Keep on Running

 

Only one who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. -T.S.Eliot

 

Well it’s done, the big one the Bob Graham Round, or as it’s become know in this house simply the BG. It’s not just Mr Uhdd that’s exhausted, whilst he has more reason to be so than the rest of us, the boys and I are never the less, totally pooped.

How to tell you what it was like, I think we might have to have a guest post from Mr Uhdd for that, I can only tell you what it was like from the bottom of the hill. The weather was bad, out off the 44 peaks climbed, there were no more than a handful that weren’t shrouded in low cloud and whilst we are delighted, relieved that it went so well for Mr Uhdd and ‘Laid Back Runner’ others didn’t have it so good and had to retire, I was a bit of a loss as to what to say to them, you could see they were gutted, I suspect they will regroup and give it another go. And there were a lot of runners out there, the challenge starts at the Moot Hall in the centre of Keswick at midnight on Friday night, and there must have 50-60 people gathered to give them a good send off, in addition to the towns Friday night revelers, who seemed to think we might be the start of a party.

After they had gone and we went back to the climbing club bunk house that was ‘mission control’ I tried very hard not to think of them out on the fells, running in the dark, rain wind and low cloud, but as I heard the pacers come and go through the night, my GCSE geography, from long long ago, came into mind, hanging valleys, truncated spurs, U shaped valleys, scree slopes; which ever way you look at it, bloody big things to fall off and into.  So it was a relief when it came light, it seemed to me like one hazard  out of the way; we went to the second road crossing at Dunmail at about 7am, there were a lot of support vehicles and supporters there, not just from our club.

Looking, waiting with the kettle on, hot food ready, the next pacers ready to take over

 

There were many miss-sightings, ‘here they are, on the ridge, look’ only to realise on closer inspection, the dots were in fact sheep not runners, but on schedule, they came over the ridge

for a the briefest of stops, in the whole event, all 23hrs and 8 min, Mr Uhdd stopped, to eat drink and rest for only 38 min in total.

The running club are poetry in motion, so slick and prepared, everything is done to allow the runner to do just that, to keep on running. I’ve posted more photos on my Flickr site. The willingness and effort by club members, to help other  complete this challenge is impressive, sportsmanship and camaraderie at it’s best.

After we watched them leave Dunmail, there then followed a long drive (for us) around the mountains, to meet them at Wasdale,

they had a rough time on this leg and lost some time, we watched and waited

  

And saw some very nice sheep

When they came in to this check point, Mr Uhdd looked rough, he skin was grey and you could see from his bloodshot eyes he was dog tired

The climb out of this valley is murderous and I wasn’t yet confident he was going to make it, it wasn’t till he got to Honister that I felt, he could, and would do it. As they came towards Honister they decided to split up and ‘Laid Back Runner’ and his pacer went on ahead,

We waited  for them at the finish in Keswick, this time with Saturday nights town centre revelers, they both made the last push, up the main street, accompanied by much cheering from from family, friends, supporters, and anyone else who was around, to slam into the doors of the Moot Hall, job done. There were a few folk swaying around Keswick, who looked ready to slump to the floor on Saturday night,  but some have more reason than others:  ‘Laid Back Runner’ makes it to the Moot Hall

Back at ‘mission control’, the guys had to be assisted out of their running gear, showered and put to bed. The support team on the other hand, had a beer or two, it was very late, or early depending on your perspective, when I found my bunk

Mission Accomplished

 

Mission accomplished; Mr Uhdd ran ‘The Bob Graham Round’ in 23 hour and 8 minutes and his running partner ‘Laid Back Runner’ came in 22hours and 14 min.  We are very proud of them. More photos to follow.

Gone to Work

Mr Uhdd and ‘laid back runner’ have gone for a run, they will be gone some time, it will be hard sweaty work

Numbers Game

 

Preparations continue for Mr Uhdd’s attempt on the fell running challenge ‘The Bob Graham Round’ and whilst there has been a lot of training on the fells, there has been an awful lot of work in the planning, it’s like a military operation, and Mr Uhdd’s running club are seasoned campaigners. You are not alone in this assault on 42 of Lake District summits, each runner has the fell runners equivalent of a Doula, better known as a pacer, well several in fact for, at least one for each of the 4  legs of the attempt, they keep the runner on track, carry gear, navigate and provide support, company and motivation (it’s is as  much a mental challenge as a physical one.) The attempt is an impressive team effort. As well as the pacers there will be welcome support where the route crosses roads, here preferred food and beverage along with pre-packed bags of spare clothes, back up fell shoes and other goodies will be available.

I am struggling a little with the catering, for one thing I can’t quite get my head round how your guts can cope with eating running  and digesting at the same time (and we have planned for the eventuality that they can’t) and then there is the issue of what your body will crave, under such punishing conditions, my brief is tuna sandwiches (tuna, canned in brine, he’ll need the salt) with extra mayo, to hold the thing together, energy bars and gels, cereal bars. But the feed back we get from those who have ‘been there’, is you might ask your support team to prepare a bowl of hot porridge with honey at the road crossing, a plate of pasta, or a bowl of stew; but when you get there you are likely to want to eat things you normally hate, so I am tasked with going shopping, for thing Mr Uhdd would normally never eat, ‘Cup a Soup’ and ‘Pot Noodle’s’ being my starting point.

And what to drink, well this lot for a start

We don’t as a household, use ’sports cap’ mineral water bottles as a one off disposable item, we refill them with tap water until they are worn out, and as there is no way they are going to get left on the fells, the majority of these bottles will retuning home after the event and will be falling out of the kitchen cupboards with annoying regularity for many moths if not years to come

 

Our PC has been groaning under the strain of keeping up with the barrage of GPS way points, maps, spreadsheets, schedules, emails and attachments. So here are some numbers for the geeky.

24 hours to run and climb;

42, peaks, that means if you spend a  minute at each summit, admiring the view it will add you add 42 minutes to your overall time, you can’t afford to fritter that amount of time away, some of last weekends ‘BG’ runners finished with only 5 min to spare; if you want to look at the view, go back another day and take a picnic on this occasion only running and time matter.

66miles to go, at a guesstimate of two thousand strides to the mile that equals 128,000 strides, that’s an eighth of a million

26,500 feet of ascent, not far short of an Everest, from sea level.

Its not a big job it won’t take long.

All Roads Lead to the Lake District

We’ve been in the Lake District this weekend; Joe’s school had an activity weekend in Brrowdale, Mr Uhdd had a fell race to run and Tom’s school had a choir event in the South Lakes. I played out with the camera.

The Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, Mr Uhdd woke early and felt the need to share this information with me, in fact he was more direct he said ‘You need to get out with the camera, NOW!’ So at 06:00hrs on Sunday morning I was at the Summit of the Honister pass, it was a special place to be.

Despite the ridiculous time, it was so still and tranquil

Well it was tranquil until, I came across a quartet of cockerels at the Honister Slate mine, they were cock a doodle doing as such birds do at sunrise, (take a look at the mines web site for some excellent aerial photos of the area.)

the sound reverberated for miles down the pass, (Kingmagic, you would have been impressed.)

I’ve another busy week ahead, before the children break for half term holidays, so I might just drip feed you Lakeland scenes, watch this space.

Role Reversal

Jack Sprat could eat no fat

His wife could eat no lean

And so betwixt the two of them

They licked the platter clean

So goes the traditional British rhyme, well in this household the roles are reversed. Mr Uhdd continues a pace to prepare for his attempt at the ‘Bob Graham’ fell running challenge next month (its a while since I mentioned it, so here are the statistics; length 74 miles, taking in 42 Lakeland peaks and over 28,000 feet of ascent, to be completed in 24 hours.)

The amount of training required for this sort of challenge, needs fueling and ‘catering control’ (and that’s me) is struggling to stop him from eating himself, his body mass index is now down to 20.6 and his body fat is 3.7 that’s heading for pro cyclist levels. Meanwhile I am shopping for and living amongst food I most defiantly shouldn’t be eating; it’s high in protein and fats and there seems to be no restriction on the flapjack, chocolate and biscuit consumption. It’s hard to cater for a more modest diet for me and keep focused on the salad draw in the fridge, when the other shelves are laden with so many tempting goodies and the fruit bowl is juxtaposed with the biscuit tin.

I’m awash with commitments and challenges of my own over the next few weeks, though non so energetic. So posting and blog reading may be a bit spasmodic till mid June, when normal service will be resumed.

Isolated Showers

An away day this weekend, we yomped off on to the moors to help plant thousands of cotton grass plants

on the Kinder plateau;  Joe, Tom and I were joined by a friend and her son ‘the young man’ who is only five.

The forecast was for ‘isolated showers’. I think the showers decided they needed ‘to get out more’ and had found each other on some sort of  Internet ‘metrological forum’  and decide to meet up for the day, on Kinder Scout: we were on the hills for five hours, it rained persistently for four of them!

It was my plan to show you lots of arty shots of cotton grass planting, but it was just too wet for anything more than a couple of grab shots, and they are of poor quality, sorry; but on with the story

Kinder Scout, is important  both historically and environmentally, in 1932 it was the location for a protest march, that paved the way for the public rights to access to areas of open country; a report from the Manchester Guardian newspaper, dated April 24th 1932

‘Four or five hundred ramblers, mostly from Manchester, trespassed in mass on Kinder Scout to-day. They fought a brief but vigorous hand-to-hand struggle with a number of keepers specially enrolled for the occasion. This they won with ease, and then marched to Ashop Head, where they held a meeting before returning in triumph to Hayfield. Their triumph was short-lived, for there the police met them, halted them, combed their ranks for suspects, and detained five men. Another man had been detained earlier in the day.’

Environmentally, the area has taken a hammering

‘As the environmental pressure on the area has grown over the last 200 years – due to a combination of acid rain, major wildfires and past excessive grazing – the peat soil has become so degraded that, instead of reducing carbon in the air, it is actively releasing it back into the atmosphere.’ 

 

It is a wild landscape, deep black peat, that shakes like a jelly if you jump up and down on it

The cotton grass planting is a National Trust project, to stabilise the area, despite the weather more volunteers had turned out than expected; many hands make light work, so  when we made it up there they had just planted the last plant not 5 mins before. This could have be akin to telling ‘the young man’ on Christmas eve, that Santa was make believe! It was a long walk for one so young, his mum coaxed the National Trust Wardens in to digging a couple of plants back up again, so that he could plant his all important cotton plant.

(Cotton grass on a sunnier day!)

Tom and Joe just had to take the disappointment on their rain drenched chins. 

As made our way home the National Trust wardens, who were no doubt glad to get off the hill and out of the rain earlier than expected, bumped  past us down the track.

The weather and the planting didn’t turn out quite how we expected but the day was something of an adventure.

Having a good time

The snow showers continue, despite the cold there are a lot of people out and about, these two summed it up, when I asked if it wasn’t a bit cold to be out on the ‘bike’

‘Well, were on holiday and you have to make the most of it’ my second question was have you got ‘thermals’ on (should I be  asking complete strangers about their under clothes?) to which the answer was YES!

Others were having a snowball fight

or building snowmen

Or looking at the views,

 

Mr Uhdd had planned to go to the Lake District to do some fell running, but after looking at the weather forecasts, decided against it, others didn’t, see this  video by Wasdale Mountain Rescue team who set out to rescue three mountaineers who were ‘crag-fast’ at 4am yesterday morning.

Today there is less blue sky, it’s a bit bleaker

But still pretty as a picture compare to tomorrows planed post, you have been warned.

All Through the Night

Mr Uhdd and his mates will have been out on the hill running/walking  for over 12 hours, they started the race started just before midnight, it’s 40 plus miles, dark, cold and very windy, 200 men and women moving on through the night, running when your body says you should be sleeping.

What state they will be in when they get back, I’m not quite sure. 

Blessings, count them

It’s been very cold over night, -4.1c  and it’s a bright and beautiful morning

I’m setting off in a few minutes to be an enthusiastic parent,  standing  and cheering  at the finish line of a junior fell race, whilst I am there I shall count my blessings