Good morning folks
Here is the latest write-up of events that is the jumbled nonsense which I call my blog.
No messing around this month, let’s just crack on with it.
Evaporating April!
Where did it go?
After the “glacier-in-reverse” speed of January, (definitely not helped by being paid mid December), February cruised, March sprinted and April positively disappeared. Whilst typing this out in a mini-heatwave and wishing that it would last forever (spoiler – it won’t), having seen the reservoirs up on the parched moors, there is a part of me wishing for rain, but only during the week and at night please!
Up the road…
I have been lucky with travelling. I lived in Western Australia as a youngster (& blagged my way into a job as a kind-of-chef in Sydney as a young man), Lina and I drove to Mongolia in our little silver Micra, I somehow survived living in Peru for a few years and I went round the world on a £997 RTW ticket, what an absolute bargain that was.
However, I am THEE most hopless tourist, best exemplified by the fact that I never actually got to Macchu Picchu!
I am a Cumbrian, I was born in what was (& now is) Westmorland. I am blindly loyal to the Lake District. The Berlingo pulls northwards towards the A1/A66 whenever I drive anywhere else and I would chop off both little fingers and both little toes to move back there.
HOWEVER, my favourite place in the whole world is the Scottish Highlands.
This love affair began in 1986 when I went on a winter mountaineering trip in 1986 to “The Great Wilderness” between Kinlochewe and Dundonnell.
People say they are “blown away” by places, events or experiences, it was more than that for me, I was completely enchanted.
Yes, it is a long drive and yes, the traffic around Loch Lomond can be a right royal pain in the ar$e, but I love it up there. My favourite trip of all time remains as the one I did on my trusty old Honda C90 in 2014. 1500 miles in 10 days on a budget of £100, (did it with 5p to spare!)
https://eu.alpkit.com/blogs/deeds/operation-point-clunk-north-the-idea
Put simply, I will drop everything for the chance of a trip up north.
So, when my mate John mentioned a trip to Kintail, I was there.
Obsessing over the weather at a time when it had been glorious, but looked to turn crap, we actually lucked out with the weather and despite monsoons in Glasgow, had 2 fine, dry days. Staying at the outstanding Ratagan Hostel (cheaper than the local campsite at £28 per night, with the best showers I have ever had), we had 2 days on the hills, (The Scots call them “hills”, but they are bloody big hills!)
Day 1: The Five Sister & Four Brothers of Kintail.
Day 2: The Forcan Ridge and The Saddle.
Day 1 was longer, day 2 was spicier!
The Five Sisters is an outstanding roller-coaster ridge rider of a day out & best of all, we only saw one person all day. After the first mile/3000ft of climbing, it is a joy, the views are both panoramic and aerial.
I lost count of the times I said “What a day!”
Thankfully the van was still there at the Cluanie Inn at the end.
The Forcan Ridge is a different day out…
On paper it looked shorter (as it was) and apart from a bit of scrambling, fairly straightforward, (which it was, straightforward apart from “a bit of scrambling”).
On a sunny, warm day, it would be an amazing walk.
Although it was clear, it had turned very windy and the wind seemed to be coming from an Eskimo’s freezer in the North Pole!
Fellrunning (hill running north of the border) is sometimes marginal, especially regarding kit (choice).
If you do venture out onto the hills, especially as a runner, although watching YouTube videos does not substitute experience, if you have 4 minutes and haven’t watched THIS VIDEO, watch it now:
(Even better, if you have 10mins, watch the extended version, it might just save your bacon and/or make you think, whilst packing your bumbag (fanny pack for American subscribers!)
Back to the Forcan Ridge.
After a steady climb, the ridge bares its teeth fairly soon, then tricks you into thinking that the tricky bit is behind you, when it is not!
Definitely not a day for loitering and most definitely not a place where you would want a fall! We were only a couple of miles from the road, if you fell off the south side of the ridge, you might as well be on the moon!
John and I are both experienced mountaingoers, and John is an A&E nurse, so I was in safe hands, (I had a St.John’s First Aid course 20 years ago, I have experience with paper cuts!)
Edward Whymper’s wise words were going round my mind:
“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”
Only a Grade 2 scramble, but a bit dicey on an icy day.
After the ridge, the rest was plain sailing and we cooked up future plans, before waiting an extrordinarily long time for some tucker at a not especially busy local boozer. It was like a Scottish Fawlty Towers.
Next day, I had an appointment at a local (Yorkshire, not Highlands) Optician to have my ears looked at on the Thursday, as I had gone deaf in my right ear a few weeks previous. A week of Otex Express (useless) and a week of intense Olive Oiling (marginally better) had lined me up for a 4:30pm appointment.
Rising at 5am, away by 6am, home by 3pm. I rang to check and was told that my appointment was actually the week after 
Ironically, my phone rang soon after but I didn’thear it. By the time I saw the missed call and rang the Opticians back I was told that they had had a cancellation, but that I was too late.
I did go for my ears sucking out the week after and had enough wax to start up a candle factory and learned more than I ever knew about my Tinnitus, which although it will never go away, it can be managed without losing one’s mind!
With hearing restored, after a cracking Caledonian trip, my thoughts started drifiting to future trips to the fells/hills…
P.S. A not too welcome souvenir. One of seven ticks exported from Kintail, horrible little beggars!
“Training”
Thishas become a competely running-centric blog, so I won’t bore you here with a blow-by-blow account of my training diary.
I will only mention “The Carb Revelation”
Also Doni’s uphill treadmill revolution, a very cheap road bike from a man near Whitby (tied in with a day trip which was planned before the bike acquisition).
A half price Halford’s turbo trainer justified by the sale of some tat from my shed, cross training (even bloody swimming, which I hate) and sidestepping the Eskdale Elevation, to hopefully make sure my legs are intact for…
O.C.T.
The Old County Tops Fell Race.
“Held in May, The Old County Tops Fell Race covers 37 miles and involves around 10,000 feet of ascent.
The exact distance and amount of ascent are dependant on the route you choose!
The Race starts in Great Langdale and takes in the tops of Helvellyn, Scafell Pike and Coniston before returning to Great Langdale, after which the competitors are fed and watered.”
That is how it is described on the race website. It sounds like a jolly day out when you read it, but after helping out on the feed station (not common in fell races, which are mainly self-sufficient affairs, where you might get a swig of water or a couple of jelly babies from a friendly marshal), and seeing the state (& disparity/decline) of some runners, I know very well that it is one of the hardest fell races in the calendar.
One big difference abou this race is that it is run in pairs.
And finding a well matched partner is not that straightforward.
It is not just about fitness, although both runners have to be fit.
It is also about mountaincraft, navigation, “admin” (keeping your $h!t together with feeding, drinking and all that stuff which if neglected will mean the wheels will fall off).
In my eyes, (as a competitor, but not a podium challenger/record breaker), one of the most important things is to find someome who you get on with. Someone who you can take the mickey out of/have the mickey taken out of you by, who you kind of know when they go quiet, do they want to have their ear chewed off or do they want a bit of P&Q.
For all the reasons above, that is why John & I are teamed up for the OCT.
It is going to be a BIG day out 🙂
John & I did a brilliant (crack, but maybe not brillliant weather, we got our asses wupped by Storm Babbet) trip a while back which can be seen/summarised here:
On the Way.
What started as a daydream will most likely be a reality by the time of the next blog. The “Northern Challenge” is our little adventure running, jogging, walking, crawling and hallucinating along the top half of the Pennine Way, southwards from Kirk Yetholm (Scottish Borders) to Hardraw (near Hawes).
When I say “our”, I refer to a very hardy bunch of athletes from Marsden and myself (maybe not so hardy).
Sinead is the brains behind the organisation and (extremely complex) logistics and support. I did once do the road support for a P&B Bob Graham Round with a clubmate called Boff, and it was simply a case of being at the 4 road crossings on a circular-ish route at a certain time, with a bootful of running kit, pasta, pasties and drinks. Tiring, but only lasting 24 hours, with runners either being there and carrying on, or being there and dropping out!
The PW will be different as it is linear (A-to-B) and we may well be strung out like the washing, meaning headaches for road support.
I haven’t done anything near this distance (ever) and haven’t done any mega-long stuff (100 miles, which I only did once) for many, many years, so it is into the unknown a bit and will be entirely on-the-hoof experimental when it comes to eating and sleeping, but it is good to try something that you know there is a good chance that you might not be able to do!
Watch this space!
Raider’s round-up.
WHAT A SEASON (so far!)
Second in the league and flying high with confidence and results.
Success is not a regular bedfellow of our’s at Craven Park.
Since our Challenge Cup victory (a while ago in 1955), it has been lean pickings. League Two champions in 2004 and Championship Grand Final winners in 2009 (what a match that was). That is the sum of victories since 1875. 150 years!
However, this season, 8 games in, things have been different and although we never take victories lightly, the team spirit has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Let’s hope we can hold the form for the next 16 matches/until September!
And finally.
My mate John is what is known as a YouTuber. He makes high quality, entertaining videos of forays into the fells, and most of all, people (3000 subscribers) watch and enjoy them! (One of his videos has had 188,000 views!)
At the other end of the scale, there is me!
I have 45 subscribers and have had a total of 8751 views, and I think that is including me watching my own videos.
The difference is that he knows what he is doing 🙂
On our Scotland trip, I took along my camera for posterity. It is purely a point and shoot capture of a day out. So here is the ladfromtad.com vlog for your entertainment
That’s all for now folks!
Hasta la proxima amigos 🙂
Johnny
p.s. Thanks to John for the Scotland pics (his are the good ones, my camera is diabolical). Less pics than usual this month, lost my new hard drive, d’oh!
LADFROMTAD.COM 