After my day and a half of relaxation, I got up early today and got myself ready for the 24 miles which lay ahead. The weather forecast was for rain, rain and more rain so I dressed accordingly, ate my hobnob flapjack and made my way to Abbot Hall Social Club to register for the event.
John arrived at pretty much the same time as me so we registered then had a sit down and got ourselves ready for the off, whilst chatting to famous fell runner, Wendy Dodds, who told us she was hoping to get back in under four hours.
It was quite a strange start because, not only had I heard one lady saying she and her friends were setting off now (at about 7.35am) but when we went outside at before 8.55, everyone had already started running/walking off so there didn’t seem to be any official start. I’m not sure whether results are published for this event but, if they are, they can’t be terribly accurate given the dubious start times.
Annoyingly, my Garmin didn’t pick up a satellite for the first half mile of the run so there is a bit missing on my Strava trace but never mind. The first part took us on a windy route through Kendal, crossing the river a couple of times, then we went uphill and along the route I had come down in the opposite direction yesterday from my walk to Scout Scar.
The route was a mudbath in places and it was quite hard going trudging through it all. I felt a bit like I was doing cross country… at Hyndburn, given all the tree routes to negotiate.
After seven or so miles we hit the first checkpoint, which I was surprised to see was indoors as the checkpoints on all the other LDWA events I’ve done have basically been gazebos outside. There were lots of biccies, jaffa cakes and donuts, of which I decided on two jaffa cakes and a chocolate biscuit, washed down with simple water.
Soon enough, we were on our way again, climbing up to Whitbarrow Scar which is where the route then changed from what John had done on his previous attempts so I was left to do the navigating and was feeling the pressure as two other blokes had joined us at this point and (jokingly… I think) said they were relying on my directions as they didn’t know the way. Coming down the hill, John had a bit of a tumble as the ground was quite rocky and slippery with mud and one of the blokes running along with us helped him up. No harm done, we were back on our way again, eventually arriving at checkpoint 2 after nearly 15 miles. Again, there was plenty of grub, this time including fresh hot dogs. I resisted the urge as I didn’t want to carry on running after a stodgy hotdog but did indulge in a couple more biccies whilst John had a cup of tea.
We were slowing down quite a bit now for our run up a tarmac road but it wasn’t long until we reached the third, and final, checkpoint, which was only three miles away from the previous one. Again I scoffed biscuits and we had a natter with some other runners who had been running at a similar pace to us for the last few miles.
It was then the homeward stretch back to Kendal, with the last climb up to Scout Scar (from the opposite direction to which we had climbed up in the first place) and from there we went down the way I had come up on my walk yesterday, which goes through an old race course.
As usual, I came alive at this point, knowing that the end was in sight and that it was all downhill. John was feeling quite tired by now though so we didn’t sprint down the hill and just had a nice leisurely jog back to base.
The weather was no where near as bad as the forecast had led us to believe, although it wasn’t totally dry and the underfoot conditions were awful in places, making the run a lot harder than John said it had been in previous years because the mud was so sapping and slippery.
I had a great time and will definitely be back to do it again. I’m glad I had John with me 1) for the great company and conversation, 2) to keep my pace steady (I have a habit of jetting off too fast and then running out of steam after a couple of miles), and 3) for not getting me lost as there was an error in the directions which said to turn right when in fact it was a left turn so, had I been on my own, who knows where I would have ended up! Also thanks to John for telling me about the event in the first place as I would never have even known it had existed which would be a huge shame!
Total distance – 24.2 miles
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