Hazy Helvellyn

On Monday I gave up running for the summer. I'd not done any for over a week and this culminated in me being unable to walk upstairs at work without getting out of breath. Summer has arrived and with it crushed all my thoughts that THIS year, maybe I'd sorted the vocal cord dysfunction and would never have to deal with not knowing day to day whether running up Helvellyn would be a breeze or whether walking upstairs would feel like summiting Everest!  On top of this, a student in the classroom next to me demonstrated just what can happen when vocal cords close completely, which put me off trying that. I just didn't have the energy to go out and deal with the consequences when I couldn't breathe anymore and I couldn't always tell when that would be. I handled this in bad style and decided there was only one thing for it, I was staying inside this year.

Helvellyn to Ctasycam

That lasted all of 2 days. Some medications to try and tackle the pollen plus speech therapy got things a bit more under control and the sun was so nice I couldn't not. I knew it would feel hard, I'd be slow, my legs would be lead and require dragging up the hills and my respiratory muscles might just give up working enough to run (and sometimes walk), but I was sticking to my original plan to see what the lakes sky ultra had in store!

What comes next, straight down to the valley off Nethermost Pike then straight up St Sunday Crag...

It's going to be awesome! I didn't even get round to running off the back of nethermost pike, but heading up to Helvellyn, over catsycam, off the back and coming full circle via striding edge was a whole lot of fun! Tussocks, rocks and steep climbs and descents, my favourite! I didn't know there was a dam behind catsycam either. Need to get ankle strengthening to be confident on the ridges and remember not to gun it off at the start, there's certainly a lot of climb in this route!

Don't fight with rocks, they'll win!

So, I guess the moral of the story is I need to remember not to give up, I've had to go through this at least 5 times now and yes I ran slowly, yes I walked where normally I'd run, yes I had to stop and look at the view while my respiratory muscles recovered enough to tackle the climb off striding edge (which was a lovely hazy day in the lakes!) but hopefully in a few weeks I'll have got used to this summer malarky and be back to flying form! Bring on Jura and no 5hr30 breathing disaster this time!