Lakeland 50 jollies.

Good morning

I hope you are in fine fettle and enjoying the (generally decent) summer weather.
At risk of this being an Ultrablog, I willl try my best to keep it concise.
Here goes!

Lakeland 50

A race that was originally entered with the intention of getting Lina in, and me running round with her, which resulted in me getting in, and Lina, not getting in.
(7000+ hopefuls enter the ballot, which has space for about 2000 lucky folk).

I did the Lakeland 100 in 2011, essentially for a bet!
It was much, much smaller then, and I rocked up to the start knowing very little about the world of Ultra running, to be surrounded by folk wearing long socks, sun visors and using walking poles.
Somehow, I got round in 31hrs and 55mins, joint 42nd place out of 221 starters. Not exactly setting the world alight, but it was my longest ever run by 50 miles. (The Lakeland 100 is 105 miles, and the Lakeland 50 is a shade under 50 miles, at least it was on my watch).

Lakeland 100: Coniston-Seathwaite-Boot-Wasdale-Buttermere-Braithwaite-Blencathra Centre-Dockray-DALEMAIN-Howtown Bobbins Mill-Mardale Head-Kentmere-Ambleside-Chapel Stile-Tilberthwaite-CONISTON.

The Lakeland 50 is just: DALEMAIN-Howtown Bobbins Mill-Mardale Head-Kentmere-Ambleside-Chapel Stile-Tilberthwaite-CONISTON.

So, fast forward 14 years and a week before (in fact for a full 11 months before) the race I was regretting my decision to enter as
a) It is a l-o-n-g race slap bang in the middle of the season, ruling out a lot of other more tempting summer fell races.
b) It is a trail race, not a fell race. Minor detail, but fell races are much more low-key, minimum jazz events, no inflatable hoops, nor booming beatbox music, Starbuck’s themes and “everyone is a legend” strapline.

Basically I was being a miserable git!

A friend pointed out that for 99.999% of the other runners, this was an annual pilgrimage, their world cup final and a weekend that they looked forward and prepped for, for 11mths, so I could either moan my way round, or perhaps try to enjoy it!

I will save you the step-by-step account and merely present you with the highs and lows.

Highs: Running with Mr. Jacob Tonkin as far as Mardale, the ridiculous crowd reception at Ambleside (which would have been a brilliant place to finish! I think there were about 3 people outside the dearly missed Lakes Runner in 2011), and ultimately the finish.

Lows: Losing JT at Mardale, open toenail surgery on Garburn Pass, nausea from Kentmere, a banana drought in general (not a euphemism).

Lina did a run out with the La Sportiva people the day before (& tested a pair of £190 shoes, which thankfully didn’t fit her) and the Youngster did “The Lakeland 1”, a mad dash one mile fun run around the school grounds, so it was an all-round sporting spectacle.

I had a repeat of the last 3 big runs I have done with nausea and a death-like feeling for hours afterwards, but did nothing different so that is to be expected!
I had wayyyyyy too much caffeine/Voom and got sick of gels too early on.
The only drama, apart from gallons of blood and pus from a once pristine model toenail, was a bloke in the dorm the night of the finish, who had had one too many sundowners and went for an extended piddle in the dorm. My overintake of Voom meant that I was wide awake until 5am anyway! (Which was a good job as my bags would have been drowned if I hadn’t grabbed them out of the danger zone).

Good weekend all in all 🙂

WARNING – TOE PIC ALERT!!!

Looks like my toe modelling career is on hold!

Summer holidays

Lakeland 50, A week in the Lakes, 4 days in sunny North Wales and another week in the Lakes.
Then…
A week sorting out the junk in my shed all geared towards a big car boot sale on the Sunday morning.

Lovely Langdale

I do love Langdale!

After the shock of Wasdale last month (camping everywhere, campfires, parking in passing places), in Langdale, despite its accessibility, people seemed to be behaving a bit better, with the exception of the ar$es who dumped a tent, 2 sleeping bags and a load of rubbish, smothered in tomato/BBQ sauce, wrapped up in the flysheet, weighed down with rocks and with all the poles deliberately snapped.

Since when was it ok to leave sh!t like this anywhere, let alone on a main path in the Lakes? (The answer is never).

Big HATS OFF to Josie & Raych for bringing it all down off the fell.

Managed to squeeze in a run with John M too. A recce of the new Three Shires route, great day out 🙂

The girls got some swimming in, with Josie and Raych (I held the towels, not or me thank you!)

Sin City.

Shoehorned an afternoon in Blackpool into the agenda.

Blackpool is a bit of a one-off place, it is Tat Central and perhaps lacking some of its former glory.

We did find a really cool place called “SHOWTOWN”, which is well worth a visit.

Then we went to the world’s busiest swimming pool, Sandcastle Water Park, and then back to the Lakes and then…

Cote d’Anglesey

Having been blindly loyal to the Lakes, a trip to North Wales seemed like going to a distant exotic land, and it was!

Bethesda is in between the mountains of Snowdonia and the sandy beaches of Anglesey, so on my birthday we did something I have never done on my birthday and went to the beach!

The next day we did a b-i-g tour of Snowdonia, humbled by 2 Korean bikers who had ridden from Korea!

Demon Hunters.

(Howzat for a segue!)

Modern music is generally sh!t, but that is only my opinon.
From the Leeds Festival ine-up I recognised 4 bands, but if they came in my lounge right now and started playing, I would not be able to name them or their songs!

Flashback to 1992 and we had festival line-ups like THIS!

Part of getting old is moaning at modern music 🙂

Anyhoooo.

The Youngster likes a wide mix of music, most of it is actually alright.
She has recently taken a liking to K-Pop, which is a whole new world to me.
The recent (Netflix) film “K-Pop Demon Hunters has become a favourite of her’s and we went along to the singalong at the cinema.

OH
MY
WORD!

I do like to watch a film in silence, but that was not an option 🙂
All the young ‘uns seemed to enjoy it anyway.

(It beats “Let it goooooooo” by a country mile in my eyes!)

Carbootland.

I was so traumatised by the wretched midwinter experience of a (very early) morning at Rufforth car boot sale in 2003 that I refused to go near one for 22 years. However, after a pain free morning at Thorp Arch car boot sale a few months back, I decided to return and managed to flog all manner of junk, to people whose houses must look like the interior of my shed(s).

It is always surprising what people buy (and also how low some will try to barter), but after shifting half of the tat I took, I had to resort to eBay and have sold the last thing I said that I would never sell, my double bass.

After 35 years, I have sold it on, for exactly the same amount that I paid for it, which means I got it for a bargain and I’m now giving away the crown jewels, or vice versa, either way it’s gone!

Steel Fell

The part where it starts to get real on the Bob Graham Round, which looks almost vertical from Dunmail Raise, but that is not the best way up!

The Steel Fell is one of the gems of the fellrunning world.
A straight up-&-straight-down 3 miles/5km midweeker with 1312ft/400m of climbing.
However, the treat wasn’t mine, it was for Lina!

Lina has done a few fell races now, but nothing in this league. There are absolutely no hiding places in a straight up and down.
She got bad cramp on the way up and suffered somewhat but smiled all the way down.

In the meantime the youngster and I had a good chinwag with Mr. Tonkin, Rachael May and Hector Robert.

Many thanks to Pete T for the brilliant photos 🙂

The Big Digital Reset

Dropping out into the digital wilderness!
Made a decision to come off the socials: Strava, Instagram and Facebook.

No Instagram means no more watching videos of dogs trashing houses.

I am not actually on FB, but do have an account for getting information about stuff.

Strava will be trickiest. I have been on it for years and it is an ingrained habit, but…

It is a distraction and it has to go.

Streamlining/simplifying my life and although the girls would be happy if I did follow my dreams to be a monk in Tibet, there are bills to pay, so in Taddy I shall remain!

So, dropping off social media, but writing an online blog is a bit of a paradox, but both ofmy readers seem keen to read whatever dribble I scribble. so the blog remains.

I recently re-read “Domestique” by Charly Wegelius and he shaved his hair off to avoid time wasted combing or washing his hair. He was so focussed on his training/racing/performance.

Is it time to hack off my mullet? 🙂

Raider’s round-up

A few tough games, that simply haven’t gone our way has plunged the mighty Shipbuilders from the dizzy heights of the upper table echelons down to (lower) mid table obscurity. Some gutsy, brave performances, but just not in our favour.

We did get to see the mighty Shipbuilders on a very soggy afternoon at York, but the Knights were just too strong in their defence.

Big news was the record achievement of coach, Paul Crarey.
(Snipped from the NWE Mail):

“Paul Crarey will register his 350th game as coach of Barrow, breaking Frank Foster’s record of 349, which has stood since 1983.Foster’s reign was unbroken, commencing in 1973, while Crarey’s achievement has come in two stages.

He was in charge from 2005 till 2007 and returned in 2014 taking over from Bobby Goulding until the current day.

Crarey has worked wonders over the years, when he came back, there was no money in the bank.

But like a trojan he steadily got to grips with matters along with then chairman David Sharp.Steve Neale and fellow directors came on board and Crarey went about the task of bringing Barrow back from the brink of death.
The same year Barrow won promotion to the Championship winning the play-off final before a crowd of over 3,000 against Whitehaven at Craven Park.
In the 2022 season, Crarey was named Championship coach of the year.”

xr:d:DAFDNFy8DC0:1897,j:46356472394,t:23020311

352 games in charge, good old Cresta!

With just 2 more games to go (Halifax at home and Sheffield away), we seem to be safe from the drop zone, so in the Championship we survive!

COYR

And finally

In the madness leading up to our Mongol Rally, when I was purely obsessing about the trip whilst working shifts, I saw this video.

GoPro cameras were in their infancy and there was still a bit of a “wow” factor about them, THEN the GoPro remote was released and being the marketing wizards that they are, the temptation to get one was huge.
(As one of the main plans for the rally was to make a film).

However, there were 2 small hiccups:
1) GoPro a troublesome and fiddly app and update, which affected their installation/operation. It was basically released in a rush, before it was ready,
2) You could not buy them for love nor money, as everywhere was out of stock.

Friday the 13th (of July 2012) was the deadline as that was when we were leaving.
With a week to go I managed to find a surf shop in Cornwall who seemed to have bought all of the UK stock, so I received mine on the Wednesday with 2 days to go.
After spending a morning trying frantically to get the bloody thing to connect to the camera and my phone app, at a time when I had a gadzillion other things to do, I gave in, throwing the blasted thing in a corner and it never made it on the trip, whilst we drove eastwards, the GoPro wizardry languished in a box of tangled cables and failed electronic dreams.

HOWEVER, if I had had the time, the patience, the budget and the know-how, THIS is what I could have created and it is pretty bloody awesome!