The Scafell Pike Race

27th Sept 2008
4.5 miles 3,000 ft

What a great race. I along with others – before and after the race - tried to figure out why it is not as popular as its Welsh and Scottish equivalents. I came up with the conclusion that it is because 1) it is hard to get to. 2) It has no large population nearby 3) and probably partly due to 1 and 2, it isn’t fashionable. But I think a lot of people are missing out on one of the best races in the UK. It is a really great up and down, and the route is far superior to the likes of Snowdon and Skiddaw.

I decided that due to the length of drive needed to get there (4 hour round trip) I would double it up as a camping trip. So I decided to go up on the Friday and stay until Sunday.

As we massed for the race at the back of the NT campsite, the organiser announced that the race would not go the usual route up Lingmell, but instead take a detour a long way around by the stream and up the side of Lingmell to the style. This was so as to miss out the newly mown land owner’s field. I am told this added about 10 minutes for my sort of pace.

The start was the usual scramble, followed by a queue at the first style. Then it was a steep lung busting ascent to the large style part way up Lingmell. I had to slow down here as I started to feel tired already. So I eased off and kept a more measured pace to the flatter part. My legs felt heavy but I managed to raise a jog along the flatter section up to the start of the crags. I ascended these in a random fashion, which left me wondering if the path would have been just as fast. I reached the top in 54 minutes and turned for the rocky descent down the path. Not long into this, unseen by me, the runner just in front of me took a heavy fall. I stopped to inspect weather his head was cut. He seamed shaken but generally o.k. so we ran down together for a while. He then overtook me when I got a stitch on the flat shoulder of Lingmell. I then got a second wind on the steeper final decent and overtook him. It showed he was o.k. anyway.

I raced past Bill at the last style as he took a few photos and ran well into the finish to place 20th in 1 hour 19. It was my first top 20 finish. It was one of my best runs, in terms of my performance and my overall enjoyment.

The next day I had a good run around Wastwater in perfect weather. I got up early and decided that it was so cold the best way to warm up would be to run. So I did a circuit of Wastwater, going over Ill Gill head and Whin Rigg, and then joining the road down the side of Waswater back to the campsite.

Bill's Bob Graham Round

20th Sept 2008

Leg 4 and Leg 5 Wasdale – Keswick
21 miles 9,000 ft

By chance – whilst reconnoitering the Duddon Valley Fell race in early 2007 – I met Bill Williamson. He, at the time was not a Bowland member but attended some of Bowland runs, which made the encounter all the more fortunate for me. He proved to be a big help with my B.G that summer. Now it was my turn to repay that favour.

Will and I traveled up to Stair village hall, in Stair to lay our bed on the floor of what would be our sleeping place later that night. We then set off for Brackenclose where we – along with Duncan Elliott and Yiannis – would accompany Bill on his final 2 legs of his round. We had heard reports of him being 4 minutes up at Dunmail. This worried me a bit as I knew he had good weather, no wind or rain, and his route knowledge was very good. I expected him to be ½ an hour up at this point.

But to my relief he ran into Brackenclose not long after we arrived, and 24 minutes up on his 23:47 schedule. Bill was going to do 44 peaks, 1 for each year of his life – akin to Bob Grahams original idea for his round – but he decided no to include Allen Crags on leg 3 and go for the standard 42 peak B.G. This to a degree accounted for him being so well up when he reached us at Brackenclose. He seemed to be going at a good steady pace, and this is what was required for the rest of the round.

So after a rest and some food Bill along with us supporters headed up Yewbarrow. This is a tough steep peak, and is renowned as tough on a clockwise BG because of the severe incline and the fact that it comes after about 14 hours, when you are getting tired. Bill found it tough up here but made the top only 4 minutes down. His knee bothered him on the decent, and I think this accounted for another 4 minute loss up to Red Pike. I was a bit concerned as he was loosing 4 minutes per hour. This could not continue he had to speed up. His knee seemed to improve and we started to cover the peaks more on schedule from Red Pike to Pillar. One of the problems of doing a BG at this time of the year is the longer nights, and by now it was dark. Pillar to Kirk Fell went o.k. We were in awe as to the beauty of the night. The stars were glinting and the moon was an orange ball rising over Ennerdale. This along with the glinting stars was a welcome distraction from my progressively more obsessive checking of my watch and then checking this against the schedule.

We seemed to move well from Kirk Fell to Great Gable, but the watch doesn’t lie and it took 11 minutes longer than the schedule. Rough ground at night was proving tricky. But from here the ground is much easier and with a bit of gentle encouragement we started to motor. By Grey knotts we were exactly on schedule. I asked Bill if he wanted to know how he was doing – I am glad he said yes as if he hadn’t I was going to tell him anyway – I informed him that he was bang on his schedule. Will and I ran ahead to sort out a shortened stop at Honister. Bill had about half of his allotted 12 minutes here and we headed off. I told Bill he was now back on his schedule – they had lost time on the decent of Grey knots – and that meant he had 13 minutes to “play” with. I encouraged him by saying something like “I know you want to finish this inside 24 hours failure isn’t an option”, or words to that effect. I felt a motivational speech was needed. Maybe I was caught up in the moment.

Steve handed me the time sheet whilst telling me to keep a check on the times. I took this as meaning that as I had that sheet I had a bit of extra responsibility to judge Bills push to the finish. He went well up Dale Head and even though we took 38 minutes, instead of the allotted 33, I knew from my round that this was o.k., sure enough with Bill digging in and a bit of nagging from Duncan, Will, Ian (whom had just joined us at Honister) and I we ended up right on schedule by Robinson. The decent off Robinson went well and we found good lines, missing out the rock steps. By now all the worries were gone and I, along with most others, realized that it was in the bag for Bill. He made good progress down the road followed by a whole mass of runners that had joined him from earlier legs. Soon enough we all triumphantly followed Bill up to the Moot Hall for his finish in 23:40.

We probably made a bit too much noise for 01:40 on a Sunday morning, but this was a special occasion so never mind. We all had a group photo and then headed off for some drinks and some of Wynn’s lovely food at Stair Village hall, to complete a fantastic day.

Well done Bill on a fantastic effort, it was a privilege to return the favor.

The Noth Face Ultra-Trail Tour Du Mont Blanc 2008

29th Aug 2008

166km 9400m

After my completion of the race in 2005 I went to this year’s race with a goal of beating that time. I set myself a target of 32 hours with a fall back of 34 hours if this proved too tough. The route for this year’s race was slightly different to when I first tackled it 3 years ago, in that the course was 11Km and 900m of ascent longer. So I was looking for a large improvement, but due to my other long distance successes I though it to be realistic. My main goal for the year was to complete the Paddy Buckley round so this was a bonus.

On arrival in Chamonix it was as beautiful as I remembered from 3 years ago, and I mused over why it had taken me so long to return. I came up with the conclusion that at the time it was a goal just to finish and it was job done and onto the next challenge. These ended up being the BG, which also led onto the thought of doing all the big 3, of which the next step was the PB earlier this year.

I decided that although it was a bit tougher than before, the challenge for me now was to finish it in a good time. I used all my knowledge gained over the years and formulated a plan based on the likely hot conditions. Part of the plan was to go fairly quick during the night whilst it would be cooler, this would have an added bonus of getting me ahead of the mass scramble at the feed stations. The other part of the plan was to use salt tablets to add to the water (the only liquid supplied in large volumes). But unfortunately I left it too late to order some, and could not find any in Chamonix. Big mistake. My food would consist of mainly energy bars, and energy gels nearer the end, all supplemented by whatever I could grab at the checkpoints.

All preparations were done the bags for Courmayeur and Champex were left with my fresh clothes and food in them. I then spent the day dodging the sun and taking it very easy.

I took my place on the start line which felt more like I was about to watch a concert rather than run for 30 odd hours. The atmosphere was electric and the sun was scorching. Soon enough we were off, walking at first, and then jogging down the road to start our first bit of trail to Les Houches. I felt good and started well. My only issue was feeling like a steak meal from the previous night still hadn’t settled. My back up plan of eating crackers and anything high in salt started well and my progress was good. Col De Voza was the first climb and I found this very comfortable, even queuing at the checkpoint didn’t bother me I just decided the break was nice. Further into the night I got into the routine of filling up the bladder in my rucksack with water taking some food and sitting down for about 4 minutes with a stop watch, so that I didn’t “lounge” around too long.

Lac combal checkpoint was the first time where I felt anything like cold. This was in the early hours and at 6,000 + feet. Which tells you how warm the conditions were? After de gritting my shoes, and 2 bowls of soup I donned my jacket, hat and gloves and continued along the plateau. 1/2 hour later on the climb to Arete mont Favre they all came off again, and no thought after this entered my head to put them back on. The long decent off Mont Favre into Cormayeur got hotter all the way down and it was only 07:00hrs.

A 40 minute stop at the first major ckeckpoint and it was off on the long climb up the valley wall. On reaching the top I started to feel the heat, and had a long 12 minute stop. The next section is more run-able and I felt o.k. apart from I had muscle ache on both sides of my abs making descending painful. Eventually I reached Arnuva and next was the big climb up to the highest point of the course, Grand Col Ferret. I reached the top fairly tired and sat on the trig stone at the top for 2 minutes. The sun by now was beating down.

I descended slowly with the pains in my sides inhibiting my normal efficient downhill gate. I stupidly missed the water stop at Peulaz and ran out on the run to La Fouly. On arriving at La Fouly having drunk small amounts of stream water I felt dry. I immediately drank some water and this made me feel ill. I felt that I could not eat or drink. Simon – a very nice English chap I had previously met at a pub the night before – gave me a salt solution to mix up. I drank this and it worked I felt better. I got up and decided to continue and eat some food whilst I felt I could.

On the longer than it looks ascent to Champex I started to feel ill again, I began to look at my watch and started calculating how long I had to go until the end. The result of my calculation horrified me, 12 hours at this pace and much longer if I slowed down. In my addled weak dehydrated state I never considered anything other than quitting. Once it entered my head it was impossible to ignore, I tried to fight it off, “what else are you going to do, watch other people finish?” no matter how much I fought the demons in my head with thoughts like “this has cost a lot of money”, “all that training”, “all them people that entered but didn’t get in, and at least 1 because you are here” I couldn’t defeat them.

I entered the Champex Checkpoint to cheers of Bravo, alley alley and I felt such a fraud. In my head the battle was lost. When I sat down in the checkpoint area, and felt sick and light headed, the battle was over. I had been defeated. This was a first for me. Up until this point I had never quit on anything. I decided better of carrying on with the 24 hours Paddy Buckley attempt in 2007, after Navigation and other issues, but did not consider this quitting. At first, although devastating, I thought I had made the correct decision in quiting on this race.

Part of the reason for the delay in this post is that I wanted to research and rationalise why I had quit so soon. I had 9 hours to play with on the cut off times, but I could not even think of using them at the time. I think that my lack of a proper fall back “get to the finish” strategy, combined with my successful round in 2005 left me in a state whereby anything but a good finishing time, would be viewed as a failure. The reason I quit at the time was also due to the discomfort I felt. I had salt deficiency which caused all manor of issues like thickening of the blood, so increasing the effort when climbing, and a sickly feeling making eating almost impossible. I have never felt so rough with so far left to go. I now know that the disappointment of watching people finish – who had probably won such mental and physical battles – was much worse than the disappointment would have been had I took sleeps and long breaks and finished in 45 hours.

Lessons learned:

1) Salt tablets are very useful for making sure your salt intake is high enough.
2) Poles won’t necessarily guarantee success but will make it more likely. They will also be good to lean on if feeling rough.
3) Have a back up plan, and never forget how it feels to quit.

4) Sunglasses are a waste of time until Courmayeur – Champex. The valley walls and trees shield the sun most of the way until its dark. A minor thing but lees gear to mess with.

Before the event I thought it may be a few years before I go back and do this again. Now I desperately want to go next year and have another go and hopefully erase this mental scar. I have my fingers crossed that I will win a place in the December ballot.

My distance covered 100 km 6400m

Well done to Lizzy Hawker (right hand side of the photos) who won this for her 2nd time. The first time in 2005 took everyone by surprise including herself. This time - after many great ultra race victories - it was an emphatic win.