Barbon Fell

10th Jan 2010

5 Dallam runners 1 COLT

The temp was a very mild +3deg as we drove to Barbon but still plenty of snow on the ground. The plan was to do some hill training and hill training we sure did.......... straight up!! I think this is where Rocky Balboa came to train when he was fighting that Russian.

We started with a nice gentle warm up through the woods to the right of the Manor and then out to Barbondale with a tricky traverse across the fell side proving very difficult, but good for core training, after about a mile we started up the steep fell side. With snow on the ground the training was top notch, you had to lift your feet over the snow, as we progressed the snow became deeper and the wind picked up slightly we re-grouped on the summit before making our descent back to Barbon Mannor easy, ha no way! the hard snow was good to run on, the softer snow with small turfs of grass poking through were great but ever few steps were 3ft deep of snow making the descent much harder then normal even drawing blood to Mike M's shins.

Lap one done, Mike H and Mickey P taking a run back to the cars, having had there fill of the snowy conditions leaving 4 of us to do another lap. This time around we studied the fell side for a little longer before we started our steep climb, this time it was a few hundred yards earlier before we started the climb, our thinking was that the lower slopes looked to have more grass poking through the snow, so the snow would not be as deep and it worked. Summit done and the weather closing in we called it a day, just that descent to do on tired legs making us fall into the deeper snow drifts even more then our first lap.

A friend and tri coach told me that the "Bike is King get the bike miles in and the running becomes easy". I say Fell is King master the climbing and everything becomes easy.

Totals 10miles 3725ft Ascent 4.5mph ave speed