I’ve been saundered

This is a week later than intended - I was intending to put some photos with it, but just haven't got round, so thought i'd post it up regardless.

Where to begin. Well I suppose the start is always good..

Friday (just finishing the antibiotics for a chest infection) I jumped in my car after work and had the looooong drive to Wasdale head. It really is a long way round from the M6! Amazingly I arrived at 11 and then spent the next 30 mins having a wander round the campsite, pub and toilets to find my mates who had a) already pitched b) I was staying with and c) had gone to sleep…..

Luckily I managed to pick the right tent and found my compatriot Don. Crawling into bed I was soon asleep.

Saturday dawned to blue skies, which considering the forecast was a minor miracle. Dan and Sian were already up and raring to go having an earlier start than us. We chatted for a bit, watched them walk off in the direction of the start and continued to crack on with our preparations as well. After much food intake, packing and some faff we were ready and picked up maps to wander into black sail pass. I was a bit unsure how I’d fare at this point but we were soon through the start and given controls to mark on the map! A bit of cross checking and marking later and we were soon off to the first control. One bagged and it seemed like it was a bigger version of the Peak Mini –MM’s I’d done earlier in the year. However, I soon suffered a dawning realization that I was struggling with lung capacity, energy and a body that didn’t really want to be doing a big day in the mountains.

Thankfully Don was very understanding and since we’d done training together knew it was just a body-say-no weekend rather than anything else. However, we persevered and pushed on. It was quite a busy course and there was lots of passing and re-passing going on. But we made some sensible choices and were going well. Then just approaching one control (Greendale tarn) we were being waved at.. it was Dan and Sian! We had a quick reunion and walked and talked before deciding we needed to push on and so carried on to the next control.  After this it was a LONG slog over rivers, bog, tussocks and hill to get to the next control. Where with a little bit of sensible route choice and some hard work we pushed on to the campsite at Scalderskew woods (farm?). It was a good bit of running at this point and with the added advantage of people to overtake we managed a very respectable 63^rd at the halfway. The evening passed to milk/protein, sleep, food, avoiding a quick shower, beer and chatting before a decent sleep.

Sunday, dawned to light grey skies, and several aches that were quite new! Faff in the morning and queues for the toilets meant than Dan/Sian managed to get away before us. However, as it was only a 25 min window for everyone to start we weren’t far behind (or all the other masses). As per the previous day it was a bit of hard work, coupled with some running, river crossing, bogs and hills to contend with. We made a few interesting route choices and I think one thing to learn is not to bother heading for a bridge or stepping stones, but if there’s a path in the general direction – take it!

However, we plodded on and had a bit of leapfrogging of a few teams. The final descent and climb and descent (round scafell, up to a sheepfold and then back down into wasdale) was hard hard work. We got the final control and headed into the finish. I’d love to say I put on a spurt of speed and sprinted for the finish but I couldn’t even muster a gentle jog. My ankles, legs and body were broken.

Food, faff and a long drive home awaited. It was 11 before I got in and I was sooooo glad I’d booked the Monday off to recover.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/gn69JYJHJJc

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/u6hO0Jp1dU8

Looking back I was very glad to have been in the area only a few weeks before, am even more glad that I put in a sterling effort to train hard beforehand and even more so to have had a brilliant partner in Don. He sorted out some brilliant lightweight kit for all our training weekends, got food when needed and also matched my pace on the event and various STEEP descents on training weekend (normally at the end of a day). I’m pretty sure I’ll do another MM, probably the SLMM again next year!

Plus.. yet again wifey was at home whilst I was away for a weekend, sorting out our home and making use of the mortgage we pay on it! Thanks to her for letting me do this. (I just am not sure she’ll like the idea of another MM.. even if it is next year)

hmm chesty

keeping the mind out of the gutter.. i've had a horrible chest infection for the past week (plus 5 weeks of actual coughing). Finally got to the docs, got x-rayed to check it wasn't TB (yikes) and then given some antibiotics. Was watching tennis and the tour whilst I was off inbetween sleeping lots and generally feeling low. I'm not quite back to 100% but am back at work and just about raring to go.

Which is a good job as i've a saunders event to get to this weekend. Hopefully the (very) few days between can get me further sorted and Don and I can have a cracking event.. plus the weather needs to play ball..

Anyhoo that's all for now. Will update when i'm alive monday.

Braai time!

Yoga on Thursday was great fun, still really enjoying the sessions (when I get there) and find them really useful to stretch out. Friday I left wifey to the her gym session and instead had a beer festival to play at. It was cracking good fun and there might have been a tipple or two had. Plus a good catch up with band peeps as I’ve been somewhat absent of late.

Saturday dawned to a lazy morning, but quickly developed into zumba for wifey and a gym session for me. It was good to work out, but I kept it upper body and minimal cardio for reasons which will become clear. After this was a much needed food shop and lunch before jumping in the car to get up to brum for a Braai, that’s a BBQ to you and me.

It was Jon’s birthday and his regular braai’s are pretty cool! Much beer consumed we collapsed into bed. Unfortunately Jon caught a stomach bug (no really..) and so didn’t get any sleep. Which meant the MTB plans for Sunday went a little awry. However, they were quite happy to have grace stay for lunch and baby cuddles so I was still able to meet up with Barney for a session at cannock. It was cracking good fun and my legs although used to running and not biking held up pretty ok to my need for simplicity – see photo. Yup one gear and for once I, king of punctures, suffered….. drum roll please. NONE! Whoop! Still I better not be too happy I’m guessing I’ll suffer retribution in the near future.

Then on the way back down stopped in for a bit of tea and further cake with Stig & Tara and chilled out on the boat before getting home and washing the bike.



phone camera can't seem to cope with the BLING of shiny clean bike!



This week is a much needed doc’s app, who had better not tell me to MTFU because this has been 4 weeks of coughing now and I’m a bit fed up of it.

Weekend at home

Am still suffering with a stupid cough. I think a docs trip could be needed at this rate!

Last week was v. quiet did a gym trip on Friday which was ok, if short. Swimming Saturday was a stupid idea and didn’t really work at all. Some general house chores and chilling out reading. Considering the past few weeks a well needed rest! Having said that my legs are still aching from Friday, so either it was a harder session that I thought or my recovery is a bit out!

However, a small project started in the workshop, plus a bit of a mountain bike fettle as it could be needed soon.

Even better yoga this week.. it’s been a while!

Fontastic

So for the last week I’ve been in Fontainebleau, bouldering. For those not in the know, think sand, trees, cheese and BOULDERS! Thousands of them..

It was wickedly brilliant fun. I’ve not been climbing much of late, I’ve felt a little ‘lost’ at the wall and had no enthusiasm to go. What’s more no real time TO go. So it was a mixed bag of emotions heading over, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do anything, but I was happy to be meeting up with friends. I’ve also been suffering with a chesty cough thing which still hasn’t yet gone.. but it was France, bread, cheese and wine would fuel me through.

The gite was awesome, I met some new folk, some old, climbed a lot, played some frizbee, did some slack-lining, a couple of small runs and a fair chunk of reading. Highlight for me was probably going back to the elephant area, it’s a lovely area, but can be a bit scarily high (it somehow didn’t feel too bad). That day I pretty much whupped a black route - 6a/v4 into quick submission (only just falling off the top slopers on the first go).

The second was finding a wonderful slab climb, just gorgeous and getting my non-climbing wife up it on the second go.. She likewise almost had it on the first, but got a bit freaked out. She had rattled on during the week doing whites, yellows and even almost nailing a blue! She’s gonna be cranking harder than me at this rate!

In other news:

Wooooooooaaaah less than a month to the saunders! Some long runs must be had!

The recovery

So I’ve had chance to recover and recuperate. I was a bit of a mess Sunday and Monday night and wifey was fantastic over the weekend doing lots of the house chores. However, I don’t think I was much company for her on my return. I then had a further chance to recover Tuesday as had a day off to see the plumbers round to sort a supply pipe leak we’d been having, whilst she was away on business.



nice pipe, nice hole



The leak is now fixed and electricals back together but I’ve still a bit of a mess to sort out and fencing to re-instate! It wasn’t quite as relaxing a day as expected with some further chores myself to do plus the tidy up of the mess being made.

Wednesday was food shop and trying to chill, but it turned into a finishing off of tasks (and filling the hole the elecy guys had made!). Soon I’m sure we’ll have moles taking up residence as they’ll like the look of the place!

Anyhoo, no exercise for me so far this week. Here’s a link to the day 2 of Lakeland fun, it stops early on which is just battery dying, we carried on south east as described via the three tarns. However, there should be some good write ups post next week, so long as the weather plays ball. Plus some time spent with my wife!!!

Lakeland fun: BG 3 plus a bit

Plus some suffering.

As I wrote Friday, the plan was to head up and meet with Don (saunders partner) for another training jaunt. We’d changed the plan to originally do the welsh 3000’s over a weekend and instead were going to the lakes to do leg 3 of the bob graham round on the Sat, plus a bit of leg 4 on the Sunday.

Driving straight from work I was listening to the bulletins wondering where I’d get stuck. However, luckily I managed a fairly clear drive and was in the lakes by ten and at the pub for a pint and map rekkie. I’ve a fairly good map-memory so will it all in mind and the pub closing we got heads down and tried to get some kip.

Day 1:

Saturday dawned to blue, blue skies and not a cloud in sight so we packed up and loaded our bags slathered some sun cream on and drover over to Dunmail raise.

This being the start of the day and the only way was up! Since this was new to both of us there was a bit of nav to do, but being a clear day seeing a top, cairn or lake wasn’t too much of a problem. Steel fell found no problem, swoop round to calf crag (second cairn/trio of peaks), bit of a think about which gully to head up for high raise (plus head on for second cairn) then a very short blast over to sergeant man for a quick summit. After this again contour round to Thunacar Knott, straight over to Harrison Stickle and head right to Pike of Stickle. By this point we were about 3 hrs in and had gone through 2ltrs of liquid a piece. So stopped for a quick refill at stake gill and reapply the sun cream.

On from here under black crags to Rossett pike, then a royal faff, route finding issues going up the suggested east side of Bow Fell (scrambling involved), back north along the path to Esk Pike and over to Great End. I saw nothing great about this peak, but may have been suffering slightly here. On from here to Ill Crag, Broad Crag and thence to Scafell Pike with some fantastic views. Unfortunately no time to stop so down to broad stand and then a choice of routes, we went via Lord’s Rake a slightly scree-y scramble then traverse back for the summit. Here we had a longer pause for a phone call (don) and then a quad burning, quivering descent to Wasdale and the NT campsite.

A fantastic day and hard work, but well worth the effort. Much food, sleep, showers (bliss) and a small beer followed before a long sleep!

Day 2:

Waking to bright sunshine, instead of lounging like lizards we sought shade! As both of us had discovered the Saturday quite hard we’d decided to amend our plans for the Sunday. Instead of Yewbarrow, Red Pike, Scoat fell, Steeple, Pillar and then Great Gable (followed by a long trod to the car). We changed this to a direct-ish route of Kirk Fell and Great Gable before the long trod to the car… Don was all in favor of taking it easy and going via black sail pass, I on the other hand fancied the direct, high nose head route, which won out in the end for being ‘short and sharp’.

Well sharp it was, short it didn’t feel like! 1hr10 of pure up later and we summited. Don in slightly better form than I (and about 10mins earlier!). We had a small pause to watch some others arrive and then cracked on. Down to the Beck Head tarn beneath Great gable, then up the obvious ridge/path. Meeting some multi-day BG-ers at the summit (4 days for the whole thing sounds much more like it!). Then a nice pathy, technical descent to the Sty Head tarn. Up and over to Sprinkling tarn, slightly longer but likewise to angle tarn, again with a nice bit of speedy descending.

Here was a well-earned pit stop! Topping up on electrolytes, water, food and letting the legs recover. Final push up to the col (hmmm weren’t we here yesterday!) and then ANOTHER technical decent, enjoying it, feeling the burn, spot of walking when the brain needed to catch up but above all keep going down… Finally the foot bridge across Stake Gill and a head cooling splash of water.

Unfortunately at this point I seemed to think we should be doing more so started running. Seeing as it was another 3k this probably wasn’t a great idea. However, I had it in my mind that some walkers ahead were (fictional saunders) competitors and they needed chasing down!!! Upon eventually catching them it seemed a bit rude to stop running, so we carried on. By the time we hit the pub and had all of 200-300m of road left it was a bit more of a two-step shuffle, but getting back into the campsite in Great Langdale felt excellent. If only to be stationary!

There followed a lengthy re-humanizing process, milk, food, showers, new clean clothes and sandals for battered feet! Into the car to collect Don’s left at Dunmail raise, swap gear and a long drive home.

All in all, a fantastic weekend, hard work, but worth it. Newfound respect and understanding of how hard the BG round is and kudos to those that have completed it. Still for me, 17 new mountains (yup – ALL new) and a lot of mileage later I’m happy, tired, but happy.

i'll post up Sundays route when i've heard back from Don ;-)