This weekend is the weekend of the Lakeland Trails Dirty Double and tonight I’m having a bit of a mental meltdown as I think I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew. So, Saturday will see me huffing and puffing up and down the Helvellyn mountain 10k in the English Lake District followed by the Ullswater 10k on Sunday, both departing from Lake Ullswater.
I absolutely love the English Lake District and if anything, it’s an excuse for a nice Friday to Sunday weekend away. It’s stunningly beautiful at this time of year with all the golden Autumn foliage and there’s nothing like the good old British pub meal and a log fire after a run. The lakes themselves and the mountains that surround them make for the most stunning backdrop to these two races.
I always get nervous on race day, even though I’m not racing anyone but myself. You just get swept along with all the hype and adrenaline, it’s a bit like stage fright. However, my nervousness does not normally start as early as Tuesday before the race!
The reason being is I think I was lulled into a sense of false security last year, the first year I had run these races. I absolutely loved them. The back-to-back 10k’s were quite tough but the sun shone on Saturday, the scenery was spectacular and apart from my spectacular face plant in the river on the Sunday it was quite dry.
Physically it should not be an issue, I know I can run 20k. I say should as I have been suffering from terrible cramp in my calves and feet every day since I did my Camino walk in the summer. It hardly happened on the walk and now I can’t get rid of it and I have tried all sorts. It happens at the most inopportune moments, like when I was half way up the climbing wall last Friday and had to be lowered down rigid on a rope by my belay partner who was in fits of laughter, unlike me who was nearly crying, it’s so painful. I’m up at least once in the night with it too, hopping round the bedroom trying to stretch it out. If anyone knows how to get rid of it, answers on a postcard please because it’s driving me insane.
Anyhow, anyone who knows the Lake District will know that some of the altitudes are quite high, these are mountains not hills, and the weather can change very quickly and before you know it you can get in quite a bit of difficulty with low visibility.
I started to get a little nervous on Sunday when the e-mail below came through telling me about the mandatory kit list due to the remote location of the route. “Why is there a mandatory kit list?” I thought. There wasn’t one last year. I was a bit disgruntled because I don’t like to carry lots of equipment when I’m running, I like to be free of clutter. I’m now going the have to wear a race pack and carry a cagoule, over trousers, hat and gloves………..extra weight. Then I went on to read it was necessary because they have changed the route and access is difficult with ‘rapid response safety teams only being able to access the trail by boat’. By now I’m getting slightly worried as I wasn’t expecting to be in a remote location, and I certainly am not anticipating needing an emergency rapid response team.
By now I’m thinking this is possibly not going to be like last year’s and definitely does not sound like what I signed up to. I’m thinking nice bed and breakfast lodgings, sunshine, glorious autumn colours, running up Helvellyn mountain, pub meal on Saturday night, crackling log fires, beautiful run around Ullswater on Sunday, all finished off with an English Cream Tea on Sunday. Now that’s what I signed up for. Running is always followed by eating, in fact most of my activities end at a café. I’ve been for my final little trot round the village tonight, nice slow 10-minute miles for 5 miles, and I won’t run now until Saturday. I’ll just eat, sleep, work repeat as I try and get rested and fuelled for the weekend.
That’s if I run as I have now made the mistake of looking at the Helvellyn Mountain weather forecast for Saturday. I can now see why the compulsory kit including hat and gloves is required and I definitely did not sign up for this!! I’m running this on my own, and I normally do end up on my own, there is usually a bunch at the front of the race and bunch at the back and me somewhere in the middle slogging it out on my own, so there’s no-one I can really tag onto. I absolutely hate poor visibility as my navigational skills aren’t that great and I just feel lost and scared.
So, bring it on! It’s a 10am start which according to the forecast below that means snow showers, yes, SNOW! But let’s not worry too much about the snow showers, perhaps the fact that it will feel minus 13 degrees C will be the issue, or could the 65km south westerly head wind blowing the snow into my face cause more of a problem?!?!? WHAT???? This is not what I agreed to. I could cry. I’m having a serious panic. I’ve never dropped out of anything in my life but this was never part of the deal.
So this is the final blog post until later next week as I’m hibernating for the rest of this week. The race kit is out on the bed and includes all the compulsory gear, headtorch for extra measure, fluorescent yellow coat in case I need rescuing and two pairs of everything as I don’t suspect anything I wear on Saturday will be dry enough to wear on Sunday. Next week there could be a race report. Or there may just be a blog post of me enjoying a lazy weekend in the lakes drinking Aperol Spritz in front of a roaring fire with not a pair of running shoes in sight. If there is neither, then you know I’ve been carried off by the Emergency Rapid Response Team. Live results will be available here, if like my mother, you desperately need to know if I survived.
https://www.lakelandtrails.org/results#2_F1E839
