Turning
60! Sixty is old, right?
But wait, I’m not old. I’m a fellrunner.
So prove it then. But what to do in this my sixty first year?
Pooley
Bridge: 05:57 a.m. all was quiet apart from a strangely clanking
bridge. Three addicts went through the fell runners’ rituals of
stretching, warming up, adjusting laces, checking watches, killing
the minutes before the self-declared “official” starting time. My
two pacers and navigators are both Winter BG graduates, so I knew I
was in the best of company.
“Are
you ok with this pace” said Paul, “it feels a bit quick”.
“Feels
good to me” I replied, and thought privately, that’s a good sign.
However,
we were still two minutes down on our “Vet 60 record” schedule at
the first of our 30 peaks, Arthur’s Pike. This did not bother me as
I knew from previous outings that the later peaks tended to fall
below the scheduled times.
As
we approached the slightly higher Loadpot Hill the weather was
closing in, Mario said “and that’s it, into the cloud, it’s the
last you will see for the next 12 hours”.
How right he was! But it
was a great adventure that still lay ahead. We were battered and “car
washed” on our way to High Street. Somewhere around there I had a
real face planting trip, leaving me flat out in a puddle. Mario
scraped me up and, with only a broken watch and a bloody hand as
damage, we were off again to Kirkstone Pass.
After a quick cup of
home-made potato soup (millions of calories and previously patented
for my BG challenge) we zipped up Red Screes and onto the long misty
wander to Hart Crag. Except that Paul and Mario’s brilliant
navigation and shepherding kept me from wandering too far. Several
times I heard booming through the mist from behind me “Peter, a bit
to the left – follow Mario”. Thank goodness for skilful
navigators. Fairfield appeared through the clag quite quickly. The
summit is confusing, I have previously gone astray up here in mist,
so we quickly scanned the dripping, mist-shrouded cairns and turned
left for Seat Sandal, the wind doing its best to knock us off our
feet. This was the first climb that my legs had noticed and I
reminded myself that there was still a very long way to go and that
mental strength and a clear focus might be needed later.
A
great time saving line down Seat Sandal could be shared with
prospective BG and JNC contenders on payment to CFR or my “Just
Giving” WaterAid account
.
This brought us to within earshot of welcoming car horns and happy,
rainswept faces at Dunmail Raise, not to mention the calorie-dense
rice pudding slurped straight from the can - looks disgusting but
it’s quick. It really was good to see Kate, Rhiannon, Stu and
Heather here. Heather quickly dispensing water bottles, flapjack and
chocolate. After 4 minutes of taking the “combine harvester”
approach to food I shouted into the rain “ready guys? We need to
go”.
Hooray,
it’s more steep climbing.
Straight up Steel Fell in 20 minutes and
off across the long wet trog to High Raise. Andy Beaty, tough rival
of many races and Paul Jennings orienteer, fell runner and possessor
of photographic memory for the shapes of trods and hillsides, joined
me for this leg to Styhead. There are a myriad of streams and boggy
bits up here but streams turn into life threatening torrents on days
like this. We stopped and hesitated to judge one such flooded stream.
Paul went first, slipped and was soon upended and soaked from head to
toe. I honestly thought he was in danger of being swept away. I stood
gawping whilst Andy hauled him out and with hardly a blink or a flip
of the fins, we were on our way again. We were all soaked to the skin
prior to this, so, as Paul said, his brief swim didn’t make that
much difference. If you ever contemplate doing an event like this, in
this kind of weather, make sure you have a good navigator, preferably
one who can swim.
On
the top of Bowfell we met some walkers who thought they were on
Scafell Pike. I know the visibility was bad, but there are limits!
Fortunately, Paul and Andy both managed to make polite offers of
help, something I was not capable of by this time.
Eating
was becoming more difficult, as is sometimes the case on these longer
jaunts. The legs were saying “feed me” but the guts were saying
“don’t you dare”. Boiled potatoes went down better than the
infamous peanut butter sandwiches. Chocolate bars provided short but
fast sugar fixes.
The
greasy boulder areas of these three peaks, Bowfell, Esk Pike and
Great End slowed us down considerably as we did our best not to crack
a shin or worse, take a tumble into a bone-breaking hole. I remember
down-climbing on all fours over rough ground that I would normally
have skipped over. The descent off Great End was both a navigational
and an agility challenge, but with mutual support and concentration
we made it to the stretcher box at Styhead. Here we said goodbye and
thank you to Andy as he descended to Borrowdale as planned. Beside
the stretcher box we found a cold wet Bill who was waiting to “take
us home” to Greendale. Only 12 miles to go. Bill knows the Wasdale
fells like the back of his hand and took us along this section in
thick mist and increasing winds without ever looking at a map. How do
these people do it?
I
had in mind that there were only the 3 big climbs of Gable, Kirk and
Pillar to go before getting to the three little ones at the end. At
the top of Pillar it hit me like a wet blanket, a heavy wet blanket,
that there were five to go not three. The mental strength alluded to
before was needed here. “focus, focus, focus” I repeated.
Positive images were drawn from the depths, teeth clenched and
feelings of fatigue banished. Steeple was short and fun but Seatallan
was a bloody long way.
Bill said, “Middle Fell is easy”. He lied!
But I knew we were very close now. Having not thought much about the
time all day, I now began, with the record in mind, to ask Paul for
“clock time” as opposed to split time – and repeated the
annoying question every 5 minutes. At the top of Middle Fell we had
25 minutes to reach the end and hit our target.
“Can we do it in 25”? I
asked Bill.
“Lets
do it in 15” he said.
“Right,
Go!” I replied, and we did.
Tearing down the hillside, soft turf a
blessing underfoot. A few rocks, a trod here, a fast grassy bit
there, Joss’ house was soon appearing through the mist. We dodged
left on the track through the last of the bracken. At last the wall,
Joss’ house, the tarmac, the bridge.
We had done it! Great fun. A
hug from my wife Heather. A handshake from Joss. A handshake from
David.
Big grins all round.
What a day!
Paul, from the first half,
had travelled all the way from Cockermouth to see us finish. I gave
him a celebratory punch on the arm and said “we did it, we took
over half an hour off the old record”.
We were grinning like mad
dogs. But then …
Joss
said, “Aye, a lad last week, he did it in eleven hours”.
What!?
Is this a windup? I thought.
I stared into Joss’s blue eyes in vain
hope of a mocking smile, but no! Apparently not. Oh what the hell!
We
had had a Grand Day Out. We had smashed our own ambitious target in
appalling weather and for a few seconds at least, we believed we were
the new record holders.
Isn’t fell running just wonderful?
Peter
Crompton.
