April update. Fast walking with a small amount of rock sprinkles

I've not blogged for a while, mostly because I've not done anything worth mention, so it's all saved up into this one post.  Again, a lot of what I've been up to is based around the Lakeland 100 training (or lack thereof) so here's a bit of a round up.

After how much I enjoyed marshalling at Delamere NightRunner, I also marshalled at the Rivington NightRunner 16/1/16 and at Parbold Duathlon 13/3/16.  The former was on a very cold and snowy night, and getting my car all the way along George's Lane to Belmont Road was hard going.  It was even worse coming back down and I had to get a tow from a passing 4x4 enthusiast.  Great experience though, and I bet it was a great one to run with all the snow.  Parbold was a good one to do too, a tough duathlon and nice to be able to hand medals to the SHARKS who took part.

20th March saw a visit from the BeardyBeast.  After pastries and coffee at Chez Lank, we opted to look at Knowle Heights (yeah, not sure why after all) and dropped R-man and Pasty Lord a text.  R-man agreed to meet us there, but Rick was apparently doing some DIY (crap excuse methinks).  Anyway, I was crap and did very little.  Beardy Beast got the FA of a 7a wall, which R-man repeated, and R-man got the FA of a new 7a+.  Classic esoterica of the highest degree, but a fun day out and good to catch up.

R-man repeating "The erotic fiction of Robyn Moolah" 7a




R-man, FA of "Darkthrone" 7a+




Nik on "Hash Lee" 7a+



 Other than a few other plays in the Board Room, climbing has taken second fiddle to running.  14/3/16 I ran the Rivington Trail 26 route as part of training, finding it hard and being slower than the last two times I've done it.



This, and previous experience, prompted me to buy some poles as an experiment.  The first test of those was a 19km stomp with the Iron Man.  Hills certainly felt better, and he thought I was quicker (well, that's a relative term).

The next pole test was the Lakeland 100 recce two days ago.  I didn't do the Coniston to Buttermere recce this year as I had taken some time off running, so this was the first I've done this time.  This was the 33 mile section between Buttermere and Dalemain, containing some of my least favourite sections including parts I slept through during the 2015 event.

Mentally, I split the Lakeland 100 into four sections.

• Coniston to Buttermere  42.0km 2053m ascent
• Buttermere to Dalemain  52.8km  1838m ascent
• Dalemain to Ambleside  48.9km  2061m ascent
• Ambleside to Coniston  25.3km  904m ascent

Clearly, getting to Dalemain means you've completed more than half the distance (94.8km out of 169km) and the ascent (3891m out of 6856m) which is a big psychological boost.  My aim has always been to hit Dalemain before the 20 hour mark.

The recce at the weekend can be broken down into four legs, as per the road book:

• Buttermere to Braithwaite  10.5km  573m ascent
• Braithwaite to Blencathra  13.7km  478m ascent
• Blencathra to Dockray  12.3km  417m ascent
• Dockray to Dalemain  16.3km  370m ascent

I used the poles for most of the time, except I put them on the bad between Sail pass and the Spooney Green Lane ascent.  Up and over Sail Pass felt fine, the bit along the A66 was as boring as ever.  I got to Blencathra in under two hours, feeling good.  After this I started to suffer from the heat, a perennial problem for me and not helped as there was no water at Braithwaite and I only drank 750ml and ate nothing before Blencathra.

The altered section of the route and the climb to the Old Coach Road got me feeling worse and worse.  I was knackered, hot, sweat pouring and demoralised.  I was very glad to get to Dockray where I ate a couple of my sandwiches and had a lot of water.  Looking back at the Strava times I still did well, so maybe the poles do help!

Jogging down the road to Dockray village whilst eating was OK, and I started to feel a bit better (well, less bad) through Aira Force.  The trek around Gowbarrow felt reasonable too.  I got to Dalemain after 8hrs37mins - when Iron Man and I did the informal recce last year we got to Dacre in 8:34, without the last 2km to Dalemain, so despite feeling like crap my times were OK.

I'm aiming to get a marathon plus distance done each month from now, and practice with the poles.  My shoulders are aching after Sunday, so the muscles have clearly been used.  Let's see how things go...