2 said ‘This is a tough test of all-round fell running ability, runners should have suitable prior experience before setting of on this one!” And lets not forget this is the British Championships………..full of elite runners from age 17. So a bit of a baptism of fire for my first proper fell run at 52 years old, a couple of weeks after I’ve learnt how to hold my compass the right way up!
Saturday came and off I set with my orange rucksack, a friend for moral support, my compass bearings, my picnic and a lot of enthusiasm, which is me all over.
Well what a beautiful 12.6km route. I’m a trail runner and not really a fell runner. Is there a difference you say? Yes, a big one! When you trail run you don’t go up as high. You tend to run on hills not mountains and you almost always run on trails and paths. With fell you don’t run on paths or trails all of the time you take a compass bearing and run whichever way is quickest and easiest to get you between two points and you will do much more ascent and descent, it’s much, much harder and I’m sort of out of my comfort zone here, but I like that. I’m fine walking in this terrain, I love it, but running is completely different. We don’t have too many official ‘mountains’ in the UK, defined as big hills over 610 metres above sea level, but the majority are in the Lake District and this Leg 2 route took in some beautiful ones.
I set off from the beautiful little village of Braithwaite, 108m above sea level, on a glorious autumn morning with the sun peeping through a moody sky. First big hill, Outerside, at 568m it narrowly misses out on being a mountain. The Lake District is one area in the UK which is well known for having all the seasons in one day and this was one of those days. The heavens opened at that point with a beautiful rainbow and an hour of heavy rain. The views were just superb and I was really enjoying it.
Well, I was enjoying it until I got to Eel Crag. At 839 meters this is most definitely a mountain. I checked my compass bearings for the Leg 2 route and something did not seem right. According to my bearings it looked as though rather than taking the path, the race route was taking us on a vertical scramble all the way up the face of the crag. I could have cried as I don’t like heights. But I’m absolutely not one to be defeated so off I went up the face on all fours while chuntering under my breath all sorts of expletives about the course not being runnable and questioning the route choice. My able assistant said, “Just stand on that ledge and turn around and look at the view!”…………… I might have ‘lost it’ at that point. I’m hovering 200 meters above the ground on a small piece of slippery rock being asked to look at the view. I was convinced the view would look exactly the same from the top so I declined and carried on.
But the view did not look as good from the top because it started hail stoning, with snow in the air, and the cloud came in………yes, frozen balls of ice, being blown into my face in gusting wind. By this point I’m starting to lose my enthusiasm a little, but fortunately the storm passed over as quickly as my tantrum and I located the trig point. I clung onto it for a while to prevent myself being blown over while I commenced the search in my rucksack for my hat. Yes, that’s another thing………my hair! Goodness, it’s got a complete mind of it’s own. I’m seriously thinking of having all my curls cut off because when I’m adventuring my hair is on a completely different adventure all of it’s own, and it’s not normally to the same place as me.
Eel Crag was conquered, its descent was followed by another ascent onto the next mountain, Sail, at 773m, most definitely another mountain. It’s a beautiful ridge walk across to Sail and a lot more runnable than Eel Crag. It was an uneventful climb up, and then all the way down the other side. When you look back the descent off Sail looks beautiful, like a snake slithering down the side of the mountain.
Sail was descended and it was then up another, Causey Pike, at 637m it is another mountain. By now I’m getting a bit tired, my quads are screaming at me and I’m thinking this is all well and good walking it, but I’ve got to run it next weekend, not saunter around like Dora for a few hours with a picnic. Up Causey Pike, down again and then up and down the final big hill of Barrow at 455 m. So in total that’s up and down 3 mountains and 2 big hills. 12.6km and 1030m of ups and 1030m of downs. I got to the end looking exhausted and a bit wild, like I’ve been caught in a storm…………of wait a minute………I have!!!! . The race briefing says the winners will be in in 1 hour and 15 minutes…………………. I check my watch………….it’s just taken me 6.5 hours to walk it!! 😂
Then I suddenly remember I’ve got a 10k competitive race to run in the morning and I can hardly walk now. Anyway to cut a long story short I found a lovely Italian, filled up with pasta, had a nice hot soak in the bath (obviously feeling sorry for myself as I only get a bath when I’m feeling in pain or poorly)……and got up the next morning as fresh as a daisy and raring to go!!
I love this race, the Ullswater 10k. It’s nice and undulating and you get a boat ride from the bottom of the lake to the start at the top, which first thing on a Sunday makes you glad to be alive. It’s gorgeous. It took me a couple of kilometres to get into this one but I amazed myself. I was starting getting a bit dejected with my marathon training these last few weeks because I’m not a road runner, I really don’t like it. I like to be stomping through the fields, woods, mountains, streams and mud. Anyway, my belief that I will be running down the Champs Elysees like Paula Radcliffe, must be paying off as I was quite pleased to be 7.5 minutes quicker than last year and 2nd placed V50 lady. So all in all it was a weekend well spent in a beautiful location.
It was then just seven days to go to the British Championships and I was getting really nervous, well and truly out of my comfort zone and in full realisation that I’m really going to struggle. At this point I’m keeping quiet from my lovely Leg 2 partner Helen that I’ve walked the Leg and it’s the route from hell and will involve us climbing up a near vertical face for fifteen minutes, it’s pointless two of us worrying. I’m normally a really good sleeper but for three nights I woke around 4am dreaming about the impending race. Then the e-mail came though from our club organiser about a survival bag being necessary……….”Have you got one?” he asked. I joyfully replied “No, but I’m bringing a coffee and walnut cake!” And I wasn’t being flippant or joking……………..I’m sorry…………….but if I’m going to die I’d rather die cold than hungry!! This is me we are talking about, on the list of essential kit the cake comes well above the survival bag! Looking on the positive side of things there’s a chance I’ll survive without the bag but if I pull this one off there’s not a hope in hell’s chance I’ll survive without cake!
The fateful weekend arrives, and so does storm Babet, with half the UK under water! They’ll call it off or instigate the bad weather route I thought hopefully. But, no, this is the British Fell Running Championships….fell runners are supposed to be tough and up for anything! I packed my running pack with the essential kit I had to carry: full waterproofs (top and bottom with taped seams), survival bag, compass, map, hat, gloves, whistle and emergency food…………….yes, I’ve got to carry all that as well as get myself around. But I took extra special care not to forget the cake.
I slept quite well because I think I’d exhausted myself worrying about it. The following morning was a little dull, the cloud was down and it was very claggy and damp but there was no wind and rain. I was buzzing and raring to go. The race headquarters were in a field on a farm at the bottom of the mountain. The team tent was already erected when I arrived, complete with cake tin much to everyone’s delight. Racing got underway for Leg 1 and Helen and I made our way to the holding pen ready for the arrival of Valentina back from Leg 1 to tag us so we could set off. Then it was ready, steady, go, and off we went. Whilst theoretically, on the road, we are well matched runners, Helen has so much more experience than me on the fell, and the benefit of being 10 years younger, and I was clung onto the the back of her all the way around. It didn’t start too well, which did not worry me because I always get stronger and it takes me a good few miles to get into my stride. By mountain number one I was in the emergency food, but it worked, and after a sudden intake of sugar I felt much better. Conditions were good until we got to the scramble. Navigationally we only made one mistake. Cloud was down and thick on the top of Eel Crag but it was the only compass bearing we had to take, the rest of the route was clear.
We chipped away at it one mountain at a time. We chatted about all sorts (when we could breathe) to take away the pain, everything from running to hormone patches were covered, and yes, we completed it and finished relatively unscathed in 2 hours and 52 minutes. A major improvement on my 6.5 hours the week before but well behind the leading men’s team who finished in 1.25 hours! But hey, this was to find the fastest and best fell runners in Britain, the 52 year old who prioritises cake over a survival bag was never going to be on the podium! So, we came 234th out of 247 teams.🤣But we did it!! This was an extremely tough course to find the champions of the country. Only 8 other V40 female teams teams entered. All six of our team made it around and we had a fantastic Saturday, full of running and cake, and there may have been a little beer after the running too! I am so lucky to be part of such a lovely team and so proud of our efforts on Saturday.
I think they are all wanting a re-run next year. But being 10 years older than most of them I think I am going to volunteer my services as team cake maker for next year and let someone younger take my place! It’s not just the running it’s the recovery, two days after and my quads are absolutely trashed from those downhills I’m sliding down the banister at home and I have had to take the elevator in the shopping centre because I can’t get down the steps.
So here’s to team mates, mountains, cake, good times and believing you can achieve the impossible! So after being told by my mother, complete with wagging finger, that I need to start acting my age and stop running around like a teenager (gosh I love her), I’m off to Portugal now for a lovely little rest to reflect on a day I don’t think I’ll ever forget, and what I think will be the high of my running journey as I contemplate my running semi-retirement.😂 But not just yet.
