Thursday, 10 May
Just a quick run this morning, seeing as I haven't done anything all week. Duncan dropped me off at the end of Wallsuches on his way to work and I ran from there alongside the fishing lodges and up through the old quarry onto George's Lane. I then ran along George's Lane, turning left just after the first turning to the Pike and then heading down through the terrace gardens into the Pinetum. I then just ran along to the back of the high school and then home along dog poo alley.
Total running distance - 4 miles
Saturday, 12 May
Yesterday evening, Duncan, Ruby and I travelled up t'Yorkshire to a campsite near Bolton Castle. It was a nice quiet little site and we found a good spot in the corner of the field. I had come up to Yorkshire so that I could do some reccying of A Foot in Two Dales, the 50 mile walk I'm doing in July. I just wanted to see how good the route description is and try out the parts of the route which I will probably be doing in darkness.
This morning I decided to walk the last two sections of the route - section 7 from Thoralby to Gallops and section 8 from Gallops to the event HQ in Harmby.
Section 7 was pretty easy as it was mostly just on a couple of paths which went on for along time without any turn offs, however, right from the start there was a problem with the directions. The directions took you out of Thoralby down a narrow passage, coming out on a road. It says to turn left on the road and then follow with care to Burton Bridge. The problem was that, once I turned left on the road, after a few hundred meters I came to a T-junction which there was no mention of in the directions so I didn't know whether it was left or right from here. I had the route on a GPX on the OS maps app on my phone so I just looked at this and knew I had to go left but this made me immediately wary about the accuracy of the route description. I had doubts anyway, given that the whole 50 mile route is contained within only three A4 sheets whereas that is usually around the amount you would get for a walk half that distance.
The rest of this section went OK though and I arrived at Gallops where there were racehorses all over the show. At Gallops the route takes a bridleway over the common but it isn't terribly clear on the ground in places and the directions suggest using an alternative path if on this section at night which is probably a good idea because the grassy bridleway is full of hoof holes so it could be pretty easy to turn an ankle.
Further on, the directions say: Continue to reach RIVERSIDE by gate through wall. Go through gate and turn right onto track by River Ure. That to me sound like once through the gate you turn right onto the track, however the track is a long way after going through the gate and from the gate to the track you are following a trod which isn't fully clear in places.
I did find that I was checking the GPX on my phone far more than I would have liked as usually with these challenge events, I never have to look at a map at all.
Despite the directions issue, it was a really nice walk on a lovely sunny day so I did enjoy it and that's the main thing.
Duncan then picked me up from Harmby and we spent most of the rest of the day just chilling out in the sunshine.
Total walking distance - 11.5 miles
Sunday, 13 May
We were woken up very early this morning at 4am as our bedding was soaking wet! Having found no leaks or any reason for this, we had to draw the conclusion that Ruby had wet the bed! We're pretty sure she didn't do it on purpose and that it was an accident, the same as a child would. I would have known if she had got up and squatted on the bed because I'm a light sleeper and she also wouldn't have done that, had she needed the loo she would have woke us up to be let out.
So I found myself in the campsite showers at 4.10am and, after that, there was nothing we could do but get up, given our bedding was all wet.
I therefore had an early start for today's recce, which I decided to run this time. I did section 5 (Hardraw to Bainbridge) and section 6 (Bainbridge to Thoralby).
Again I found the directions somewhat sketchy and I had to keep resorting to looking at my GPX route. There is a bit which simply says 'take footpath straight on through fields to road' but the path is again a trod which isn't clear in places and it also splits going in different directions and you can't see the road so don't know which direction to go in and, again, there is no mention of distance so you don't know how far away the road is. With my GPX the route was fine, however I think if anyone is going to do the event without being able to read of map or having GPX, they may get a little lost.
It was supposed to have been raining all day today but it actually turned out to be really warm and sunny with not a drop of rain.
I did have a couple of issues today though, which were due to my general anxiety:
Firstly, I had to go through a couple of fields with cows. Thankfully they were just minding their own business, chilling in the sunshine, but I was still pretty nervous and constantly looking around the fields for the best escape route.
Secondly, stream crossings. There were two of them. My issue with streams isn't getting my feet wet or being swept away, it's slipping and cracking my head on a rock. The bottom of both becks was really slippery and my studded footwear didn't help as there is very little ground contact. Neither beck was leapable (unless you are Greg Rutherford) as they were a few meters wide but the first one was easy as there was a fence thing across it used to stop sheep going through (I'm sure there is an actual name for one of these) so I held onto this to steady myself as it crossed. The second one was much trickier though, for me anyway, my fell running friends would have no issue with it at all. It wasn't fast moving and wasn't deep but as soon as I put one foot on a rock it slipped straight out and had no traction whatsoever. The best thing to do would probably be to just run as quick as possible through having as little contact with the ground as possible but my anxiety stopped that. Instead, after pondering it for a while, I took off my shoes and socks, deciding that I'd have much more grip in bare feet. I was correct, although it wasn't very nice going across rocks in bare feet. I just hope I'm not quite as wimpy on the actual event day!
Duncan picked me up in Thoralby and we then drove over to Hawes and had lunch in a bike café there which was lovely.
After that we drove to Malham and chilled out in the sunshine again, catching up on the sleep we had missed this morning.
Total running distance - 10 miles
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