The Old County Tops

22nd May 2010

7 Dallam runners & lots of others

A 37 mile route, 10000ft of Ascent: Langdale, Helvellyn, Scafell Pike, Coniston Old Man, finishing back in Langdale.

My partner today was Mike Smith. The morning started about 15 degrees above what we have been used to running in so the day was always going to be a hard one. With the rucksack filled up with Water and some food I was ready to go. The first few miles were hard it seams to take me a good few miles to settle down and get into a rhythm, the pace was pretty fast well over the normal Bg pace and with the sun beaming down I new that I should not push it too much through Grasmere and up to Helvellyn, everyone seamed to pass me going up and at that point I didn’t think I would make it round. Things picked up a little bit on the final climb to the summit and I was feeling a bit better after the refuel stop at Wythburn.

The next target was Scafell Pike we progressed up towards Greenup Pass before aiming for Rosset Crag dropping over the brow mid way up and into Angle Tarn. After a quick refill of Water we pushed on as we reached Esk Hause I was feeling down again we had to stopped for a moment to try and force some Peaches down as we did a BG attempt passed us a chp called Seb he looked ok and was going well, he finished his round in a little over 21 hrs well done a good effort on a hot day I wished him well as he went, Peaches done we press onward and upwards in the saddle below Scafell Mike passed me some Ice, a great little pick me up before we reached the summit. We doubled back dropping off to the right and the long drag to Cockly Beck, with a cut off time of 3:45 I thought we had no chance of making it and I was starting feeling bad for letting Mike down so I down A Can of Red Bull which kicked in pretty well, we headed straight towards the checkpoint over some small crags whilst all the other teams ahead of us went the longer flattish way around, as we got nearer I switched my watch to Time of day we had very little time left there was around 3km to run but no checkpoint in sight we must be close. We passed a couple of teams in the wilderness area but down the rocky path the pressure was on to get to that checkpoint but time were running out. That rocky path seamed more like Tarmac to me I was able to spot the smoothest line twisting and turning, ducking and driving as we steamed down the path, I glanced up to see a team ahead they kept to the nice grass path we could not afford to do that we had to cut across the bracken and a straight line in, someone had walked back up to say we must keep running to make it in time, I glanced at my watch 3:44:30 sec so close to being timed out.

Cockly Beck checkpoint turned out to be like a F1 pit stop we should have been out by 3:45, the marshal must have been in the sun too long also he gave us 5 minutes to refuel, I just laid down on the grass whilst the service crew filled up the water bottles and pushed Egg butties, flapjack, malt loaf and Tea into me before pushing out again. We had made it to the checkpoint in time no one ask if we wanted to carry on good job we did. We pressed on passing looking up we could see a good few teams ahead some teams trying to refuel and take a few moments rest on rocks other slowly climb toward The Old Man Summit. It turned out we were the last team to summit The Old Man meaning loads of teams dropped out behind us.

Mike was feeling it now we climbed to the first ridge before resting and more refuelling in the shade under some rocks just what we needed. We traversed towards the Summit our sprits lifted at the sight of the other Dallam teams coming back down, I thought they would have been long gone but they too had all been having a hard time one way or another. It was an even bigger surprise to see Ella cheering us on. We dropped into the Three Shires Stone to perfection, seeing as I’ve never been over that way before Mike doing a first class job of naving us in. After more water, orange juice, flapjack and Kendal Mint cake at the last checkpoint we passed an other team on of them looking pretty down, we slowly ran down the steep road pass before turning left towards the Langdale’s again passing more failing teams as we went. It was the most welcome of sights seeing the finish line in the distance we had around 2 miles to go cutting across above the camp site before hitting the final road section of around 100m as we approached Ray spotted us, we had almost caught him.

We regrouped at in the finish area chatting about how hard the day had been and how each team had struggled at some point of the day, John leech had stormed away early only to fade and vomit near the end, as had Steve Jeffs, stormed away, then he too suffered with the heat of the day, Ray’s partner had suffered also they had to walk most of the way from The Old Man. As I looked around at some of the other teams, their was a lot of sad looking people hobbling around, being sick and even one chap passing out. Not sure how many teams started but when we finished 24 teams had dropped out of the race.

Overall a very hard day Bob was looking down on me for the last time in training, he had one final test for me The heat. It saps of all your climbing power, its stops you from eating easily, It makes you drink more, your feet cook so you keep dipping them in the becks which make them blister quicker and worst of all, but not so much at the time, all your bits rub. I think I passed the heat test, I had to fight to keep going at times but I was able to push on when we were running out of time, then when loads of others were fading I was feeling strong again.

Totals: 37 miles, 10100ft ascent, 11hours 26 mins, 3.3mph ave speed