Good afternoon folks
I hope you are in finest springtime form and fettle.
Bit of a a lag between blogs this year.
Here is the latest wrap-up of cock-ups and calamaties that I call life!
Marching into spring.
Always good to get bloody winter out of the way!
Spent a fairly pointless but nontheless interesting day at the Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC (work, don’t ask!)
Got out for a curry with the Zoom Boys.
Marshalled at a Hardmoors race, I love marshalling!
My friend and work partner, “Pink Lynne” left the BL.
And, the youngster turned 12 🙂
OCT
When did life become a jumble of acronymns?
Less than 2 weeks until the OCT (Old County Tops), a 3 mile jaunt up and over the 3 highest points of what was the old counties, but is now kind of the new/modern/actual counties (after the abolition of Cumbria 3 years ago, but I won’t start on that rant here!)
Starting in Great Langdale, the Old County Tops runs/jogs/walks/flouders over the tops to Grasmere and up Helvellyn (Westmorland), down to the end of Thirlmere, up Wythburn (pronounced “Wy-burn”) over to Angle Tarn (checkpoint cut-off anxiety) over Esk Hause along the pointy ridge to Scafell Pike (Cumberland, but sadly no sausages, nor wrestling on the day), down the steep backside to soggy Mosedale and to the best feed station in fellrunning (perhaps the only feed station in fellrunning) at Cockley Beck, where after scoffing 15 egg, cheese and tuna sandwiches and half a dozen cups of tea, a grunt and a gurn around the back of Grey Friar to Coniston Old Man (Furness) and a downhill float back to the start/finish at Great Langdale. A grand day out!
Last year I had one of the best races/days out on the fells of my life.
Me and my good mate John (for it is a race run in pairs), the best weather imaginable, I was off my head on excessive carbs/caffeine and an it was absolute joy of a day.
This year, after being injured from last August to autumn, then ill for a month, and then slowly coming back to semi-fitness, then setback by an operation which manifested a panicfest that I haven’t really got any mileage nor climbing in my legs, (as I haven’t!)
A polar opposite contrast to last year.
This year, apart from a brilliant (very, very early) morning out around Ripon with my friend Victoria, who was salvaging a long distance after the Coast-to-coast race was cancelled after the race company imploded and a couple of fell races with Lina (Hoofstones and Wardle Skyline).
Lina ran a good race at Ilkley Moor on her own after I was recovering from my nose job op).
I still felt underarmed, so against my better judgement, 2 minutes before the entries closed on the Friday, I entered the…
TWA
The Anniversary Waltz was a brilliant race organised by a man called Steve Cliff, to commemorate his wedding anniversary. When Cliff sadly passed away in 2018, it was renamed as the Newlands Memorial fell race.
On the very same day, organised by the same people (CFR – Cumberland Fell Runners), is a very different beast of a race, the TWA (Teenager With Altitude).
NMFR – 11.5 miles/3600ft of ascent
TWA – 15 miles/7456ft of ascent
The big difference is the start!
The Newlands Memorial flies up the valley at a rate of knots, until the first big climb up Robinson.
The Teenager goes straight up the side of Causey Pike. “On your marks, get set, walk…”
From Causey Pike it goes to Outerside, Grasmoor, Whiteless Pike, d-o-w-n to the valley bottom, cross the river, then up the other side to Newland Hause, then High Snockrigg, then joining the NMFR rout, up and over Robinson, Himdscarth, Dale Head, High Spy, Catbells before a final plummet down to the finish.
Simple.
My thighs did not work for a week afterwards!
Doubly compounded by the fact that my partner John lives in the Lakes and has been training/racing like a Trojan all autumn/winter/spring dawned the already realised realisation that (no matter how many grams of carbs I can eat, snort, shove up my backside) it is going to be a tough day out which led to an all-out panic. A good mate of mine settled my nerves and I am now in the “better to arrive at the start line unfit but uninjured, than to not reach the start line” camp.
Watch this space 🙂
A tale of 4 compasses
Next time.
Raider’s round-up
The mighty Shipbuilders were lying third in the table, behind London Broncos and Newcastle Thunder, having only lost 2 games this season! Phenomenal 🙂
Until Oldham turned us over at Home 😦
Now there are 4 teams on the same points, but London look to be running away with it, after recently putting 70 points past Goole.
Can our flying winger reproduce this kind of form?
COYR!!!
And finally
At the turn of the century (a term which makes me feel ancient) around the time when we all thought the world would end 60 seconds after 23:59 on New Year’s Eve) on my second stint at the British Library, I stumbled across a book called “Into the Wild” (ITW) by Jon Krakauer.
I had already read his epic “Into Thin Air” (ITA) about the 1996 Everest disaster and “Eiger Dreams”, (ED) but ITW was different.
Without giving the story away, it recounts the incredible true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who simply went into the wild.
A brilliant book, made into an equally brilliant film by Sean Penn.
Fast forward to 2007, I landed what looked like a dream job on paper (which turned out to be a nightmarish job in real life) working for the same volunteer travel company that I had first gone to Peru with, in 2004.
The less said the better about the job, but perhaps the one perk that became of it, was a 3 week trip to Honduras as Project Leader/Translator for a Community Development project supervising 32 Alaskan students, aged 16-18. It was a tough old time, but between us we managed to build a house (which I believe is still standing) and renovate an orphanage.
For kids of their age, their gritty determination and attitude/maturity was impressive. One of the 2 teachers present said it was due to their upbringing in Alaska, “The Last Frontier”, the 49th state.
The group were from Fairbanks, very close to where ITW was centred, but their thoughts towards Chris McCandless were very dismissive, “He was an idiot” was the general consensus.
A chance conversation recently led me to reread Into The Wild and I don’t agree with the above, but if you haven’t already read it, I will let you make your own mind up 🙂
Hasta la proxima amigos.
Johnny
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