Good morning folks
I trust you are well.
Here is the latest ladfromtad.com blog
Bits and bobs.
Summer finally came (and went as quick as it came).
The Nipper had her first ever ballet show 🙂
(All a bit lost and very new to me, but she loves it).
Had our first ever family trip to the Flicks!
The Nipper had her first experience on a climbing wall.
(Auto belay device, I wasn’t holding the rope whilst taking photos!)
One Sunday I got chatting to the owners (two elderly twins) of this amazing campervan, as they passed through Taddy, what a beauty!
I read this awesome book (thanks to Baz for the lend).
and creakily started my fellrunning season proper…
All of which leads on to a fairly fellrunningcentric blog, with a snippet of Rugby League, if you are pushed for time, just skip to the Joss Naylor part.
Ennerdale Horseshoe (36.8km/22.9miles with 2290m/7513ft of ascent).
Ennerdale was my curtain opener last year, after the long, dark days of Long Covid. Last year was a “Hotter then Ibiza” heatwave. This year threatened minus 4 degrees of wind chill!
The Friday night drive over to Wasdale was a joy, but Saturday dawned a mixed bag. I have run Ennerdale 4 times and know the route, so I was calm, (although never totally confident!)
Got there early, almost off to a very bad start, with this inches-off bit of parking!
E.S.P or pure luck, prevented me from stoving in the back of Lina’s car, just before the start. I was under pressure from a parking warden and didn’t see the post at all 
(With a pair of binoculars) the race goes from the low bit in the centre of the pic (Ennerdale Scout Camp), then crawls up Great Borne (big lump on left) and along the Red Pike ridge as far as Green Gable, then swings over Kirk Fell, Pillar and back along Haycock, Iron Crag and Crag Fell (last hump centre left) before a joyous plunge to the finish (which luckily is the same place as the start!)
The race organiser says “This race route is not for the faint hearted but after completing you’ll proudly display it on your runners’ CV. It is a horseshoe but in many respects it is an out and back race. If you retire at or near the midway point (green gable ish!) you have a 10 mile jog, walk, stumble back to
registration along the valley floor.”
It is a race of one-third and two-thirds, the first 18 miles rough and rocky, then the last 6 miles grassy, runnable fells, but with a sting in the tail, (there is always a sting in the tail, Race Organisers are sadistic like that!)
My “Munching on the Moors” pack-up included a “Charlie Baker” sandwich, some malt loaf and a fistful of gels, (although I gave my malt loaf to a lad from Horsforth, as he was struggling as he had forgotten most of his food. Who would make an error such as that I ask you?!)
A friend at work had given me a Kendal Mint Cake caffeinated gel, this was my final emergency battery. I don’t drink coffee these days, so the combination of mint, sugar and caffeine was a potent one!
Managed to overtake 6 people on the last climb (they had blown a gasket) and finished feeling fairly fresh, (although driving home immediately afterwards, I did require a crane to get me out of my car when I got home at 10pm!)
I made a short, shaky race video here:
Two weeks later, inexorably was the day of the…
Buttermere Horseshoe (35.5km/22 miles with 2515m/8251ft ascent)
The RO has this to say “The Darren Holloway Memorial Race is one of the toughest Lakeland races in the calendar and makes a fantastic day out over the quiet Buttermere fells. In memory of Pennine Fell Runner Darren Holloway, this race is based on the original Buttermere Horseshoe.”
This only tells half the story…
Now, this was a new race for me, although I had run most of the race/tops separately, but over the space of 20 years. I had no time/opportunity for a recce, so spent my tea breaks watching the “Fly-by” of the route on the OS Maps app, thinking this would suffice!
I decided on smash-&-grab tactics; a 4am alarm and driving straight home afterwards.
In my giddiness I arrived 2 hours before kick-off, this was my first error.
Give me an hour, I have my 1 hour race routine down to a tee:
Toilet-kit check-get number-check everything-warm up-toilet-run.
However, give me 2 hours and it becomes:
Toilet-kit check-get number-chat for 1 and a half hours – realise time – panic – no time for proper warm up – no time to check everything – no time for toilet – rush to start – forget something important (such as half of my food, keeping nicely cool in my cool bag) – run – have a shocker of a race!
Weatherwise, it was a perfect day for it. Warm, sunny, bit of cloud and a bit of a breeze. The route is a big loop of everything one can see from Loweswater: Up Whiteside -Grasmoor – Whiteless Pike – Down and up to – Newlands Pass – Follow trod (if you can find it to) Dale Head – down to – Honister Pass – to the resting place of Alfred Wainwright at Inominate Tarn (the tarn without a name)- reverse Ennerdale route to – High Crag – High Stile – bypass Red Pike – down to a dip before a stream/ravine crossing up to – Mellbreak – down to the finish.
With visibility of 100 miles+ there was no excuses for navigational errors then.
In my defence your honour, there were 2 races going on at the same time and it was forgiveable to follow the wrong race route off Whiteless Pike (big THANK YOU to Richard from Marsden for shouting me back).
I realised my food shortages right about 5 minutes before this photo was taken .
Taking stock, I had a Charlie Baker sandwich, half a bag of jelly babies and 3 gels (and no Kendal Mint Cake rocket fuel). This was around 1/3 of the way round. My stomach was rumbling!
Around halfway round both my knees started playing up, it was like someone had removed the hinges. Uphills were fine, downhills weren’t.
I could see a small group ahead all taking good lines (route choice, not cocaine) including a distinctive CFR vest (Cumberland Fell Runners, local club with most likely local knowledge!) I made it my mission to catch them, which I did on the climbs, only to be dropped on the descents. I was on my Jack Jones for the last hour, when things were getting a bit desperate in the energy levels front, but finished (immediately and officially retiring my trusty but old) Walsh shoes, I went to the legendary CFR buffet. Chilli and rice and nachos and a cake stall which would outface Billy Bunter, all served by an amazing group of ladies who just could not do enough, fussing over everyone. Fed and watered, I made my way home, late and stiffening up by the minute. A grand day out 🙂
I made a short and shaky race video here:
Shoes!
Now this has become a bit of a fellrunnning blog, for which I apologise.
Fellrunners talk about all sorts of stuff, most of it not running related, (there is also a tale of which I am not sure is suitable for this blog, but maybe next time!)
One topic of conversation you can start up with any fellrunner is that of shoes! As a sport it is fairly simple and kit has only been overcomplicated by kit manufacturers in recent years. It is all about the grip!
Back in the day (where I generally live my life, unable to move on) there were only Walsh shoes. Hand made by Norman Walsh in a lock-up in Bolton.
Simple, bombproof, grippy as brown stuff on a blanket and minimal. Apart from a bit of lame competition by Ron Hill (Rivington Pike), Reebok (Fjellrunner) and the death trap that was the infamous Adidas Swoop. That was all there was, so things were simple. You wore Walshes, you could even resole them, eco-friendly before their time!
Then along came Inov8 at the turn of the century, who turned things (& prices) on their head. (Although not as crazy, nor pricey as carbon road shoes so I gather!)
Nowadays, other shoe manufacturers have realised there is a fellrunning market to be cornered and money, money, money to be made.
Back in the day.
1986 – When a bottle of milk cost 2 shillings and a house cost less than £100, Walshes cost around £30.
Now.
2024 – When a bottle of milk costs £5, a house costs half a million pounds and all top end shoes cost £130. Walshes have risen to £60.
So, after too many races where my legs and feet were absolutely trashed, I decided to bite the bullet, sell most of my internal organs and try the 3 best shoes currently on offer:
VJ Irock 4 – Amazing grip. In between sizes. 12 too small, 13 like wellies.
Ron Hll Reverence – Very well made, the Harry Bolton Electric Sex Shoe. Sadly too wide
Inov8 Mudtalon Speed – Would fit Daisy Duck well, but my canoe feet are too narrow.
So they all went back and my bank account became 500 sheets better off!
Then I tried Salomons, I’d worn them before and got on with them, but they have completely changed the last since the previous-but-one model (don’t you just hate that!)
So that is why I wore Walshes at Buttermere and paid the price (for having size 13 feet like narrowboats and not being able to find any clown’s shoes to fit me).
There is just one hope, watch this space…
Wasdale Horseshoe (34km/21.1miles with 2750m/9022ft of ascent)
The Race Organiser starts with this “Deepest lake, highest mountain, biggest liar and hardest fell race – that’s Wasdale. Wordsworth once said that
every fellrunner should do Wasdale at least once, or something like that!”
Wasdale is a beast! The sting in the tail is an ascent of Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain, as its final climb, but there is plenty of drama before that!
I have run Wasdale 3 times, but there are so, so, so many places to come unstuck if the clag is down. (Last year a big incoming storm threatened to cancel the race, but the RO took a calculated guess and estimated that it would hit the fells late on. So we started in a sweaty sauna sunny kind of day and the tail-enders (me) got walloped on Scafell Pike. Sunburnt and borderline hypothermic in the same race).
The finish off Lingmell Nose is one of my favourite finishes in any race.
The first time I ran Wasdale there were 45 runners, the weather was pure choss, so I was on my own for most of the race. This year it is a British Championship race and the 300 capacity sold out in a few hours, things have changed.
I am carrying a rucksack full of niggles from Buttermere, but really, really, REALLY hoping I make the start line in 2 weeks time!
Raider’s round-up
A much needed away win at Swinton for the mighty Raiders.
Wakefield Trinity at home will be a trickier proposition.
Barrow ladies will be looking to bounce back against York Valkyrie next weekend!
RIP Joss Naylor
Fellrunning is quite a small, dare I say, niche, sport.
I have done it since I was a lad, I once won a race (with only 2 runners), I got on the podium another time (midweek Lakes race, small field), and I once got in the top 50 of a British Championship race, so looking at me, I haven’t even got any matches to set the world alight!
But, I absolutely love the sport with my whole (knackered) body and soul. For me, it is almost a way of life (if only I lived a tad closer to some hills!)
It is not a sport for primadonnas, people take it seriously, but not themselves. It is (generally) low key, low tech and even if you were the very best, it would not be possible to make a living out of it.
Races start in a field, go up a hill, or several hills, and then come back to the finish, where the winner might get a sports shop voucher, and everyone gets a cuppa and some cake. It is a simple, uncomplicated sport.
There are way more people doing it nowadays, compared to when I first started (Kentmere Pike race, 1986) and the sport has seen some phenomenal runners in its time: Billy Bland, Kenny Stuart, Ian Holmes, Gary Devine, John Wild, Colin Donnelly, Rob Jebb, Rob Hope, George Foster, Finlay Wild and more…
One name that is a household name, is that of Joss Naylor MBE.
Previous record holder for running the Pennine Way (which most walkers do over 2 weeks, Joss ran it in 3-&-a-bit days) and the Wainwrights (Most folk take a lifetime to walk all 214 tops, Joss did it in a week!)
To list but a few of his achievements:
1971: 61 peaks in 23h37m
1972: 63 peaks in 23h35m
1975: 72 peaks, claimed to involve over 100 miles and about 38,000 feet of ascent in 23h20m (record stood until 1988)
1971: The National Three Peaks Challengehe (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon): 11 hours 54 minutes including driving time
1973: The Welsh 3000s – the 14 peaks of Snowdonia in 4 hours 46 minutes (record stood until 1988)
1974: The Pennine Way: 3 days, 4 hours, 36 minutes (record stood until 1989)
1976: Robin Hood Bay to St Bees: 41 hours
1979: TheLyke Wake Walk: 4 hours 53 minutes (set during the annual race)(record stood until 1981)
1983: The Lakes, Meres and Waters circuit of 105 miles: 19 hours 20 minutes
1986: (age 50) completed the Wainwrights in 7 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes (record stood until 2014)
1997: (age 60) ran 60 Lakeland fell tops in 36 hours
2006: (age 70) ran 70 Lakeland fell tops, covering more than 50 miles and ascending more than 25,000 feet, in under 21 hours.
(Bearing in mind the advances in everything over the years; footwear, clothing, nutrition, communication, paths/trods becoming more defined…
These all make the records above even more impressive!)
But Joss Naylor was more than just a phenomenal fellrunner.
All the above are mere results in the life of an extraordinary man.
As a youth he had his cartilage removed from one knee, then later 2 discs removed from his spine. Doctors said he might never walk again, but he proved them wrong! People say that the pain he endured every day with his back, was what made him such an incredible force of nature on the fells.
Everyone can dig in, but he could dig deeper, and for longer…
I had the honour of meeting Joss (twice).
First at the 2000 Wasdale Race, where he happily chatted with runners at the start and then he gave out drinks at Greendale Bridge, part way round.
The second time was at a talk at Keswick. Joss was talking about modern sports food (gels, etc..) and said that if a run was less than 50 miles, he would take nothing, if it was over 50 miles, he might “tek a Mars Bar and drink out of becks”.
Joss gave so much back to the sport, and to charity, in particular the Brathay Trust.
He was a proper Cumbrian character, a first class storyteller and a fellrunning legend.
King of the fells, Iron Joss.
Joss sadly passed away on Friday. The world has lost a great man.
RIP Joss Naylor (1936-2024)
And finally
Until next time,
Johnny
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