The Haweswater Half Marathon

James Bulman winning the Haweswater Half in a time of 1:14:11.

More later, and thanks to everyone who helped make it an enjoyable race.

KWL- CAUTLEY SPOUT- NEGATIVE VIBES!

Well, here we are again, with another Sunday morning tale to tell. I travelled to this one with Mrs Gill D-S-D and Sally, and what a sad carload of negativity I had to contend with. Just when you want the positive energy flow to enhance your mind state what did I get?

You guessed, the serial underachievers started off with 'I'm not in the right state of mind for a run, so I'll just go and walk up something to watch them do it', followed by ' I've brought my gear, but I don't think I'll be using it', and 'my head hurts just below the lug area where it's swollen', and 'I've been kneading dough all week and I've nothing left for running, and I don't feel 100% anyway, I think I'll just walk with you'

Buoyed by this wave of enthusiasm for the run ahead, I fell out of the car at Cautley Spout and saw the first of the Junior races running up a reasonable slope to the east of the Spout and thinking 'Ah well. not too steep, gentle rise to the top, gentle run back down...not that bad.'

Paid the very reasonable £2.50 entry fee, and met Rhiannon and Stu, at which point Stu gave me the most realistic pre-race description yet - first off, the seniors went west of the Spout, crossed a river twice, then straight uphill ( horrrendous), across the crest then straight down (horrendous again), back across the river and home. ( Rhiannon would probably have said ' It's just a run out, up a bit, down a bit and then back home'). Then Stu set off on his bike to Sedburgh for a cake and coffee, and a gentle peddle back................

Meanwhile, off we went, after a false start, up another even longer than last week uphill trudge, at one point I suffered a snowball onslaught from Rhiannon (she's meant to be a team mate!), and had to struggle not to laugh at a guy from Keighley who on a really steep bit, was crawling, like a baby, on arms and knees (sorrry mate if you happen to read this!).

At last the summit turn for home - within 50 metres I'd gone over on my ankle and started to be over cautious on the descent!

Next thing I knew Rhiannon had gone past me ( I have a deep seated dread of being beaten by certain Eden Runners over distances of less than 10 miles (You all know who you are!), so I was very very anxious at this point, given my general pride about the speed with which I can usually go down.

Eventually the slope eased, and, across some easier, wetter ground, I was almost upon Rhiannon when she suddenly stopped......... to tie her shoelace! Oh Joy! Do I shove her over as I go past? Remove her shoe and scop it across the fell? NO! I just shoot past, thinking 'thats the get out of jail card played again!'

Finished, and, for the first time in a race I had nothing, absolutely NOTHING in the locker for a fast finish should it be needed. It was the hardest race I've been in, the tank was on empty.....but, at the end, the bloke who finished behind me shook hands, Rhiannon shook hands and Duncan, a fella we've got to know over this series of races also shook hands, a mate of Duncans shook hands and, somehow, although I was disappointed with my performance ( I guess I always will be!), those hand shakes made it all worth while.

We went to a pub in Ravenstonedale after, and, althought there were no chips, we had some marvellous crisps and bits of cake, and a good crack! Oh and one of the fell runners had offered to make us a cup of coffee after the race, after I'd asked him if he could knock us up a veggie burger on the stove in his camper van!

The Fell Fella

USING THE LAVATORY OUTSIDE

Hows that for an attention grabbing headline - the blog's really about the Kendal Winter League Race at Barbondale just at the southern end of the Howgills, but.......................................................
on the way there we had to stop for a toilet break at the beginning of Barbondale, a lovely unspoilt valley.
We rushed into a wood by the roadside to use the facilities, myself having finished quicker than the girls (for obvious reasons), I couldn't help but notice the different 'styles' - Rhiannon had adopted a 'bear in the wood' approach, she went so far into the woods she was invisible; Sally went behind the nearest tree ( here's a tip for next time: Just because your heads behind the tree don't necessarily mean your backside is too!) whilst Mrs D-S-D adopted her usual approach of 'Sod it, I'll just drop my keks and crouch wherever I happen to be standing'! ( Note: this is acceptable in the great outdoors, but not when shopping in the Trafford Centre)...

On to the race - Rhiannon has at last realised that her generally inaccurate course summaries prior to the start were having a bad effect on my morale, and restricted herself to 'Up, along a bit & back the way you came'. The hill we had to run up was covered in cloud so we could only see the first 100 metres up, but at the start it looked like we were facing a vertical wall of grass.

GO! and we were immediately on the wall! No run in to this climb, half a stride from the start and we were on a seriously steep hill, which got steeper, and steeper, and steeper, even the fell running greats (Wendy Dodds and myself) were reduced to going up this one on hands and feet!

I took a fall as Rhiannon drew level and tried to put me off my stride by mumbling to me in words I couldn't really understand (oxygen deprivation), but I'm sure I heard her laughing!

Lungbursting and relentless, we climbed up into mist and low cloud, until an eventual respite and short run out on the level to a cairn and back again to the descent.

Any steeper and I would have wanted a rope and ladders to get back down, but, here's the joy of this race: just as my legs were screaming for mercy, I slipped at the top of the steepest part of the descent, and, with junior spectators shouting 'SLIDE! SLIDE!', I lifted my feet off the ground and slid down 200 metres on my backside - Brilliant! (the only downside to this was the decision of what to do with the marker flag racing up towards my spreadeagled legs - answer: reach out and grab it before it hit me in the particulars!).

After we'd finished the cloud lifted to reveal a 'hog of a hill', I can honestly say that if I'd seen it all before the race, I would have developed a hamstring twinge, athletes foot, achilles tightness, or an urgent need to get home for a meal which woul dhave saved me from the hill!

Another great race, and on the way back we stopped for a drink. Stu had told Rhiannon there were two pubs on the road back to the M6, one a real old fashioned front room pub with great beer and atmosphere, the other nowhere near as good.

We picked the wrong one!

The Fell Fella
PS On the drive back we realised the outdoor toilet wasn't a wood, but the 'Tradesmans entrance' to the grounds of a large country house, so apologies for that..........

The Haweswater Half Marathon...

The Haweswater race is about as full as it can get, so apologies if you didn't get in.

The long-range weather forecast suggests it could be pretty cold over the race weekend, so we'll have to assess the route conditions nearer the time.

ANOTHER TALL STORY FROM THE TOP OF A HILL!

This Sunday saw me, Mrs D-S-D and Rhiannon trailing just south of Tebay to do a fell race in the Howgills, and YET AGAIN I had been misled!

This race had been previously described to me by Rhiannon as 'the loveliest route out of all of them' and ' a lovely run, along one side of the valley, then back down the other side'.

I don't know what sort of a world she lives in, but it must be one where horizontal and vertical mean altogether different things, because as the race actually went straight up a hill, then up a bit further to the top, then back down the hill again - the most 'fell racy' race of the lot so far, no chance for the 'road runner' to use his pace over more or less level ground to gain lost time on the uphill trudge...so no run along the valley stuff, indeed no sign of a valley anywhere on the route, unless she meant the gorge near the end where you fall down into a beck then have to drag yourself up the other side!

Anyway, things got off to a bad start with Mrs D-S-D becoming stressed at the venue due to parking difficulties involving a hesitant (lady) driver not knowing what to do about leaving/staying, making Mrs D-S_D take a 3 mile detour along single track roads, returning with a whole new vocabulary of swear words.

The race was simply UP then DOWN, in biting cold winds, with a hidden obstacle drainage ditch which caught me out 100 metres before the finish, leading to a comedy fall/slide along the wet rushes, which meant at that point I was probably moving faster than at any other time in the race!

The still stressed Mrs D-S-D had also taken a tumble on the fells, and the trouble continued as we walked back to the car.

A lady was riding her bicycle along the road, and as she came up behind us she started shouting 'Bike Bike! Look out for me and my Bike'. Mrs D-S-D rose to the bait shouting 'Pedestrians, Pedestrians ! The roads for ******* pedestrians too!

As the lady pedalled off to Tebay we hatched a plan to catch up with her, lean out the car window and push her off the bike, give her a good sort out, with one smack for nearly knocking us over ( Yes, I'm still sensitive about being knocked over in Penrith too) and another one 'just for anything else we can think of'!

We didn't !

The Fell Fella

EARLY START/LATE START ....?

Well, I had 3 options for Sunday- get up early enough to be at the Rugby Club for 8:30 for the CHernobyl 10k; get up early enough to leave home at 11:00 for the Kendal Winter League race near Ulverston; just stay in bed.
The choice was reduced to the last two following a saturday trip to watch Annan Athletic, which involved a meat and potato pie for pre match food, with a meat pie at half time, followed by, yes you guessed it half a meat pie post match refreshment - they know how to look after us northern lads over the Border! This lot washed down with a couple of pints of 'Bellhaven Best Bitter' (jokes welcome about 'if this is Best, what else do they do?).

The pre race diet above led to an interrupted nights sleep, necessitating two 'trots along the landing' (think about it), then Mrs D-S-D woke me up at about 4:30 as she set off to do some 23 mile run near Kendal - hence I finally woke up at 8:45- too late to do the Chernobyl, which had always been my first objective, so the Kendal winter League it was!
The beauty of this race series is that it's oh so civilised, in that you can get up, read the papers, then leave home about 11:00 for a 1 o'clock start.

'This is a fast race' was about all I'd been told ( given the rucksacks full of half truths, ommissions, mis descriptions and tall stories I'd been told before about races in this series, I guess we'd got to the stage of 'the less he's told, the less there'll be for him to moan about after').

Rhiannon then pre start had a moment of Mrs D-S-D indecision about 'how many layers should I wear?' Finally sticking to three, the details are hazy, I spend too much time giving dodgy advise about 'six layers too many, one layer too few' to Mrs D-S_D to remember advise on an individual basis......

'GO' signalled what felt like a mass sprint straight uphill, then straight down the other side, then along a bit of tarmac until we found a way back onto the fell for another long run up, before a short sharp run back down to the finish ( this could describe most fell races, apart from those that are 'straight uphill then back down') - it only took 27:30 to do, which, if not for my bad decision making about toilet stops before the race, necessitating the use of a field gate half way round, would have been about 27:00 dead.

Apparently if you do seven of this series you get a medal, another four to go then I can chuck the fell shoes away, and put the medal in my 'display plastic bag' in the bottom of the wardrobe with the footy medals....................................

The Fell Fella (new nom de plume- sounds better than 'that fat bloke with the pie that the lid blew off'')

Kendal Winter League- ''It doesn't get any worse''!

Well, after last weeks intro to these 'events', and, despite being recorded as DNF ( it must've been someone else who crossed the line with number 113 on then! Strangely, I FELT as though I'd run the course myself, only the organisers seemed to have missed me), I turned up again on Sunday, with Rhiannon and Mrs D-S-D.
Now, after the half lies and untruths I'd been told about last weeks event, Rhiannon had already told me (a) nothing else is as bad as last week, and (b) this one is a boggy course, and I was having difficulty reconciling these contradictory statements, as the starter told us it was 'wet on top' and to 'follow the flags down the wallside coming down', and 'GO'!

The run was up a steep climb, out over a 'plateau' ( an area of alternating boggy wet low areas and higher, well, boggy wet high areas) and Rhiannon, I'm sure had said the race takes about 50 minutes, up the hill round the plateau and back down, so I thought I was doing fairly well to get to the wall with the flags marking the route down in less than 20 minutes. ( The more alert reader will realise that there had been yet another misunderstanding). We had to run nearly back to the bottom of the hill then go up it AGAIN and retrace our steps through the bogs back to the finish, the highlight for me was not falling full length in one of the bogs, but seeing the guy I was running with do exactly that! I had 3 options: (1) Help him out, (2) run past him or (3) step on his back to get over the bog without getting wet! I chose option (2), life's all about making choices..............

So, soaked and mudcaked, we finished and went for some soup and chips at a nearby cafe with Rhiannon and Stu (who'd shown he had more sense than the rest of us put together by going off on his mountain bike instead!)

I'm going to keep at these races, if only because at some time the weather's going to warm up, the sun shine, the ground dry out, I'll run a route as I imagine it to be, and all will be well with the world.......................but then will it still be fell running?

PS Upcoming: Part 2 of Tatras Tantrums and Bavarian Bravado - a saga of the cross country skiers!

GRAHAM LE SAUX DANCING ON ICE

I don't USUALLY watch celebrity based dancing/talent shows, but have just seen Le Saux dancing on ice! He went for a burton in practice and danced like a block of wood ( still did better than I could!), out of his depth and in a strange place - that's just how I felt this morning when I turned up with Rhiannon at the second Kendal winter league fell race.

I can heartily recommend this series of races as you don't have to set out particularly early to do them, nor are they particularly long, in fact, on todays experience they'd be quite easy.............at any other time of the year. At this time of the year, on the hills above the M6 with nothing between us and the Irish sea, the entry fee of a mere £2:50 buys you a masochists delight!

We were soaked just running from the car to register, the howling wind and driving horizontal rain had even driven the sheep out of the fields, so nothing particularly attractive in the way of livestock to look at either, which brings me to a most unusual occurrence as we lined up for the off, when many of the runners started howling and yapping, not unlike a pack of hounds ( perhaps it was the extreme cold)?....

I'd originally been told this was a flat run twice round a field; this morning before leaving I was told there was a 'hill' to go up (in fact there's two on each lap), and, just before the off Rhiannon let slip that there was a river to cross ( there were two on each lap) and the water was the coldest I've ever been in, apart from the endless cold of the driving wind and rain when we were running.

The starter had what had once been an umberella, but by the time we were ready it was little more than a few tatters of nylon and some spokes. I was a bit concerned that running round a field twice was serious enough for the organisers to count us before we started, but now realise that the 'field' was at least two with a large open common at the top, deep boggy bits in which a short bloke could easily be lost forever, and raging torrents which, if you lost your footing would probably discharge your body at Arnside, just next to the sewage outfall pipe, appropriate really as I felt like a piece of **** as I plugged my waterlogged and weather lashed way round the course, overtaking a youth in a buff which he wore in 'Rumanian woman style' to keep the weather off, and a bloke in full wet weather gear, waterproof walking jacket and leggings, who got away from me on 3/4 of the course, but on the return leg home into the wind he got blown back as the full force of the wind got hold of his loose gear - Ha Ha I thought , how people laughed at my tights but they now proved their worth as I slipped through the squalls!

Anyway, eventually, it was over. No warming cups of tea and cake, just back to the car, heater full on and home to a hot bath and a cup of tea in it (that's luxury, me in the bath, the tea in me).

We both said 'why do we do it'? Rhiannon eventually came up with 'it makes me feel more alive' and, strangely, I think I know a little of what she means - anyone want to come with us to the next one at 'Whitestones' - I think I'm addicted to pain!