The Bob Graham Round: 21hours 53 Minutes

Choosing to do the BG

I knew one day I would do the Bob Graham, but there was always another race or target for the year that would make doing it outside of mid winter pretty difficult. 
Last November I hit a new high in my running/biking/general ability to keep going as long as you like as fast as you like and given I had no plans race wise for 2015 I started to think about doing it this year.

By March, all of last years training and racing fitness had been undone. A tooth infection, a job requiring more hours than there were in the day and the reemergence of the breathing difficulties of the last few years left me absolutely exhausted, especially mentally exhausted. I got to April unfit, unable to race or interval train without having to stop due to breathing difficulty (this made club training and general racing a pretty unattractive prospect) and pretty unmotivated to do very much.

Then I went part time. Within a  couple of weeks I was much less shattered, 4 weeks of part time work/part time running and it was time for the old county tops with Steph Jones. Although not moving a patch on how I had been last year, I was surprised to get round in under 9 hours, finishing second ladies team, with my legs generally unscathed and so the BG crept slowly back into my head.

How to pick a schedule?
When it came to doing the BG I wanted to see how fast I could do it. I was fairly confident, having done some fairly ridiculous races, that getting round in 24hrs would be fine. So then I had the conundrum of how far under 24hours to target.

I'd always wondered if the 18:48 womens record would be doable 'one day', I thought it was but also thought I'd wait until I was 'a bit older' to give it a go. Obviously in the last 3 years Nicky has made this more challenging and the question of whether to try for 18 hours was a hard one. My major concern was that I knew how hard it would feel at some point on the round and for the first time ever was worried that, given my mentally exhausted state, my head would be the thing to crack first. If I wasn't prepared to suffer, there was no point in starting on an 18 hour schedule!

'How to run Leg 5 fast' by Rich T.

A couple of months of supporting faster rounds, running to pace on sections and seeing how it felt and it was just too close to call. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it!

Picking the day

Above all else, I knew how little I wanted to run the BG, no matter what pace, in horrendous conditions. I made it clear I just wasn't starting if the forecast wasn't good. The week leading up to my attempt was not ideal, a little wet but mainly too windy. The week after was forecast for horrendous downpours. But the weather gods were smiling on me and the 25th of July could not have been better. Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy, not at all wet!

Leg 1 -Keswick to Threlkeld

At 3 am I set off with Tim Austin and Jonny Malley as support for leg 1. Heading up skiddaw we made good time and were rewarded with some spectacular views. The lakeland 100 was descending to Braithwaite and the train of headtorches snaking its way across towards Skiddaw was an amazing sight. As we hit the steeper part of the ascent we met Angus descending and looking a little dazed (I suppose he's allowed to after 10hrs of running) as he and a fellow 100 runner were undoing a slight detour from the route....we summited as the sun was coming up, greeted by an amazing cloud inversion.

Sunrise on Skiddaw

It's amazing how much the BG route gets trodded up as the lines across great calva and to Blencathra were much clearer (although also much wetter) than when I'd been out in May. Here I perhaps made my first mistake, I tried to drink a 'for goodness shakes' en route to Blencathra and this sat heavy in my stomach. However, some fantastic nav and feeding from the guys (just before Blencathra: Tim: 'do you need any food', me: 'no, I'm ok', Tim:'wrong answer, here's some chocolate raisins') and we topped out on Blencathra at 5:41, 7 minutes up on schedule. This worried me slightly but I resolved it was ok as my legs and body in general had felt well within themselves. I would just sit down in Threlkeld and change socks/eat as a reward. Heading down the parachute descent was fantastic, I do like this descent and hit it pretty much spot on to avoid the worst of the rough stuff (although Jonny took his own line and had a sprint finish down the road to catch us! Proves it makes all the difference to take the right line...). Leg 1 complete in 3:06.


Leg 2 - Threlkeld to Dunmail

Setting off ~5 mins up on schedule with Sabs and Dave, we crossed the lakeland 100 again, happening upon a couple of dragons back attendees. A quick catch up for Sabs and Dave and we headed away from the 100 course once more (with a few shouts of 'it's not that way' following us).
Wil had said that on his round, it was on clough head that he knew he would be able to make it. I thought this sounded a bit early on but as we climbed to the summit I knew what he meant. I felt great, legs still strong and climbing the fastest I've ever managed clough head (I'd built in extra time here as I particularly hated this climb previously). I took back the minutes I gained up clough head en route to great dodd to try and eat something more.

The views across the dodds were fantastic, although I made sure to avoid looking too hard at what was coming next. I thought it would be on leg 2 that I started to feel the pace in my legs, my plan being that if I did, I would assume the game was up and drop the pace to make sure I got round. Helvellyn came and went, as did fairfield and there was no sign of the distance or height covered affecting my legs. This was better than I'd hoped. Plummiting off seat sandall I arrived at Dunmail still 5 mins up on schedule, leg 2 complete in 3hrs 39. I used the minutes wisely, again eating and changing shoes, swapping my haglofs pulse long sleeve for a short sleeve as the day was heating up. We set off on leg 3 marginally up on schedule, leaving dunmail at 9:54am.

Dunmail changeover

Leg 3a - Threlkeld to Bowfell

I know there is no such thing as leg 3a in the BG, but it's as much a mental game as a physical one and in my head, there were two sections to leg 3. My favourite one was 3b as I really enjoy the rocky terrain, but first came the langdale pikes!

Rich and Neil took excellent lines and were right on it with food suggestions. Out with the apples and even a tomato, these proved to go down pretty easily. An hour or so in I was starting to notice the lack of sleep more than anything else, so Rich suggested a caffeine energy gel. In retrospect I'm not certain this was the best move (having not had one before) but even with the disgusting taste I managed to hold it down....just....

I wasn't too interested in the exact timings across this section, I assumed at some point I would start dropping time and all I was interested in was running at a pace that still felt comfortable. Legs were still strong, it certainly didn't feel like I'd run 30+ miles and I was surprised to find that by Bowfell we were still, bang on schedule.

While everything felt ok leg wise, no real soreness or heaviness yet, the climb up bowfell had felt a bit more of an effort than it should have been, so we took a couple of minutes at the top to cram more food in.

Leg 3b - Bowfell to Wasdale

Unfortunately I took one bit of food too much on board and then there was none inside me. We headed on, I was desperately trying to get anything to go in, fully aware that whilst my stomach felt a lot better, my legs soon wouldn't if I didn't replace the lost calories!

 A chunk of time lost to esk pike and unbelievably I was just about still on track for record pace assuming I could keep moving well enough to take the odd minute back. Make or break time with getting the food in! As we headed for Great End the inevitable happened, it was as if a switch had been flicked, 'legs absoltely fine' to 'quads really quite sore'. I was running on empty and really had to get some more fuel in!

Remarkably I didn't drop much time over to scafell, clearing broad stand, where my dad was stationed ready and waiting, without incident. But heading down to wasdale the effect of the lack of energy for my legs to draw on was aparent and another chunk of time was lost, landing me around 20mins down on schedule. With any thought of the record gone, my plan now was to refuel for leg 4. Hopefully a sub 20 could still be possible as we left 40 minutes behind schedule.

Leg 4 -  Wasdale to Honister

That way!

On up yewbarrow with Neil, Helen and Wil and the ease my legs had still just about had to Scafell was all but gone (or it felt that way). The only way to get food down at this point was to stop for a picnic, which we duly did a few times en route over red pike, steeple and pillar.

My moving pace was actually ok, but that ignores the many minutes of picnics I also had to have to keep me moving. At least 50% of the time lost on leg 4 was due to having picnics.

 Passing through blacksail we picked up Tom, Rhys and Benn dog for additional motivation, including a gable story from Tom (which I'm sure I was meant to remember, he might have to tell it again ;-)). There were some lovely views but I barely had chance to take them in - I did sneak a glance at the view of the whole BG, it is amazing to be able to see it all laid out! In general, it was a fine balance between pressing on and getting food in but eventually, after 5hrs and 5 minutes we reached honister. I'd lost a further 1hr 14 minutes to the schedule so was now looking at around 20hr 30 if I was lucky.

Leg 5 - Honister to Keswick

Come on, what's taking so long?

I wasn't lucky. There's not a lot to be said about leg 5 other than it is possibly the worst I've ever felt (although this might just be because I've had long enough since parts of the Itera to forget about them).  I never thought I'd consider giving up on Dale Head, but the thought did cross my mind. I actually couldn't ram food down my throat no matter how hard I tried. Therefore I couldn't run.

I had a proper entourage to keep me company and keep me going - Todd, Nic, Helen, Cat, Lou, Zanthe and Keiren all patiently waiting for me to drag myself along.

It was painfully slow, but eventually I got to the top of summit 42, Robinson, where I forced a pot of fruit down, using a compass as a spoon as there was no spoon on offer. The pictures of sunset look awesome but I wasn't really looking.

Final summit - time for a picnic

Again at the road, there was a car and the thought of getting in was almost too tempting. But it was 5 miles to go so on with the road shoes. I adopted the 'keep on shuffling' tactic that had been such an integral part of keeping up with the rest of Team Haglofs Silva's walking speed last summer. Whilst my time was no longer going to start with a 20, I sure as hell wanted it to start with a 21. This kept me going down the road and at 21:53, amongst the hen do's of keswick, I reached moot hall :-). Possibly one of the slowest leg 5 times, but I had made it!

High five from a drunk Keswickian

A massive thank you to all my great friends who gave up their time to support me, all the hill support, Sally and Neil for road support, Dickie at honister and Em, Kris and Hananh - without the vintage shot blocks who knows how long I'd have spent on that road!

It was a great day out with friends on one of the best days of summer this year. I was having an absolutely fantastic time to Wasdale and am very happy to have completed it first attempt.

Will I be back for another go? Before I started I was sure the answer would be no, but now I'm not so sure. There are a lot of positives - no destroyed feet and I only used 2 pairs of shoes (Inov8 mudclaws for leg 1-3 and Haglofs Gram Comp Q for 4 and 5 - really nice to have something more supportive by this stage). My legs are clearly stronger than I thought, no real damage aparent. There's also plenty to be learnt, it's probably not a coincidence that I was there or there abouts up until the length of the longest run I had previously completed. Food is obviously an issue, whether due to the pace or the type is yet to be determined. I certainly won't be back too soon, but never say never....

Racing through May - going long!

It's been a while since I last wrote anything, May just raced by (quite literally) so here's a bit of a summary of the highlights!

In April, me and Rosemary finished off the Open 5 series, somehow managing to take the win. This had definitely been the hardest series I've done, mainly due to being completely exhausted and my head having had enough of thinking during the week to want to race. 
To start putting that right, the following week I started a new contract as a part timer! Within a couple of weeks I was transformed back into my former self! Well - a lot closer at least.

17 miles of snowy Scotland

I had 4 weeks to prepare for the Old County Tops - something I'd entered in February through a brain fog with the idea that maybe something to aim for would help matters. As Sal had subsequently had a knee arthroscopy, I recruited a last minute change of partner in Steph Jones from Ambleside.
I checked I could still run that far with a couple of big days out recceing the route and a quick trip to Scotland to recce Stuart Walkers silly birthday plans (something about running all peaks over 4000ft and riding between them)....Clearly running far was not my problem, my stamina had gone nowhere!

The Old County tops has been on my to do list for a few year. 36 Miles from Langdale taking in Helvellyn, Scafell Pike and The Old Man of Coniston.  The weather was on our side, a lovely day out. We took it steady to Helvellyn, summiting in 2hrs 3mins (planned not to get there in under 2hrs) and were following Sabs and Tom up Flowery Ghyll, steadily catching teams as we went. Across to angle tarn we hit some faster running and this is where my weakness showed. Steph was ace, keeping me running on anything it was remotely possible to run. Onto the rocks of Scafell Pike and it was my turn to take the lead. Soon we were up and over and down to Cockley Beck. The feed stations were excellent, banana in hand we headed up the final massive climb up the Old Man. On the ridge, the wind that had been noticeable on the tops all day, was more than noticeable. It was a strong, cold headwind (or so it appeared) out to the Old Man and I was struggling to keep moving.  On this out and back section we got some incentive though, seeing  Nicky and Jean, the leading female pair not as far ahead as we'd imagined and finding Rich and Wil (our other halves) only ~5mins ahead. 

Recce - where is Helvellyn?

On the turn we found the wind was still there, clearly being whipped in every direction. I was definitley struggling at this point, failing to lift my legs properly and tripping over rocks it felt like I was hitting the wall. But I'd eaten and drunk well and out of the wind had been fine. Then came the wheezing inability to breathe....aha - this might explain it. I got my buff out and adopted a ninja look and suddenly we were back running down to 3 shires stone. Hitting the road Steph announced she was 'feeling good' so it was up to her to drive the pace home (read: 'make me run'). We finished in 8hrs 56mins, skirting under the 9hr mark, within half an hour of Nicky and Jean and 5mins of Wil and Rich. The run of the day goes to Caitlin Rice though, 7hrs 44 to win the mixed pairs! This was an ace day out and Steph was a fantastic partner - I'll be back for more next year I think!

Steph reminding me how to run - Angle Tarn

Next up was Duddon, one of my favourite races from last year - 18miles with 1800m of ascent. I'd run it during a period when everything seemed to come together, I had no breathing difficulty and waltzed round comfortably in 3:37, prompting my friend Chris to congratulate me with the line 'I didn't know you were that fast'.
Duddon is a runnable route with some steep climbing, so you have to be able to run fast and also flog yourself up steep climbs. I think my favourite bit of the route is Little Stand as this suits my climbing legs, but you can tell not everyone agrees with that by the looks on the faces of those who have benefitted from the easier running up to that point....

It's hard to enter a race knowing that you are going to be nowhere near your PB, especially an English Champs race. So I had to give myself a completely different target, trying to keep a '3' at the start of my time, ideally within a minute a mile of last years pace!
This plan was going well to 3 shires stone, a little over half way in time. I had run well up the hills - well, the parts of hills that required a fell walk anyway - and was ~10mins down on last year at this point.
Up swirl howe and suddenly I was dropping places. We were heading higher and again, the wind had got up. Running straight into the wind over to Dow, I found myself tripping over rocks and feeling really uncoordinated. After the OCT this rung a bell, so out with the buff and hey presto! Life got easier. I wasn't tripping over things! But you can only run so fast with a buff covering your face, so backwards I went, out of the Helm Ladies team who were packing well behind me all the way round! I had to stop a couple of times to get my breathing sorted and by the time I was dropping off Caw (which incidentally didn't feel as far away or as big as it did in my dehydrated state of last year), I knew it was going to be tight for sub 4. I'd given up racing at this point, so came in in 4:01 - enough for 23rd, which isn't a disaster at an Eng champs race, but could so easily have been a lot better! Somebody said 'you were going well into the finish' and I had to point out this is not a good thing as that means I had far too much left in my legs.

I enjoyed Duddon, but I have to say I'm enjoying just running a lot more than racing at the moment. Racing when you can't push yourself without having your breathing going haywire  just isn't fun as there are only 2 options, stop breathing or take it easy.

Breathing through a straw might explain some things...

However, the good news (I think) is that, after 2.5years of trying everything the NHS can throw at me, I've finally ended up under the care of a specialist team in Preston who don't respond to me with 'your asthmatic, you shouldn't expect to be able to run up hills all the time - here have some stronger steroids', 'well stop running then' or 'what do you expect'. On Monday they filmed my vocal cords as I breathed and saw that as I breathe in they obstruct my airways instead of moving out of the way as they should. This is indicative of Vocal Cord Dysfunction and to difinitively prove how much this happens I am now awaiting more physiological/cardio/respiratory testing and filming of my vocal cords whilst riding an exercise bike. That appointment can't come soon enough!

As racing isn't floating my boat at the moment, I have some 'just running' plans for the summer. I'm off for some recceing over the weekend, then I'll decide exactly what my plans are, watch this space....

Open 5 - Yorkshire Dales

I'm a clinical researcher, however you'd be forgiven for thinking I have a career as a project manager, logistics coordinator, regulatory affairs assistant, specialist equipment trainer, writer, editor, designer, 24hour helpline, customer service advisor, commissioning engineer or quality assurance officer.

Somehow I juggled all of these things for 10 months, fitting into 9-5 (ish) and maintaining a nice work life balance. Then 'delivery driver', 'research nurse' and 'data entry clark' got added to the list and I was treading a fine line. I toppled over the edge in November, scraping through my PhD viva off two days preparation and hit the level of work and no life balance in January when writing a funding application into the early hours...

Plotting - 'We can't ride for more than 3hrs!'

So I'm sure Rosemary was really looking forward to racing the open 5 with me last Sunday, after my description of training prep (or lack of it) and general mental approach to anything involving effort. I think my words were 'damage control' as opposed to 'full on racing'.

As a measure to ensure I turned up on Sunday I instigated 'skiving Wednesday' (taking back the overtime accrued from Monday and Tuesday so as to stay sane), heading out for my first faster run in months with Sabs. We ran from Ambleside, taking the coffin route to Rydal which is good and runnable. I have to say I was feeling the pace, Sabs is like a rocket on the flatter trails! Thank god for Loughrigg on the way back :-). It may have kept me sane but after the hour of running I spent the next two days exhausted (this is why I have been avoiding weekday exercise recently).

The weather promised for Sunday was....well....less than appealing. What was initially promised to be 'heavy persistent rain all day with strong winds' turned into 'heavy rain with intermittent sleet/snow and strong winds'. I told myself me and Rosemary excel in these conditions, but was crossing everything that the met office had it wrong.

Fine weather for the bike - great views!

 As it turns out, they sort of did have it wrong. It was a chilly start on Sunday, the wind was certainly there, but I could see patches of blue sky above  Stainforth as we arrived! The usual pre race plotting got under way and after initially having loads of time, we did our classic, starting bang on 10:30am.

The tactics were quite simple, keep it steady so I wouldn't blow up but keep the pace consistent and see where it got us. We chose to bike first in case the weather arrived later, as it's easier to warm up running than on a bike. I also opted to wear full waterproofs as I didn't want to risk getting cold. Being exhausted to start with I didn't want to waste energy on staying warm.

Up the first hill I was pleased to be keeping on Rosemary's wheel (an improvement on December) and we were moving well on the flat/downhill. The route was well paved and we'd soon made it to the fun descent (the direction we were going anyway) down to Helwith Bridge. Here we saw a lot of people heading in the other direction, must be around the midway point! In Wharfe we decided to play it safe and headed straight for  Austwick, missing number 2  as it wasn't worth too much. Then it was on across to Giggleswick scar for a bit more fun descending before hitting the road to transition.

Coming into Giggleswick I noticed my bike was feeling a bit like a full suss but without the cornering control. Looking down I didn't have a lot of air left in my rear tyre. We pumped in some air and then hit it hard back to transition. I scraped in (thankfully not quite on my rim) and we got away with it!

Waterfall at Stainforth Beck

With the exception of the first hill, I'd chosen well on clothing, my Haglofs scramble jacket (now having had 2.5yrs of battering) and the super light L.I.M proof trousers keept the hail showers off and I was comfortable all the way.

Whilst I got away with the bike, the run really highlighted my weaknesses. I didn't have an uphill run in me (was struggling to raise my heart rate), so it was a fast walk up the pennine way to  the stunning waterfalls on Stainforth beck. Rosemary has also been practicing, so it was her turn to set the bruning pace over to jubilee cave, which I could just about deal with as it was flat/down. Here the weather arrived, SNOW! Very glad to be on two feet rather than two wheels at this point.We flew down the hill to the quarries near Langcliffe. I couldn't fault the control locations on this run, the kiln in the quarries was huge!

Giant Kiln

Getting a taste of my own medicine, we quickly switched the run tow from my bag to Rosemary's bag heading up out of Stackhouse. Here we collected three controls on the West of transition before arriving back in....wait for it....4hrs 52mins!! A whole 8minutes early, unheard of!

Evidence - the other end of the tow...

Whilst we'd kept moving, we hadn't been as swift as we have in the past (and we'd been early), so we waited with baited breath to see where we finished. It was a beatable score, even we could have beaten it if we'd known I wouldn't blow up back at number 2 on the bike. After November's disaster we could do with a win.
Clearly steady away payed off and our 510 points was enough on the day! Thanks Rosemary for a very enjoyable day out. Very happy with the result given I really didn't know if I could get around 5hours of racing at the moment. Two more days of work, then its off to sunny Majorca for a rest (and probably some cycling ;-)).

Relays, running and the November Open 5 - Lake District

At the end of October, I raced my last race for the Pennine ladies team at the FRA relays. I'd not run over near Barbondale before and it was excellent, fast going with just enough terrain thrown in for good measure. The team has been growing in strength year on year and it's been great fun racing with them! Thankfully I made up for my navigational error at the hodgsons and we pulled off 5th position in a bit of a packed field.

 
At the FRAs I finally felt like I had my running legs back from the ITERA. I spent a couple of weeks offsetting long and intense days at work with some faster running in the evenings and threw in a couple of park runs for good measure at the new fell foot park run. A nice location for a Saturday morning jaunt!

Then it was time for the first Open 5 of the series, based from Low Wray. The day before I'd been helping out at a friend's event, this combined with another manic week at work meant I was feeling pretty tired before we even began. I looked at the map but my brain just wasn't interested in planning anything, so I drew a rough squiggle indicating an option for the run and then let Rosemary plan the bike in detail. I was also quite happy that Rosemary requested a slower shorter run than normal given a hip injury she'd picked up after hitting the deck during a triathlon, this meant even less thinking.

Our ammended plan was a 3.5hour bike followed by a 1.5hour run. We set off at 10:15 (what had got into us, that was a whole 15minutes before a mad dash not to miss the last start!) and I was pleasantly surprised by how good I felt on the bike. Up into grizedale for some fun off roading (good job Joe, some interesting new riding even given the number of times I've ridden round Grizedale). I let Rosemary lead on the nav, whilst I enjoyed just riding along. We went long but were moving fast.....unfortunately we went a bit too long and I should really have engaged my brain a bit more when Rosemary said 'I've just spotted a way to get 13 too!'.

This was our undoing. Firstly, half way along our route to 13 the undertyre conditions weren't wonderful (although again, well done to Joe for fitting in another good bit of single track along the way that I hadn't ridden before).
Then I turned round after a loud clatter from behind to find Rosemary lieing in the road. The sole of her shoe had come loose and so when trying to unclip, the cleat had remained firmly in place. Out came the zip ties and a makeshift fix was implemented (along with comments about how were we going to undo this at transition?).

Finally, just after picking up 13 my rear tyre punctured. By this time we already knew we needed to be hammering it back to transition if we were going to get back in 4hours (3.5hrs out the window). A quick attempt at getting it to seal failed so we stopped a second time to put a tube in. I let all the air out of the tyre then tried to get the valve out. It wouldn't shift. I used pliers. It wouldn't shift. Rosemary had a go. It still wouldn't shift.....I wasn't sure what to do with a tyre with no air in it that I couldn't put a tube in. I looked at running back but I doubt we would have made it within the 5hrs.... Then finally, with some more brute force it came out!

All of that lot cost us 20-25minutes. I now ran into another problem. I had planned a 3.5hr bike to perfection in term of the amount of food to carry and the pace to ride. So now we were at 4 hours with half an hour left to go and I was having some fueling issues, wishing I'd had my transition bannana half an hour before!

Somehow I didn't fall off my bike and we got into transition for our slickest ever transition (even with the zip ties!). Banana in hand we headed out on the run with 29minutes to go - I was right, there really wouldn't be much thought to put into it. We got the closest 3 controls requiring a convoluted route passing back past the start with 7minutes to go en route to our final control. Out with the tow rope to make that one worth while and we finished in 5hrs 6 mintues, losing 12 of the 15 extra points that control was worth. Every little helps....or that's what we had to hope!

As it happens, the overoptimistic bike route paired with the mechanical and shoe disaster was too much to scrape a podium. Ah well, we had to have a bad race one of these days and even if the score wasn't there, we had a very nice bike ride :-)

Whilst I felt great at the open 5, I've spent the last 2 weeks feeling a bit like a sack of potatoes and not going anywhere fast. I think I was right about being a bit tired to start....This morning we headed to the park run again and somehow I ran 10s faster than last time. Maybe its time to do some more running and riding ready for the North York Moors in December!

IHMR - Lost in the clag

Last weekend was the Ian Hodgson Mountain Relays, one of my favourite events of the year. After a good streak in the mixed category from 2009-2011, the pennine men and women decided to branch off into having mens and womens teams for the last three years. With good results at the FRA relays, this seemed like a sensible thing to do, however there always seems to be something stopping the women at the hodgsons.....This time it was my turn to experience the curse of leg 3....

Two years ago, I'm not sure it's fair to blame leg 3 for anything, however last year for a whole host of reasons, it started developing a rep - resulting in us finishing at the bottom of the womens table. Most recently I've  been a leg 2 specialist, however I specifically asked for a change this year as I fancied running a little bit shorter after dental surgery that left me looking a bit like a chipmunk (and also a bit uncoordinated downhill) the previous Tuesday. This landed me with leg 3, which I duly reccied well in advance (on Saturday) and was confident of the lines and landmarks to hit even in the mist.

I was racing with Naomi which was great as she had been in pennine pretty much from when I started fell running but I hadn't seen her in ages! At changeover, Noel started the 'time to dark peak' timer as DPFR ladies ran through Kirkstone and we were pleased to be setting off 2minutes down. A blast up red screes and we were gaining well on them. We nailed the line down the other side of red screes and were soon heading over towards my next landmark, a large cairn. We passed Calder Valley who were looking bemused about where to go (but not bothering to get a map out) and soon disappeared into the mist (so I assume they had to resign themselves to the map at that point). I was pleased to hit the reccied line across to just below Dove Crag. Keeping slightly higher than on the Saturday in a bid to get it right, we skirted around Dove Crag. I glanced at my watch, excellent, 47minutes gone and we were almost at the second checkpoint.

I should have known we were jinxed from the off,Claire had assured Naomi that my nav was ace and I'd never get her lost....She'd also reassured me the previous evening that no matter how slow I ran after the dental surgery, there was no way we'd beat their effort of 1:39:11 from the previous year. Well that was a gauntlet laid down!

Geoff had mentioned that last year he had found some leg 3 runners half way up Hart Crag (you only go up here on leg 4) and couldn't understand how on earth they'd done it! Well, it's quite easy really. What you do is skirt most of the way around Dove Crag in the mist, fail to see the col because the clag is so close, continue running, hit some unfamilier, steep rocky ground, convince yourself you're too high, drop down a bit, notice the rocks aren't going away, decide your best bet is to climb to the ridge and hey presto! You're half way up Hart  Crag!

So, I added on 1mile with 150m of ascent which took us as additional 24minutes (including some head scratching). Finally we arrived at checkpoint 2 after 1hr16. Heading in from the wrong direction we were met by Geoff saying 'where on earth have you been, Helm Hill ladies were overjoyed you hadn't been through'. Needless to say it was now looking likely we were going to take the pennine women's 'worst leg 3' award! We tore down the hill and thankfully scraped in in 1:37, phew, narrowly avoided that one!

The other three pairings had storming runs, but the curse of leg three (now established) once again skewed the result. I suppose I'm allowed a nav error after 13 relays for pennine without, but it was an inconvenient year to have one given how well the others ran.....maybe next year.....

Mourne Moutain Marathon

Back in March, me and Wil opened a wedding card to find a voucher inside for a three night stay in a cottage in the Mourne Mountains from the 21-24th September. Sheila and the Smiths had done their research and booked our wedding present in Kilkeel for the nights following this years Mourne Mountain Marathon.

Without thinking too much about it we entered the Elite course for the Mourne MM (it'd be rude not to race right?). I figured that by the end of September I'd have recovered from the Itera and all would be well for another assault on the Elite course. So, 5 weeks recovery, one very painful attempt at running fast the previous weekend (resulting in 5days of DOMS which abaited on the Thursday - phew) and we were at the start of two days of running through my favourite mountains.

Cloughmore stone

This year started a little further South than the previous events we'd done, covering some terrain less familiar to us. At 9:02am we ran across the start line (having arrived at 9:01am, efficient time management perfected) and marked up the map from the grid references given for the days 20 controls. Day 1 started with a steep climb, characteristic of many of the Mourne races which start close to sea level, and we were soon up and over to the Cloughmore stone for checkpoint 1, greated by a stunnning view. Moving well we headed off down the hill into Kilbroney Forest Park.

For anyone that raced the Elite this year, you might notice a bit of a discrepancy with this last statement.We made quick progress, down, across and up the kilometer or so to the next control. However upon consulting the control descriptions the code for the control didn't match what was on the flag. A double check of the grid reference and.....rubbish! We'd made a stupid marking up error and were out by over a km. Not a good start. Clearly we didn't think this race was long enough at 28km!

A mad dash back the way we'd come, up the hill to the Cloughmore stone and we were back on track, ~2km and 100m+ of ascent worse off. We left the track in the correct direction for control 2 just as the Swedish pairing of Tomas Albinsson and Pernilla Berg went flying down the track in the opposite direction heading to the first checkpoint.

The next three controls were fairly good going over runnable tussocky moorland or on forest tracks. We pressed on, looking over our shoulder, waiting for Tomas and Pernilla to come into sight but after an hour or so they hadn't materialised and we had something else to think about.

Heading up Finlieve More we got our first taste of what the SW Mournes had a reputation for, massively rough underfoot conditions. Having responded well for the first 90 minutes, my legs were a bit less happy with this and the high knees style running/trogging required to cross it. This continued for the rest of the day as we passed around Finlieve and headed for Eagle Mountain (making the most dubious of all of our route choices to take in an exceeding steep boulder field come tussocky mess). We reached windy gap after about 3hours, unfortunately not living up to its name in the hot sun, and I was starting to feel that in fact my legs might still be a little tired. There was a distinct lack of rivers to fill water bottles and my legs took a real beating on the 3km or so of rough terrain to the road crossing and Slieve Muck. I turned my left ankle somewhere along here, a sign of tiring muscles.
An hour or so of running around Slieve Muck including a big climb with no water (Wil dropped low to fill our bottles when it became apparent the stream near the control was not at all full), a steep traverse (on which we managed to stay in touch with the pair that won the day after they overshot the first control and took a high line) and an incredibly rough decent on which I turned my ankle twice more, the second time badly enough that I had to have a sit down before I could contemplate standing on it again.

The start of Day 2 - the hill on the left is Eagle Mountain. What appears to be a cliff face along its edge was our route choice on Day 1.....

By the time we recrossed the road we had no water left, still, only one big climb and a bit of ridge slalom and we'd be home! This seemed to take forever, the terrain didn't improve, my legs didn't improve, but somehow we were still moving faster than the B course runners around us. Having estimated a finishing time of 5hrs to 5hrs30, 6hrs15 was a bit disappointing and likely meant we'd be out of the chase as far as the mixed pairs were concerned. We really shouldn't add controls to courses!

Tomas and Pernilla came running hard down the track what seemed like far too soon after us. When we checked the leaderboard however they'd mispunched and according to the confused SI timing in this situation had taken 18hrs. Great, our holiday could start properly with an hour and half buffer to second mixed pair!
Oddly, it said they'd mispunched control number one which we'd seen them go to and there was a marshal at, fairly impossible....turns out their dibber had broken and shortly afterwards they were reinstated in a time of 6hrs 17minutes. Race back on then!

It had been a really tough first day, literally evey muscle ached, not just the legs. This was corroborated by the others we talked to around the campsite, possibly the friendliest of all mountain marathon campsites.

Overnight Camp - Costa Del Killowen

 Day 2 and we were off at 8am in a mass start. We were third off the line after map marking (taking care to double check everything), choosing an anticlockwise loop for the first three controls which we could approach in any order we chose.
A pair overtook us at the first control like an express train. By the fourth control we were still with them, having covered about 6km with two significant climbs, a traverse through more ankle eating terrain and a descent where I had another little sit down after the first ankle roll of the day.

Just before the 3km leg to control 4 we'd caught sight of Tomas and Pernilla heading into the control we were leaving, roughly 5minutes behind (if we were lucky). Plan number 1 of being ahead was underway but we'd have to work for it.

If we thought yesterdays terrain was difficult, I don't know how to describe the leg from control 4-6. Wading springs to mind when descibing our 'running' style and you've never seen anyone more dedicated to high knees than when Wil promised me there was a km of track up ahead as we were heading around Slievemeel. I didn't want to spend a minute longer in that stuff than I needed to!

Views from Rostrevor Forest - I tried to find a representative picture of the deep tusocky terrain, but it appears people with cameras don't bother going to that bit.

The track up to 6 was amazing, actual running! Heading down the firebreak to the control there was a trod and everything. What would normally be described as rough terrain was good going today!
At the end of the firebreak we scouted around, no sign of a control. The leaders from day 1 showed up. They couldn't find it either. Back we went, picking up the firebreak we'd made sure not to 'take by mistake' and there it was. 5-10mins binned.

This was the first in a series of 4 'free order' controls in rostrevor forest, that looked like they had been meant for an orienteering event on 1:15000 map, a control pick with a bit of 'reentrant roulette' thrown in on a 1:25000...After our initial miss we were very careful for the remaining three controls, getting round without navigational incident. This did happen to be the absolute worst terrain of the event however, I don't think I've ever gone as slowly between controls in a mountain marathon. My shins looked like I'd been orienteering and just as we were leaving the forest I turned my ankle again. This time it was very close to game over, but a hobble for 5mins and disaster was avoided.

Running over the fell outside the forrest was awesome, again under normal circumstances this wouldn't have been easy going, but today it felt like a tarmac road! We caught up with Johnny and partner at the next control and they informed us that we weren't far behind the first mixed pair!

What? When had that happened? They hadn't been in sight since the third control and now they weren't even in sight ahead. Our firebreak mistake clearly was costly.
We assumed this was it, they were definitely more than 2 minutes ahead of us to be out of sight. We could only move at our own pace as our beaten legs weren't up for chasing someone we couldn't even see ahead of us. We went over Slievemeen (it certainly felt it at the time) then a loop of Slievefadda and Knockshee before heading down into the valley just to fit that extra climb back in towards Slievemeen.

Heading off Knockshee I looked back and there were Tomas and Pernilla. It turns out the reason we couldn't see them ahead was because they weren't, they were busy making their own 5-10minute mistake...Back in the lead we gave it everything to the finish. Even in the last descent the planner had thrown in some rocks and gorse to keep things interesting and we burst out of that lot onto the path still ahead. Down the field to the finish Johnny and partner came flying past but we stayed a fields length ahead of Tomas as Pernilla to take the win. Doesn't get much closer than that over 11hrs of racing!

At download they found that they had mispunched the second control (accidentily ommitting it after not drawing a line to it in the free order section - easily done). However they must have run within meters of it so the tight race to the finish is still pretty much how things would have gone regardless. This racing down to the line only for the opposition to mispuch is becoming a bit of a habit....clearly you don't want to be racing me ;-).

Thanks to the organisers for another great event, well planned courses with plenty of route choice, friendly marshals and plenty of good grub to finish. Thanks too to Jackson Sports for supporting the event with some excellent prizes.
If anybody is planning to do a mountain marathon next year, I'd definitely recommend giving the Mournes a go, I even came back with a tan! Still my favourite mountains even if they did try to eat my legs this year...

ITERA World Series Adventure Race

Stage 11 of the ITERA is almost over! In the last week or so, in between sleeping, eating and working, I have finally managed to put the finishing touches to my PhD thesis which is currently being bound in time for my final deadline on Friday, phew! No mean feat given there were two chapters missing at the start of the week....whether the last 10,000 words of it are in English remains to be seen at my viva....

Stages 1-10 of the ITERA were a little different...from the 11th-15th August I was making my way across Wales by foot, bike and kayak from Caernarfon to Cardiff . I was racing with Tim Higginbottom, Chris Near and Bruce Duncan as Team Haglofs Silva UK.

The race started on the Saturday evening with a fast and furious prologue in Cardiff, a 10km run around the bay stopping off at the white water centre to get a bit wet. Unfortunately, within 500m it was very obvious that my lungs were having a bad day, making running fast rather difficult. We got round, 7minutes or so down on the leaders, Team Adidas Terrex. This time would be multiplied by 3  and serve as a penalty in the main race.

White Water Centre....I am in the boat, honest!

After the prologue, my chest was really sore and I was more than a bit worried that there was only just over a day until the main race.
Thankfully by the time we'd caught the coach up to Caernarfon on Sunday, I was feeling a lot better.


The Start in Caernarfon Castle

The main race kicked off from Caernarfon Castle at 8am on Monday 11th and day one was an action packed day.
A couple of laps of the walls and it was into kayaks, up the Menai straits to Bangor. There was a big tide and the wind was behind us, making this far faster than on our training weekend in May which was straight into a headwind.
Originally we were going to paddle to Conwy, however given the conditions post hurricane Bertha it was onto the bikes from Bangor to Conwy, pretty much cycling past Chris' front door. So far, our pre race training had been very relevant!
At Conwy we did a short orienteering section around the castle, baffling tourists along the way. Then it was back on the bikes for a trip to Zip World.

Me and Chris heading down the zip line at Zip World

Zip World is the longest zip line in Europe. Heading down through a quarry and over a lake, you reach speeds of up to 100mph! As with jumping off cliffs into water, this doesn't rate as one of my favourite activities in every day life, however it certainly was a highlight of the race! Having done it, I'd certainly give it another run :-).

Arriving at Ogwen (Photo Mick Kenyon)

A short section of biking and we arrived at Ogwen for the start of the first trekking section through Snowdonia. Summiting Tryfan, Glyder Fawr, Snowdon, Yr Aran, Cnicht and Moelwyn Mawr this was a stage that we were looking forward to as it should suit us well!
At this stage we were a bit unsure where we stood in terms of race time as we'd had a timed out section at Zipworld (as had Adidas and Sweco, the two teams to arrive there ahead of us), but we were all there for different lengths of time. So we made quick work of Tryfan and Glyder Fawr in an effort to catch back up to the teams ahead, reaching Pen Y Pass just ahead of Sweco. Time for a bit of a race up Snowdon. We aimed to summit with enough of a gap that we could disappear off the other side before Sweco summited. In the last of the daylight we did just that and were rewarded with some excellent views of the sunset.

Setting off from Pen Y Pass with purpose

I think somewhere along this leg I got the first warning signs that my chest was a bit unhappy again, feeling a bit rough and finding it hard to eat. But we got off the trek and onto the water well and were off onto the estuary in the early hours of Day 2, heading for Portmeirion, a unique little Italian style town tucked away in the middle of Wales. After collecting a few orienteering controls we had about half an hour of time out before we were allowed back in the kayaks. Not to waste an opportunity, we lay down for half an hours sleep. As soon as we lay down I started coughing, sounding quite a lot like I had a chest infection. This wasn't going to work. Chest officially unhappy I found a bench to sit on instead, disturbing the Rounsley's sleeping arrangements instead of the rest of the team, sorry girls!

Italy or Wales?

24hrs into the race we set off in the kayaks again with Adidas, heading for a control across the bay. I say in Kayaks, the best way to move forward against the tide and headwind was to pull the boats along in the water, directing the back using a paddle. Using this technique, we made it to the point we needed to head out across the bay. Just as we set off we were informed this part of the stage was cancelled. That would have been hard work!
Heading back with the tide and wind we transitioned onto bikes and headed for Barmouth. Again we set off within a few minutes of Sweco who had arrived at Portmeirion for the orienteering just as we'd started paddling.

Against the tide and the wind

The second big trek of the race started from Barmouth, heading straight up Cadair Idris. We set off just behind Sweco, overtaking them on the run over the bridge and along the flat, hitting the climb once again with the aim of gaining some ground before the summit so as to disappear off the top.
I was struggling with climbs at this point, now taking ventolin ever 4hrs in a bid to keep things under control. We got up Cadair Idris ahead of them and put in a good descent to disappear, keeping a good pace for the rest of the stage. By the final two summits I was having some real difficulties, now coughing like I had a chest infection again, almost to the point I couldn't catch a breath. If it had been a fell race and I didn't have Chris towing me up the final summit I'm not sure I would have got up it under my own steam. Thankfully I did have a tow rope and we made it to all the checkpoints and down to transition, where Charlotte checked me over.

Coming into transition after the trek

Due to the amount of Ventolin I'd been taking, my resting heart rate was 105bpm (therefore my racing heart rate was.....well, pretty high). However, the only way to improve things was to take more ventolin, sending me into the salbutamol shakes for a brief period. Since the race, Charlotte told me that me oxygen saturation was also not as good as it could be at this point (not too surprisingly), which might explain my inability to transition. Imagine finishing an intervals session where you really pushed yourself into oxygen debt and on the finish line being presented with a bag full of things from which you have to select everything you need for the next 24hrs+.....needless to say I was not slick!
Eventually, at the start of Day 3, we were off on the bikes for the big stage of the race, 220km of MTB with a stop offs at Devils bridge and Elan Valley. Within the first few km we found a nice bit of forest for a quick, well needed sleep.


The long MTB stage

One of very few James Kirby photos in which I am not smiling

I don't remember an awful lot from the first 110km of riding. Generally I was concentrating on breathing. I lost the ability to talk and eating was getting progressively harder given my inability to breathe. A lot of towing ensued.
At Elan valley we arrived 15minutes or so behind Sweco and once again, managed to pull back this deficit during the trail run in which we caught and overtook Sweco with the incentive of food and sleep at the end of the run.
At this point, we served a compulsory stop aimed at getting everyone back into race order and time on the ground. We had 1hr42 to eat, sleep and be ready to go again. The eating part didn't go too smoothly for me as, from half way round the trail run, my stomach was now rejecting anything put into it. I think I had enough oxygen to either move forward or digest food.

Elan Valley

Leaving Elan Valley it looked like we should make it to Glasbury with 4-5hrs before we were allowed on the river Wye at 8am. Free sleep!
However, a combination of my inability to eat food and the terrain (some river wading and bracken hacking in the dark) meant the second half of the MTB route took a bit longer than planned. At 7am on Day 4 we had breakfast from a lovely bakery in Builth Wells, just as Sweco caught us once again. After the last stretch of biking, we arrived in Glasbury just as Walhalla, who we hadn't seen for the rest of the race, came flying past. Although we didn't have free sleep, we did have sleep at Galsbury as we all needed it!
 

Sleeping arrangements at Glasbury - barely noticed it was raining...

After 2hours we got up and ready to go down the river Wye. Whilst getting ready to go, I realised my chest was in the worst state yet, I was struggling to breathe just walking about. So another less than slick transition, enough ventolin to send me into uncontrollable shakes and a bit of food and Charlotte gave us the go ahead to leave.

I was now also taking 2 puffs of ventolin every 2hours and this, paired with a less than urgent pace down the river (we almost had a grade one sit on top capsize after Chris fell asleep) gave my breathing a bit of a chance to recover. We passed through Hay on Wye for the street O, picking up some food on the way.
After our drift down the river we hit the bikes with a bit more purpose, trying to get as much out of the remaining daylight as possible. We were sitting in 4th and our target now was to get to the Brecon Beacons and try and reclaim a podium position on the last trek of the race. Thankfully all the ventolin was paying off and my legs had a bit more in them.

What we weren't expecting was to hit the final trek ahead of Sweco, in 3rd. We'd overtaken them at transition strangely, but pressed on to make the most of this advantage. We made it over Fan Y Big but before we reached the top of Cribyn  four lights started gaining on us at an insane speed. We couldn't hold them off, so on top of Cribyn we sat down.
Sweco arrived and asked 'is there a control here?'. We gave nothing away, they found the control and headed more slowly down the hill to the col.
It appears their race tactics involved following us, as at the col they stopped to get their maps out. We headed down behind them and got the bivvy out for a 10minute nap to give them a bit of time to do their own thing.

Classy sleeping location next to the bins

When we set off again, we thought we were stuck in fourth position. The pace certainly wasn't what it had been, we were tired, Chris had damaged his knee somewhere along the river Wye and the motivation to push hard evaded us a bit. We stopped for another couple of sleeps and after the last of these made a decision to try and move at least a bit better or we wouldn't even be fourth!

So it was a complete surprise to find Sweco leaving the caving section just as we got there. We were then informed that Walhalla were just ahead of them! The race was back on!
A quick whip around the caving and we set off on the final 6km of trekking, overtaking both Sweco and Walhalla along the way to reach the final transition in 2nd.

Off on the final bike section

We hit the last stage as hard as we could, giving it everything to stay ahead of Sweco and Walhalla. It was a lovely morning and the views from the singletrack were ace. From the top it was a matter of heading down to the Taff trail then following it all the way to Cardiff. One small bit of nav confusion and we reached it. By the sounds of it, following the Taff trail was much easier in the daylight and we managed to hold and even grow the advantage we had to the finish line, finishing 2nd!

Finishline

This was my first full course expedition race finish and my first podium position. Thanks to the guys for keeping me going and to Tom and James for a great route. Also thanks to Charlotte and Jacqui for getting me in a state to continue and letting me back out on the course!

Time for a bit of a rest now before the Mourne Mountain Marathon in September!