Langdale Horseshoe Recce

Well I can quite honestly say that I'm glad I did a recce of this race and didn't just go into the race blind because there's no way I'm actually going to do the race now!  What a horrid route! How anyone can do this in under two hours (the record is one hour 55 minutes) is beyond me.  It's practically all on rocks!  Huge respect to anyone who races this!

Anyway to the 'run' itself, I went up to Langdale with Ed Swift, Steve Pearson and John Parker.

The climb up to Stickle Tarn, which is the bit I had been dreading the most (I always struggle on the first climb of a run), turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the whole run.  I felt really good on the way up and at this point thought I'd quite like to do the race itself.

We ran through the ghyll and continued along the side of Stickle Tarn towards checkpoint 1.

When we had left the car park earlier it was really warm and sunny and I was a bit worried that I had forgotten my sun cream, however shortly after leaving Stickle Tarn, the heavens opens and we all had to stop to put on our waterproofs. I didn't take my Kamleika smock off again after that as it was pretty cold up on the tops and rained on and off.

The rain didn't help our progress at all because all the rocks were really slippery so it was pretty hard going.

At one point, Ed sank his foot/leg quite far into some very smelly mud and all I could think about was the 'Bog of Eternal Stench' from the film Labyrinth!

The best bit of the recce was the views.  They were phenomenal and definitely worth the hard work.

Now for the worst bit - 'The Bad Step', which Wainwright describes as 'the most difficult obstacle met on any of the regular walkers' paths in Lakeland'.  It is apparently a 10 foot drop which you have to dangle from and then drop down!  John had a huge sense of humour failure at this point and we decided to take an alternative route, although Steve had already gone down the bad step so would have to wait for us.  

The Bad Step:

(library photo)

As it had got really late we had to make a route choice of whether to head back to the car the direct route or whether to go up the last Pike o Blisco which is the last climb on the race route.  As I had decided way back that I wouldn't be doing the race itself and John had seconded this, we decided to give it a miss and head back to the car.  Even the decent down to Langdale was horrible and rocky, with both Steve and Ed having falls which looked really bad but they were both OK, save for a bit of cramp.

The only good running we managed to do was the run into the car park from the bottom of the hill.  The car  was a very welcome sight and my peppered pork butties tasted amazing - I had been fantasizing about them for the last few miles.

We had walked practically the entire route, not much running going on at all.  Whilst I could have gone much faster in various places, a lot of it I would do at the same speed in a race so my race time would be absolutely rubbish! I'd be well over four hours I would imagine, possibly nearer five! 

I enjoyed the day itself and the great company but just wouldn't want to do the route under race circumstances.

I had just bought some new Inov8 Mudclaws on Saturday so gave them a try out today and they served me well - I didn't fall over anyway.

Before:

After:

Positive comments: Felt strong going uphill, did a bit of navigation training, great company!

Total distance - 13.65 miles


http://www.strava.com/activities/182296599/overview