What can I say? This has to be the best challenge event I've done so far, scenery-wise. It was absolutely stunning, although the beautiful sunny weather helped with that.
The run started from Ambleside Rugby Club at 8am. At this point, it was pretty cold out with frost on the ground but it was already sunny and we knew we were in for a great day.
I saw Gordon at the start, who had actually arrived pretty early. In typical Gordon style though, he still hasn't quite at the start on time, having to go back for something he had forgotten (can't remember now whether it was poles or Garmin?).
About a mile in, Gordon caught up to me and decided to run along with me so that he didn't go off too fast at the start. I just plod along on these things but, because I keep my speed slow, I manage to be quite consistent throughout rather than running out of steam towards the end.
Having Gordon with me meant that I wasn't really paying any attention to my directions because he knew where he was going, which was very silly of me because, for all I knew, he might run off ahead of me at any point and I wouldn't have a clue where I was. I tried to make an effort to keep track of where I was on the direction sheet although it was quite confusing in places. I did come across quite a lot of familiar ground though, as a lot of the route goes along the Cumbria Way which I walked last year and will be running over three days in July.
The run into the first checkpoint is quite fast and Gordon was picking up pace so I told him to go on ahead of me as I know that he likes to spend a little longer at checkpoints than I do so I would catch him up there. At the checkpoint, it was time to remove some layers as it was getting quite toasty out in the sunshine, I was beginning to wonder whether I should have put on some sun cream!
A jaffa cake and a drink of orange squash later and we were back on our way, following the Cumbria Way out of Elterwater.
Between here and the next checkpoint came the 'big climb' I had been dreading. It took us up from behind the car park at Tilberthwaite. My calves wanted to explode as it was pretty steep. Gordon said he would plough on ahead of me as I'd soon catch him up on the decent so I watched him glide up ahead of me whilst I was nearly crawling. It was such a relief to finally get to the top and start descending and, sure enough, I caught back up with Gordon.
The next checkpoint was at Coniston and it was great to see some savory food on offer as it gets a bit tedious keep eating cakes, sweets and biscuits all the time. I had a couple of cheese and pickle sandwiches and another drink of squash and we had a sit down for a few minutes whilst Gordon had a cuppa. It was also nice to have indoor checkpoints with toilets - something which I have only seen on the two Lakeland LDWA events I have done.
On leaving the checkpoint and getting back onto the Cumbria Way, we were chatting to a couple of girls, one of whom had an Irish accent which I recognised from That's Lyth a few months back. She said she knew she recognised me from somewhere but hadn't been able to place me.
Some way between checkpoints 2 and 3 we came to a bit which Gordon said he had always got the navigation wrong on in the past. We found that, where we came out onto a road, Gordon had always then run along the road but, according to my directions, we should turn back on ourselves and run down a rocky path, which we did. It took us along some lovely waterfalls and through some woods, scenery which Gordon had missed out on in the past. When we came out of the woods, we saw a group of other runners who had done the same as Gordon and just run along the road, missing the turn off.
It seemed to take a very long time to get from the second checkpoint to the third and we didn't arrive there until over 20 miles in, even though the route was only supposed to be 22 miles. Gordon said that, because the start had moved by half a mile, the route would actually be further than 22 miles.
At this last checkpoint, I had a couple of very light chocolate sponge cakes and yet more orange squash.
On the very last part of the run, coming down towards Ambleside, we had a slight navigational error and ended up going further than we needed to so, on approaching the Rugby Club, three girls who had been behind us, were now up ahead. Gordon got his race head on and said we should beat them so we ended up doing a sprint finish through the streets of Ambleside.
On arriving back at the Rugby Club, Duncan was sat in the van with Ruby waiting for me. I had told him that it would take me around five hours but, as I wasn't running on my own it took an hour longer. This isn't to say anything detrimental about Gordon, he'd be much quicker than me in any race without a lot of downhill, but also when I run on my own, I don't tend to stop at the checkpoints, I tend to grab and go so it was actually really nice to just chill out and take it at a leisurely pace. It meant I got to admire the scenery a lot more as, when I'm on my own, I just get my head down and plod on.
It was a fabulous day out and I'm looking forward to having another go at it next year, just hope the weather is as nice!
Thanks for the company Gordon and for not letting me get lost!
Total distance - 23.7 miles
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