BG leg 2 - Getting tougher now

After a feed and encouragement from my support crew, I set off on leg 2 with Adam, Helen and Steve who was doubling up legs 1 and 2. As we climbed up the road and then the base of Clough Head, my legs were easing and the cramping had eased. Soon enough though, we were on the steep bit of Clough Head, and the occasional twinges returned to my quads.

Soon enough we crested the ridge, and my legs started to ease with the shallower gradient. Predictably though, the ridge line greeted us with a face full of mist. In spite of this, we managed to make decent progress along the first few peaks of Clough Head, Great Dodd and Watson’s Dodd.

Sadly on Stybarrow, we made the first small error of the leg and managed to skirt the unseen cairn and were soon descending without having visited the true top. No matter, a quick about turn and the four of us fanning out soon located the top and we were back on track.

As we trundled towards Raise, at about 3 am, I started to have my first real bad patch of the round. Nothing I could eat was sitting at all well and I started to feel very flat. Fortunately (in a way) this is something that I’ve had every time I’ve ever run through the night and was comfortable it would pass at some point between now and dawn.

As can be seen by the splits, this section was all over the place compared to the schedule, and I suspect most of this is due to alternating between a trudge and a quicker trot to try and warm back up on the very cold ridge. Aside from picking up the bonus top of High Crag, the nav was spot on and we were soon descending to Grizedale tarn.

As I descended the tarn, a triple whammy of getting warmer, waking up slightly and being able to get a mars bar down meant that I was feeling cracking as I reached the col before Fairfield. Leaving Helen and Steve at the col, and shouting my food requirements to Adam, I set off up the path at a decent clip. Fortunately, about halfway up I realised that I was working very hard (which probably explains why Adam was struggling to bridge the gap!) I limited the damage by stopping, waiting for my food and drink and letting my heart rate return from the stratosphere.

Disaster averted, I tagged the summit and returned back to the col, before heading straight up Seat Sandal, which came a little easier than usual, though the cramps returned on the steep section. Over the top, we started descending on the grassy run down to the steep bit. As it steepened, the cramps were coming thick and fast, though fortunately none stopped me in my tracks.

Soon enough, we could see the cars at Dunmail and headed towards them. The descent was mostly uneventful, though the unplanned transition from following the trod with a high powered beam, to seeing it in the pre-dawn light as the batteries ran out was a something of a challenge for my eyes. Once adjusted, there was no damage done, and I continued on my merry way to the cars and my breakfast.

Once again, my support crew, this time of Kate, Roger, Jenny and Craig, were ready and waiting to deliver a super smooth change, only slowed by me forgetting essential items (like a new pair of gloves) until just before I was trying to leave.

Splits for the interested (Scheduled times in brackets)

Clough Head                50        (55)

Great Dodd                  32        (29)

Watson's Dodd            12        (9)

Stybarrow Dodd          14        (9)

Raise                            21        (17)

White Side                   11        (8)

Helvellyn Lower Man   15        (17)

Helvellyn                      7          (6)

Nethermost Pike          13        (10)

Dollywaggon Pike        15        (12)

Fairfield                       41        (41)

Seat Sandal                 20        (24)

Dunmail Raise              25        (22)

Leg Time                   4:36     (4:19)

BG Leg 1 - into the night

At 8:45 pm on Saturday, I was enjoying the conversations with my support crew and, even as someone who is rather introverted, enjoying taking centre stage. By 8:50 however, I was a bag of nerves and a series of questions kept popping into my head: Why did you pick late August; A long night stint is a daft idea; Are you really ready for this; How will Kate cope with looking after the road support teams having never done this before. After driving myself mad for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only two minutes, I realised I needed to take myself off and sort my head out before the off.

When I did, the answers were crystal clear.

Why did you pick late August? It was the timing that best suited *me* and allowed me to get the training in that I wanted to beforehand without feeling rushed for time.

A long night stint is a daft idea; You have two excellent headtorches, one for each leg. You even enjoy running at night. Man up

Are you really ready for this? Yes, you’ve put the work in now go and enjoy your day like you said you were going to.

How will Kate cope with looking after the road support teams? Brilliantly, she knows what’s needed at each one and what I’ll likely be after to eat and drink. All the others at each point will be more than willing (and able) to do a sterling job.

Having convinced myself that it was simply paranoia, I came back from my quiet moment in a completely different mindset. Rather than questions, I now only had thoughts that would help - namely put one foot in front of the other, keep eating and drinking, think only of the next peak and try to have a brilliant day out with my mates. I was ready.

After a little more waiting, it was time for the off (well I was still waiting for my watch to tick towards 9 when Kate (whose watch was the “official” start / finish timer) pointed out that it was 9 and “shouldn't you be going?” At which point my 4 pacers, Greg Martin, Bill, and Steve accompanied me down Keswick high street and towards the fells.

Having left the town centre, it was a simple case of settling into a rhythm as we crossed the Greta and cruised through fitz park before joining the track up the flanks of Latrigg before heading up the motorway to the top of Skiddaw. Despite a brief moment of ineptitude from me when I stopped at the shelter rather than the trig, a very comfortable trip up Skiddaw was complete more or less on schedule.

Dropping off Skiddaw, we headed a fraction south of the desired line, so started descending the rock rather than the grass to the fence post. No matter as this was quickly rectified and we were soon heading to the very boggy valley floor and across the path to Skiddaw house before heading up the flanks of Great Calva. At the summit we were close enough to the schedule that there was no concern and headed back towards the fence crossing where Bill was helpfully lighting the way.

Not wanting to do anything daft in the dark, we took the safety first approach of following the fence line down the descent to reach the gate before following the trod towards the Caldew. It was somewhere on this section that I was attacked on the shin by a bear.* I was rather nervous of looking at the damage as it felt like it might be a serious gash, and the concern in Greg’s voice was noticeable at this point. Fortunately though, it was just a lumpy bruise and a graze.

Panic averted we headed to cross the Caldew, which was only knee deep (for me at least) and set off up the trudge over Mungrisdale common towards Blencathra. I passed the time on the climb by eating, drinking and worrying as I started to feel the first twinges of cramp in my calves and hip flexors. As this hadn’t occurred on any of my previous recces, I was rather surprised but thought I may as well get on with it and trudged on up.

As the top was approaching, the mist rolled in and a minor bout of summit wandering ensued, no bother though as the top was reached more or less on schedule and my thoughts turned to the corned beef hash and warm welcome that hopefully was awaiting me in Threlkeld.

Having enjoyed wandering in the mist so much on the way up, I thought I’d add a little bit more unnecessary rambling, but that was soon rectified and we were off on the correct route down Doddick fell. The descent felt reasonably sensible, but chatting to my supporters it may not have felt that sedate for some. J

As we reached the path at the bottom of Doddick, the cramps were coming with more regularity, and upon a little bracken bashing to try and reach the gate, both hip flexors locked in pain. At this point I may have sworn. As the cramps eased I knew I needed to move, but more pertinently, I knew that at that moment I had to make a firm choice in my head to keep going no matter how bad the cramps may get until it either passed or I reached the end. Decision made, and fully focused on the job at hand, I then hobbled my way towards Threlkeld.

As we crossed the A66 and headed to the care of my waiting support crew of Kate, Roger, and my mum and dad, the last of my concerns vanished as I was treated to a formula 1 standard pit-stop where I was fed, watered, and exchanged some kit in a super smooth fashion and was soon ready for the off.

Splits for interest (Scheduled times in brackets)

Skiddaw                     81        (82)

Great Calva                46        (44)

Blencathra                   70        (68)

Arrive Threlkeld          34        (35)

Leg time                     3:51     (3:49)

*rather than a bear, it may actually have been a pointy rock in a hole that I stupidly fell into.

BGR - The Preamble

First a warning: If you want to read my account of my BG itself, feel free to skip this blog and wait for the next couple. Before I write those though, I wanted to have a look back over my training and approach over the last year more so I can learn what I did that worked for me, and take the “good” bits of that approach and use them for myself in the future, but also the athletes that I coach at the club.

Whilst the Bob Graham was something that I’d thought long and hard about since I first followed (and supported on) Dave A’s round, I’d never quite been able to see how I could get myself into the required shape to succeed. This was largely due to a series of injuries, and being rubbish on rocky terrain. As a result, it had sat as an idea in the back of my head for a few years but had never gotten past the point of daydreaming.

Over those intervening few years, my enthusiasm for my own running was on the wane, and to be honest it was only the enjoyment I got from coaching that was keeping my own running going. Having got to the point of frustration, I decided that I needed some clear goals to try and re-engage with my running. With this in mind, I sat down with a piece of paper and tried to write down ideas of what goals might rekindle my love of running. Having expected a reasonable number to appear, I was a little surprised to discover just two, the most exciting of which to me was to complete a Bob Graham Round.

Having established a BG was something that might rekindle that fire, I next needed to understand how I could get my injury prone body to the required fitness levels. After a convenient chat on my CiRF course one of my tutors made the point that what was required was a period of strengthening to address the imbalances before beginning any serious training. Having no idea on these things, I turned to the excellent Duncan at Beverley Wellbeing to both assess my current mobility levels and, after he’d finished laughing at my inability to squat, set me a program aimed at improving my functional mobility.

Even with my mobility noticeably improving, I was still unsure that I could train for something long and hard without breaking down, so after much thought, I decided that I would plan for a late August BG attempt with a big trip in the early part of summer. In that way, mentally, I could tell people that I was training for something other than a BG until I knew that my body was capable of taking the training.

Having trained for a lovely club trip along the WHW in early May, I started to make serious plans for the BG training. Fortunately the training plan was very simple.

Put in as many big days as I could, with as many as possible on Lakeland terrain.

In between these, keep doing the strength work and do what I could to increase my hill fitness (i.e. hill reps, treadmill at up to 30%, stepper, etc)

The big days were all memorable in their own ways, but the most memorable for various reasons were a trip on the Kinder Killer route that ended up with me picking up a stomach bug, cramming 8000 ft of climbing into the Malvern hills by 11 am, and my last long run pre BG taking in most of legs 3 and 4, that ended with me covering 35 miles / 15,000 ft and feeling as fresh as a daisy. It was through these long days that I taught myself to eat on the run, learnt to deal with the ups and downs of long runs and slowly improved my ability on rocky ground, quite aside from the fact they were all enjoyable of course!

Looking back in the week before the attempt, I realised the plan had been executed pretty well, I pretty much hit the oft mentioned 40 mile / 10,000 ft weekly target as an average over the 15 weeks, but as that included 9 days off ill, the “good weeks were better still. More psychological fuel was created by noticing that at some point on the round itself I’d go past the 250,000 feet of climbing in 2014 mark.

With my body fit and the belief getting stronger, before Friday evening, it was simply a matter of finalising all of the logistics, buy the last remaining food items required, panic that it wouldn’t all fit in the car and hire a van, pack some more stuff, fret a little more, fail to sleep enough, sit in a traffic jam on the A66, fret a bit more, put the tent up, and worry that everyone would turn up.

After that lot, I slept surprisingly well and woke up bright and breezy on Saturday morning. After popping into Keswick for a waterproof pad and a BG map, not I hasten to add for navigating by but for my supporters to sign as a memento for me! To ensure I was fully fuelled, I then headed to the Saddleback for an athlete’s breakfast with Kate Jen and Craig who’d done parkrun. The rest of the day cane and went in a blur of rearranging kit, trying to sleep, failing to sleep, chatting to supporters, trying to nap, and failing to nap.

Soon enough though, 8 o’clock rolled around and it was time to kit up and head to the Moot Hall for some final panicking before the off. Seeing that many people turning up to see me off was a real goosebumps moment as they were all giving up their weekends to help me achieve my dreams. After chatting to as many as possible, it was soon 8:45 and I was itching to go.The last 15 minutes felt like an eternity – something that can be seen on my facial expression in the group photo before the off.