The penultimate blog…

Good morning folks

I trust you are well and haven’t bankrupted yourself in the Black Friday sales or gone mad with pre-Christmas hysteria.

The last-but-one blog!

I have said that before, but as Mark Renton said “This was to be my final hit, but let’s be clear about this. There’s final hits and final hits. What kind was this to be?”

For a messed up junkie, the man was a prophet way ahead of his time!

So, with references clearly stuck in the 90’s and before, what is happening to a man who battles with the uncomfortable bedfellows of tradition and progress?

Well, having been highly inspired by my mate John. I am switching this nonsense from a blog to a kind of vlog (or more likely, haphazard videos).

https://www.youtube.com/@lakelandtrailrunner
(Check this out at your earliest convenience!)

John makes outstanding Youtube videos of his runs into the hills, I have been considering switching from written bobbins content to video bobbins content for a while now.
The main obstacles right now are that I don’t have a camera (bar my crappy, temperamental mobile) and I have zero idea about editing, but never let supposed hurdles spoil an ambitious/audacious daydream 🙂
I love writing this blog, mainly for its cathartic qualities, but I would love to learn/try something new.

It will all be happening HERE

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA_Na5bx_haQMK8LQ5m3DVA

If you are interested, please click on the link and subscribe.
Being brutally honest I gave up social media about 5 years ago, so this does feel a bit strange, but if you don’t try, you never know.
It is not going to be “Look at me-my life is 100% amazing”, more down to earth, if I ever do start taking myself too seriously, please slap me down, immediately.
Youtubing? Watch this space!

2023 running wrap-up – A year of two halves.

A brilliant year up to July and then everything seemed to turn to rat$hit soon after. Work to do for next season.

All races are measured on the FEPO scale (I have just made this up).

Fun
Epicness
Performance
Overall

April
Guisborough Moors Race

Going back to a race I said I would never go back to (after being disqualified after winning the Boys race in 1988), I swallowed my pride and hoped for the best. More of a trail/road race, I gave it my best and had ny best descent of the year, finishing absolutely empty.
Fun – 4
Epicness – 3
Performance – 3
Overall – 3

June
Ennerdale Horseshoe fell race

During the glorious heatwave that was the summer, Ennerdale was held on a day where Blighty was more scorchio than Ibiza!
A race which has an easy last 6 miles, but it’s the tough 18 miles beforehand that is the problem, as are the cut-offs!
A record number of drop-outs (heat) and a finish that was a cross between a war zone and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
I drank 4 pints of water before the race, 4 pints during the race and 4 pints after the race, and I was still peeing bright yellow the next morning!

Fun – 3
Epicness – 5
Performance – 3
Overall – 4

July
Wasdale Horseshoe fell race

A tough cookie of a race. Runnable first quarter, but a rough last three quarters. Held on the 1st of July, the same day that summer ended and a race which was almost cancelled the day before, due to a storm forecast to roll in midrace.
Got sunburnt in the first hour and ended up almost hypothermic in the last hour. Very satisfying to get round, but was completely broken afterwards! (I had fallen coming off Pillar, but was aching everywhere afterwards, so it wasn’t that bad).

Fun – 2
Epicness – 5
Performance – 4
Overall – 5

August
Borrowdale fell race

After acclimatising (to the rain) in Kendal for a week beforehand, I felt ready.
Unfortunately my clumsiness led to a slip, trip, stumble, sidewards crash into a boulder with my ribs about 2 miles in. It was too early to drop out so I carried on but suffered for the rest of the race and was sidelined for a fortnight afterwards, trying not to cough, laugh, sneeze or tie my left foot shoelaces.
This was where the season fell to pieces!

Fun – 2
Epicness – 4
Performance – 2
Overall – 2

October
Hodgson Brothers fell relay

A late call-up for the team and one that I couldn’t turn down.
Paired up with my Morley mate, Charlie Mac, on the last leg, I tried my best to hand onto Charlie’s coat-tails. He was kind enough not to run me into the ground. I climbed badly and descended even worse.
Great to see all the P&B crew, but we didn’t win, nor would we have won with my lame efforts.

Fun – 5
Epicness – 3
Performance – 2
Overall – 4

November
Half Trog fell race

Another race, another faceplant!
Last minute entry, had run the full trog before, a log time ago.
Was doing ok and was even in the top 10 (briefly), but a sly rock caught my left foot and I went down like a sack of spuds, one of those downhill no time to put your hands out, head hits floor, birds flying round afterwards.
Then got lost (twice). A day best written off.

Fun – 1
Epicness – 2
Performance – 2
Overall – 1

November
Tour of Pendle fell race

The last long race of the year. Covering every inch of Pendle Hill, with the infamous “Geronimo” descent and 3 big climbs in the latter stages. Half an hour of sun, 3 hours of fog, rain and wind. A day where I didn’t get going until the last few miles (it’s a 17 mile race, so that is not good).
Had problems with the foot I had fallen on the week prior, which made uphills and downhills tricky. Was fine for the last mile of flat.
A curtain closer for 2023.

Fun – 3
Epicness – 3
Performance – 3
Overall – 3

Racing aside, there were other highs with supporting two Bob Graham Rounds and an amazing 3 day trip to Bonny Scotland with my mate John.

I am very, very guilty of self disparagement (and how I wish I could drop this bad habit).

To say that in 2022, I really thought it was game over for all competitive sports, it hasn’t been a bad year. There is an uncomfortable and hard to swallow equation with training and fitness which is basically that

Hard training + not getting injured = improvment.

However, with the inexorable inevitability of aging, this sum is skewed somewhat, so Rejoice, o young man, in thy youth!

Hard training + more hard training = stay at the same level/get injured.

So it becomes,

Hard training + the four letter word (REST) + more hard training = just about stay at the same level.

Which means that it is very hard (but not impossible) to get fitter/faster as one gets older, but one is battling the law of diminishing returns.

BUT, as I tell myself, I’m not just about to pull on a GB vest and in the grand scheme of things, nobody (bar myself) really gives a monkeys, so just enjoy what you do (now) and don’t live in the past 🙂

Next season???

An empty calendar is always a dangerous thing!
This year was weird in that it had no specific goal, I was just going from race to race and hanging on by my fingernails.

I generally HAVE to have a plan, or I go off my head.
So, the main plan for next year is either The Ramsay Round (audacious) or the Tranter’s Round (ambitious). Aiming for midsummer weekend, time/training will tell.

As a warm-up, I am aiming for
Duddon Valley or Ennerdale or…
The Isle of Jura race

Lots of work to be done before then.
Watch this space.

Raiders round-up

No news is good news, but it is the close season, so they aren’t going down or up or anywhere, just yet!

The future!

This blog will self destruct at midnight on NYE, to be reborn in a phoenix (nights) style reincarnation on my YouTube channel right here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA_Na5bx_haQMK8LQ5m3DVA

And finally

As a benchmark of the level of videos I might hopefully be making, here is a blast from the past from the dark days of Lockdown.
We had to film our Superclunk.com Vlogs (sic) in the tiny gap that was Lina leaving the house to go to the shop and my morning online zoom job starting, which left about a 10 minute one-take-wonder window of opportunity. The youngster was only 6 at the time and was somehow following my lead!
Inspired by Morecambe & Wise/Big Night Out style, if nothing else, it was fun, at a bit of a weird time, which lockdown was (and without going into lockdown wars, Arequipa lockdown was nuts!)

This was my favourite 3 minutes of nonsense, which brightened up an otherwise bonkers time.