Results

Results now out. 

Ring One 5 hrs 5 mins

Ring Two 7 hrs 25 mins

Ring Three 7 hrs 42 mins

Total: 20 hrs 12 minutes

104.5km and 2008m ascent. 

Three Rings of Shap 14.06.2014

On Saturday I found myself in Shap for this event.  I wanted to go under 20 hours on this to get an idea of how to approach the Lakeland 50.

The event started at 8am, and the first ring went along Wet Sleddale to Mosedale Cottage, then over Branstree and Selside Pike before heading back to Shap via Swindale (where you can see J Mascis from a distance, a problem I've had on my list for a while).  I had wet feet from the Selside descent so changed socks at Shap (under 6 hours, ahead of schedule) (wet shoes though) and set off on Ring 2........

The second ring was my least favourite.  It involved a lot of ups and downs through grassy fields and lots of stiles plus a couple of sections where I had to fight through fallen trees and nettles, cross felled tree plantations and go along river banks covered in roots.  Feet soaked again early on and I had the start of good blisters by the time I got back to Shap.  Oh well, only 20 more miles to go, and still ahead of schedule......

I changed to my dry road shoes and fresh socks.  Ring 3-  I headed out on my own with two hours of light.  A lady caught me up and ran/ walked with me- she knew the route.  We both plodded round, getting past the first tricky section before dark.  We managed to get through the Nature Reserve in the dark without getting lost, despite it having started to rain heavily.  After the checkpoint at Great Asby, we struggled getting to Gaythorne Hall - this involved heading on a compass direction across open land for 900m to hit a stile.  After using the GPS we were back on track.  My companion was obviously flagging, actually falling asleep on the move.  My feet were pretty caned by now, but there was no way I wasn't going to finish.  We kept going all the way back to Shap, bedraggled.  I think it was around 20 hours and 15 minutes, but the official time is awaited.  Disappointed, but it was tough and I couldn't have left my colleague alone.






I started driving home, keen to be back in bed with my wife, but I was falling asleep, so I stopped at Killington Lake services and had 45 minutes sleep on the back seats under the sleeping bag.  I was home by 7am.

Yesterday my legs were OK, but my feet weren't.  I've had some fun driaining the worst blisters.  Bring on the Lakeland 50.  If that goes OK, where do we go next????  Maybe back to bouldering.  Or have a good think about foot care.

Howgills UltraTrail 26

On Sunday the Iron Man and I had a trip to Sedburgh for this event.  The Howgills are an area I have neglected in the past, quite wrongly it turns out as they are really nice hills- round, rugged, craggy, and good views.

The route is basically a big up in the first 5km, then up and down.  Underfoot varied and was generally quite technical.  Strangely, this felt the hardest of the three UT26s we have done, although last weekend's run may have something to do with it.  I came in under six hours, which was my aim.

Rivington UltraTrail 26  3/11/13  43.9km  1016m ascent  5:39:36
Grizedale UltraTrail 26  23/2/14  43.6km  1183m ascent  5:46:59
Howgills UltraTrail 26  25/5/14  42.5km  1153m ascent  5:58:41

Incidentally, in 2014 I have run 535km and covered 8899m ascent, which is more than the height of Everest and was one of my aims this year.  The other running aim remains unspoken.....

Lakeland 50 Recce Pooley Bridge to Ambleside

Did this today with the Iron Man.  Really, really, really hot.  And tough.

46.2km
2000m ascent
7hrs 40.

Hard, but the 50 is a reality.

Woo hoo

A big clap for Ben as he helped significantly in his team's Under 10s cup victory in today's final.  He played really well, made two great saves and was generally awesome.  Nice one Ben!!

Denham Quarry 28/04/2014

I went back to Denham on Monday after a recent trip where I did nothing. I had noted a possible sit start to Hypno-Toad, but since I didn't get close to Hypno-Toad stand up I dismissed it last time.

This time I warmed up at the left end and managed to do R-Man's nice wall of Living Next Door To Acid (stand), so I thought I'd have another look at Hypno-Toad.  It took ages to do the stand up, it's a weird move.  The sitter adds one fairly OK move, but it's then harder to do the slap.  I managed to link it after a good few goes.  Very morpho, but I suggest 7a-ish for now.  I then managed to do Snap Derision after not even managing to pull on last visit.  It's about 7a now the broken hold has stabilised and is usable.  When I did it originally, there was a crimp higher up and it was 7a+.  When I snapped the crimp off, the sequence became harder and used a foul 2 finger sloper below the new hold (this is in the video below).

Video of the four things I did on Monday, plus some old footage from 2008 to 2011:



Denham Quarry Bouldering from GCW on Vimeo.

Yorkshire Three Peaks

Today I ran these three hills.  It was very windy and visibility wasn't great, especially on Werneside where I fell headlong and hurt my left shoulder.  I got a tad lost going up Ingleborough and was held up by various parties Long the way.  However, I did car to car in 6:28:24, which I was very disappointed with. I had hoped for under six hours, but it wasn't to be. Nice route, shame about the runner.  38.6km and 1442m ascent, in 6hrs 28mins. Poop, doesn't bode well for future events.

So here's some old footage of St Bees from Nik and I. Shit video I'm afraid, first outing with new software.


St Bees Bouldering from GCW on Vimeo.