LADFROMTAD.COM

Good morning folks

I trust you are in fine form.
2024.
Never, ever, have I embraced a new year with such vigour.
Since the last blog (mid-December), a lot has happened, apologies, it’s not a micro-blog this time, but I will definitely semi-skim things down next time
It was most definitely a December to forget, but on the other hand it is kind of positive now, to look back at how bad things were and how much better they are now.

The Nipper

A long, twisting and at times, complex story, so I will try to keep it brief and objective as possible.
A timeline might best explain things.

29/11/23: Valentina felt ill; headache, fever, dysuria (burning when passing water) & general malaise.
01/12/23: Severe stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea & begins. Went to Out of Hours (OOH) Selby and sent home.
02/12/23: Symptoms worsened, went to YDH A&E, sent home.
03/12/23: Symptoms worsened, went to Leeds OOH, sent home.
04/12/23: Symptoms worsened markedly, went to YDH. Admitted. Diagnosed as having Gastroenteritis, kept in isolation for 3 days, then discharged.
09/12/23: Symptoms worsened to point of not being able to walk, went back to YDH, readmitted.
10/12/23: Saw a surgeon (3pm), suspected burst appendix. Taken to operating theatre 8pm, returned at 01:15am. Kept in YDH for 3 days, discharged.
18/12/23: Symptoms worsened, difficulty walking without aid.
Rang Surgeon’s secretary, told to go to GP, rang GP, told to go to OOH, rang OOH told to go to GP, saw GP, prescribed a cream!
19/12/23: Symptoms worsened, tried to make GP appointment, told there were none until 04/01/24.
20/12/23: Symptoms worsened, went back to try to book emergency appointment, saw GP at noon, sent straight to YDH. Ultrasound showed post-operative abscess. Readmitted to YDH.
25/12/23: Discharged from YDH at 6pm with prescription for antibiotics, went to only Chemist open in York, didn’t hold that medication in stock. Hospital said to return next day for medication.
26/12/23: Started vomiting uncontrollably at 9pm, continued through night, went to YDH at 5am, readmitted.
27/12/23: Vomiting stopped at 10am. HR measured at 230bpm at 5pm, admitted to HDU.
DIagnosed as Tachycardia (Valentina had had this before, but nothing on this scale), HR between 200-235bpm for 4hrs. Administed 6 doses of Adenosine (a heart regulating drug given in a single, double, then triple dose), this did stop the heart on the 3rd attempt for a split second, but then shot back up to 220bpm, unfortunately it did not work. Consultant told us they would try again in the morning. Vomited at 9pm, HR lowered. (Vomiting had triggered a reset).
Advised we could go home next day, asked if we could stay in a bit longer.
30/12/23: Discharged. No follow up. Pushed for follow-up. At discharge we were told Dysuria was now a separate issue, advised we would have to go to LGI. Asked if we could be referred by hospital (as LGI had been remotely managing the case as there are no Pediatric Surgeons at YDH, told to see GP.
04/01/24: Saw GP, referred to LGI Urology & Cardiology.

18/02/24: Still waiting…

So, December was a bit fraught and Christmas was a bit different.
(I drove to hospital on Christmas Eve and didn’t even realise it was Christmas Eve!)

The Youngster never complained throughout, but now is very scared of needles, after numerous canulas, blood tests and the fact that she has difficult veins to find.
(Unlike my Niagaras, which would be a Junkie’s delight!)

Mistakes were made and it seemed like a constant battle to be seen and heard, to penetrate the defensive red tape walls of the NHS, but all the Nursing staff on the ward were absolute angels. (Hospital food isn’t that bad!) It is just a shame that this wasn’t spotted first thing, as it would have then been a routine operation with a relatively speedy recovery.

The Nipper is back at school now and is doing really well. I think that the company of kids her own age (and not her old folks, doctors or nurses) has helped a lot.

Here are a montage of photos of smiles through a difficult time.

Just to reiterate our sincere gratitude to everyone for your support.
Now it is time to move on…

Guy Goma II

Guy Goma was a man who was in the right place, at the wrong time.

Guy had gone to the BBC studios for a job interview for a cleaner and was patiently waiting in reception when a BBC producer stormed in and asked “Are you Guy?”

Guy said yes and was ushered to a make-up assistant (which seemed peculiar to him) and then placed in front of a live TV camera (which must have seemed even stranger to him), but up until then, he still thought it was part of the interview.

When the interviewer started the interview with
“Well, Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless. Hello, good morning to you”, Guy Goma realised that a mistake had been made, but carried on with the mistaken identity charade the best he could.
A short video shows this HERE.

Moving on to my own world and now, I was invited to a meeting at work this week (thankfully online and not in front of live TV cameras). Names will have to remain unnamed, to protect the identities of those present, all still wondering why on earth I had been invited along!

Alarm bells should have started ringing for me when I saw the meeting title, even with my imaginative mind, there wasn’t even a hint of a tenuous link to my job.

Just why had I been invited to this particular meeting? I accepted the invite anyway.

Things didn’t start well (for me) when I was prompted to register for some kind of learning course platform, just as I was trying to log on. This lost me 4 minutes and as it turns out, wasn’t even connected (to the meeting).

So, arriving 5 minutes late, it did seem that the people had been waiting for me.
Was I that crucial to this meeting?

Introductions all round, (apart from my own, I think I had already been introduced by the host). Some high-fliers and a low-grade minion (me).

I was asked a tricky question early on and managed to answer it, then thought I had best ask a few (hopefully semi-intelligent) questions myself.

After a l-o-n-g 45 minutes it was all over, and I was still wondering why I had been there, but trying to be diligent as ever, I sent an email with a “call to action” set of ideas to the meeting host.

Next day I received an apology, turns out the wrong Johnny was invited to the meeting…

Tight lines

Trying to get everything back to as normal as possible, the youngster and I planned a fishing trip to the East Coast, Hornsea to be precise.
It was a bit last minute and rushed, but a sea fishing outing always chucks in a few surprises.

One thing it didn’t chuck in was our tea though!

The fish were tiddlers which were all returned.

Other (more experienced) fishermen also had had a very quiet day, which made us weekend chancers feel a bit better 🙂

We did get a bagful of rocks for the aquarium and had plenty of sea air,

whilst doing a good imitation of King Canute. A grand day out.

Fish and chips!

When a surgeon asked what her dream meal would be (when she eventually got out of hospital and was better), the Nipper said, without hesitation,

“Fish and chips”.

(Surgeons do sometimes ask kids some strange questions, including the classic ones such as “Are you feeling better?” and “Do you want to go home?” It would take a plucky 9yr old to say no to such loaded questions!)

We therefore looked forward to and savoured a first class fish supper at the Wetherby Whaler, with our good rally friends, Matthew and Raquel. A good feed was had by all 🙂

T’Lakes

I did manage to shoehorn a training weekend in the Lakes into January.
It was a fellrunning weekend with a club I am a member of a club called ARCC (Achille Ratti Climbing Club). I run competitively for Pudsey & Bramley AC, but ARCC are a mountaineering club who have “huts” in the Lake District and a community of like minded mountainlovers, many of whom run, but only 2 of which I had previously met. Definitely going out of my British Library social bubble and having to speak to people who I had never met before!

It was a long old haul across the A65, but entertained by Dave Grohl’s outstanding audiobook “The Storyteller“, I got up on the Friday night in time for a quick pizza and a place in the Snorer’s dorm (I don’t snore, I didn’t realise that the far dorm was reserved for blokes who make an alarming amount of noise whilst sleeping!)

Saturday dawned claggy and windy, with a forecast of deteriorating weather on the tops.

The planned route was a recce of “The Great Lakes Race“, a relatively new race starting in Langdale, heading up the Band onto Bowfell, over Esk Pike, Great End, Scafell Pike, Scafell, Slight Side, over middle earth and up and down the most confusing fell in the Lakes, Pike o’Blisco with a hurtling plummet to the finish. That was the plan…

Unfortunately our merry group of 4 got split up in the mist around Esk Pike.
The conditions were bad and worsening, so rather than enduring a direct, blustering headwind across a wet and wild Scafell Pike ridge, we reversed our route back over the Langdale Horseshoe route, back over Esk Pike, Bowfell and up and down P-O-B, back to the start/finish.

It was my first run in the Lakes since I trashed my ribs at Borrowdale (August last year) and although it was naturally great to be back, it confirmed what I already knew and that is that I have a LOT of work to do, if my planned plans will actually materialise this year! My planned training hasn’t really materialised yet.

The highlight of the weekend however was a spectacular pie & peas supper.
It seems the majority of ARCC members are Lancastrians, and (sticking my neck out further than a giraffe) the Red Rosers do make a decent pie 🙂

Raiders round-up

The season proper hasn’t quite started yet, but we have had a mixed bag of pre-season friendly results and are also now out of the (Challenge) Cup, which leaves us to focus on the league (which doesn’t start until March 17th, so as long as we aren’t playing, we won’t be getting beat!)

COME ON YOU SHIPBUILDERS!!!

In other news…

The Nipper gave me a new look!

Promoted to Sixer at Brownies 🙂

Winter/Raynaud’s Syndrome sucks! Roll on spring/summer…

Tad River was up.

and the bridge was closed-open-closed-open-closed and open again.

Best of all, Saturday night disco is BACK 🙂

And finally

After 5 attempts, I have finally managed to make the first ever ladfromtad.com running v-log.

It was a bit of a daydream, which is now actually real!
In a nutshell, having been inspired by other videos on Youtube, I thought
“I fancy a crack at that!”
This blog is maybe what is called (for want of a better word) “niche” and the videos will probably be even more so. Basically it is about a bloke running in the hills, trying to film himself and his surroundings with a bit of chit-chat thrown in, in a way that will hopefully be mildly interesting to other people.

That is the plan

Inspired originally by a friend called John (Lakeland Trail Runner on YouTube) who makes top end quality films and especially by a trip with John to Scotland last autumn, (coinciding with Storm Babet), I decided to save up my brass buttons and invest in a video camera. I did have a GoPro from back in the day, but it was basically buggered, so I spashed out on a DJI model. It is a fancy piece of kit, which I am yet to work out.

I am still very much in the learning stages; filming, using camera to more than 1% of its potential and above all, (dramatic music…) editing. This skillset is BRAND NEW to me and is a fine art in itself.

This offering of nonsense was the combined product of 5 separate outings, none of the first four of which were usable (comedy of schoolboy errors; crap camera angles, crap weather, technical mishaps and a plethora of other lame excuses).
The fifth effort was not exactly what I wanted, but we all have to start somewhere and hopefully one day I will look back and say “That was rubbish!” when I am banging out quality video after quality video.

(Or, I might just carry on saying “That was rubbish” after every video!)

So, without further adieu, here is LADFROMTAD RUNNING V-LOG -Episode 1.

As I said, this is a work in progress that can hopefully only get better, watch this space and if it is your thing, please SUBSCRIBE here:

www.youtube.com/@JohnnyParsonsladfromtad

That’s all for now folks 🙂
Hasta la proxima.
Johnny & the girls

p.s. Time goes way too fast.

Good morning folks

I trust this finds you in finest festive fettle.
An uncustomarily short(ish) blog.
I am sure you’ve got better/more pressing things to do right now!
The good (?) news is that this is NOT the last blog.
With three clicks and a painless paypal payment (paypal feels like Monopoly money, that is my downfall) I renewed my WordPress subscription and domain registration.
Therefore LADFROMTAD.COM lives on into 2024.
(And insomnia is a great way to get things done when you really should be sleeping, but just can’t!)
Several reasons, discussed below.

The Nipper

(Not a reason, but something that put things in perspective in a big way for me).

How much personal stuff does one share on a blog post?
I thought long and hard about this.
Life isn’t just unicorns and chocolate boxes, sometimes real life is just awful and everything is $hit…
Writing is cathartic for me, it is one of the main reasons I write this stuff (even if nobody reads it!)

The Nipper has been unwell, very unwell.
Thankfully she is on the mend now, but has been through a very rough time and will take some time to recover.
She started to feel unwell around the end of November and went downhill fast. I tried to get her into hospital (01/12), visiting Selby, York District and a Leeds Outpatient clinic, and was sent home each time. On the Monday she was getting worse so we managed to get her admitted to York (04/12), she had chronic diarrhea with severe stomach pain and fever. She was diagnosed with Gastroenteritis and discharged 4 days later, but she just kept deteriorating to the point where we were seriously, seriously worried about her and took her back into York on the Saturday (09/12), where she was seen by a surgeon on Sunday afternoon and taken into the operating theatre at 20:30 on Sunday night.

She came back on the ward at 00:30 and the surgeon gave us a bleak report, telling us that her stomach has been “like a warzone”. Her appendix had burst some time ago and the infection had spread to other organs. When a surgeon is telling you all these terrible things, things go into a horrible slow motion nightmare. Lina and I spent a week doing 26hr shifts at YDH, trying to help the young one to get better, to get through another attempt at inserting a cannula into forearms bruised with failed attempts at getting needles into veins that didn’t want to show. It was tough for a 9 year old.
The nurses were like angels, working their own 13hr shifts and never complaining, ever.

After 5 days she was off the morphine and off the IV antibiotics and drip, so we were sent home. She is still not right, there is still something that has not been fixed and as we have been discharged, we were told to see our GP, who told us to go back to an out-of-hours clinic, (again), who themselves told us to go back to our GP. The cycle starts over 😦

It is heartbreaking to see your own child suffering in pain.
To see them terrified, begging, not to have more needles stuck in them, but you just have to put your trust in the medical staff.
It is just sad that this was not spotted earlier, when a routine operation would have cleared things up and we’d have been home, long ago, well on the way to recovery by now.

But, we are grateful, things could have been a lot, lot worse.
We are especially grateful for all the amazing support, messages, cards, presents and good wishes from everyone, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.
Work have also been brilliant, I am very fortunate in that respect.

Crocked!

Keeping it brief, and in the grand scheme of things a tiny, microscopic detail. Running (when I could) was almost keeping me sane, so it was almost inevitable that I got injured. A knackered hamstring.
Running was right at the bottom of the list of priorities right now anyway.

2023

If you ignore December, it has been a good year!
Had to sell a lot of personal treasure (and a lot of junk) on ebay. None of which were easy, straightforward sales, most of which resulted in a loss.
Repeat the mantra (which I never learn) after me “ebay is not a way to make cash when you are skint!”

Inlcuding a keyboard now playing in a church in Nigeria!

A fishing chair, weighing close to a hundredweight, which (despite being brazenly advertised as COLLECTION ONLY) didn’t get sold 4 times.

The van had to go 😦

The Honda Jazz came and went (to Ilford). Good riddance!

The Micra came into my life 🙂

We had some good fishing trips.

Moved house (Lard was not available).

Running was up and down, but a HUGE improvement on 2022 🙂

An obsession began with the stairmaster, temporarily on hold.

The Nipper climbed her first ever mountain, (which was also my first ever mountain), Great Gable.

And I finally got up to Bonny Scotland after dreaming about a trip up north for almost 10 years…

…just in time for Storm Babet!

2024

Sometimes it’s best not to make plans.

Youtubing?

Well, last month I said that this blog was ending and I was starting a Youtube channel, but seeing as I haven’t got a camera and I can’t run, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, hence my decision to carry on scribbling this nonsense. Hopefully, possibly, watch this space???

Podcast of the month.

I listen to a LOT of podcasts, most about running, training and/or mountains.
This one is a bit different. Obsession and addiction. Something I can also relate to, and not as dark as you may think, but a massive eye opener (with cursing and profanity, you have been warned).

https://www.richroll.com/podcast/david-choe-626/

Raiders round-up

No news is good news and as it’s still the close season, we aren’t getting beat.
Onwards and upwards, come on you Shipbuilders!
However, the club is trying to break a world record in January.
260+ people at an exercise class.
Niche? Who cares! If it raises money for charity, it’s all good.

And finally

Although it was during that past lifetime phase that we are all trying to forget called the “Lockdown”, there were some happy, bonkers times too 🙂
(Apologies for the Nipper eating on film, I had 5 minutes before work (Zoomland) to get ready and give her her breakfast, so I naturally assumed I could fit that in and film a 3 minute Vlog in that time before my first call of the day, clearly I was wrong!

Merry Christmas & a very Happy New Year to you, your loved ones and your lovers.

See you in 2024!

Johnny & the girls 🙂

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.

This was a close second favourite 😉

Will shoehorn in one more blog afore this WordPress account turns into a pumkin/implodes at midnight on the 31st of December.

That’s all for now folks 🙂
Johnny

Morning folks

I trust you are in fine fettle.
After the last ramble-on-and-on-a-thon, which was almost as long as our aborted Ramsay Round recce, this blog is a bit more one-shot-espresso than a double Mocha-choca-cino-with-a-99-flake.

Halloween, clocks changing and plunging into sudden darkness at 5:30pm means that autumn is here.

Not my favourite season (being colourblind means that all the various tones of leaves are wasted on me), it is marginally better than winter, but roll on spring I say!

The youngster and her school choir were invited to a recording studio with a local York band, here is the end product. Not a band I had heard of, but a catchy little tune 🙂

Bogtrotting.

3 years ago today was my last race in Peru.The Misti Sky Race.
A race and mountain I got a bit obsessed about, but sometimes that is only way to approach something that is way bigger than you (and your limits/skillset/cojones size).

(I wrote a blog for Alpkit here: https://alpkit.com/blogs/deeds/return-to-misti-msr-2019

https://alpkit.com/blogs/deeds/return-to-misti-msr-2019

I am still on their homepage , reminding me of unfulfilled business/daydreams in Peru…

Back to reality here in Blighty, to mark the occasion, I entered the Wadsworth Half Trog fell race in deepest, darkest Hebden Bridge. The Full Trog is in February and covers 20 miles of sloppy Pennine bogland, the half trog is just a half of the full and therefore weighs in at around 10 miles.

Fell races are abbreviated with a whole lexicon of abbreviations and acronyms.
– “N” equals navigation required.
– “LK” equals local knowledge (is an advantage)

Obviously I oversaw both of these when I entered on Friday night and was hoping for a clear day.

This was on their social media on Sunday morning:
Perfect trog weather  get the compass out 

Tight lines.

Haven’t been out fishing with the bairn in a long time, not since a red hot day in summer, which now seems about 10 years ago.
Been keen to get to the coast, but it was often a case of
a) No time
b) Crap weather
c) Wrong tide times
d) All of the above.

So, when all the planets seemed to align with Neptune’s Trident, we did an early morning dash to the East Coast, in the hope of catching something for our tea!

Sea fishing is different to freshwater fishing.
It is free! (You need a licence and a permit to fish in most lakes, rivers and canals).
You don’t have a clue what you will catch, (the sea is a big place).
It is.
You get a good feeling how King Cnut (not a typo) felt, as you are constantly battling with the tide, advancing or retreating and most likely getting wet.

Brilliant fun, but generally rather chaotic!

The Nipper always seems to get stuck into some sand art as we wait, but as the waves got wilder we started catching a few.

Final scores were
Old man 3
Bairn 2
(last cast wonder by myself).

After a long ride home, stuck behind a truck doing 30mph all the way, I (badly) filleted our catch and we complemented it with a bag of chips from the amazing Kirkgate Chippy, (I am not sponsored by them, but I wish I was! 😁)

Musical interlude…

In the late 80’s, when I was busy working at Little Chef and doing my best at completely screwing up my A-levels (unintentionally, I so wish I had passed them), there seemed to brilliant bands playing in Leeds every week; at the old Poly, the Uni and the Duchess. It was a time when I naively thought all these good bands would last forever and gigs would always cost a fiver!
One of the best concerts I had the good fortune to witness was The Cramps.
Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, the king and queen of the weird, mixing up punk, rockabilly and B-movies into something quite, quite unique.
Crazy times and happy days!

Raider’s round-up.

The close season means a well deserved rest on the old nerves and regrouping for the new seaspn (which will hopefully be better/less stressful than last season!)

Video killed the radio star?

A seed was planted on the recent Scotland trip (see video below).

It was an absolutely brilliant outing, filmed expertly by my mate John
Like and subscribe to his awesome channel HERE

Although I do take photos (on my crappy phone, which is sooooo tempreramental in the wet or cold), video does seem to capture the occasion just that little bit better.

When we drove to Mongolia in 2012, one of my main objectives was to make a short film about it, for posterity. I took some advice off the Climbing film making genius that is Al Lee (see his fine work HERE) and he told me that the problem is (in climbing films) that the film gets in the way of the climbing which gets in the way of the film!

In other words, the amazing end product you see on YouTube is not just a case of point-shoot-ready, it has actually required a lot of graft (during and after film making) before the film maker presses “PUBLISH”.

This I found out only too well on the road to Ulan Battar, when we were overarmed with a 35mm camera, a GoPro, a Kodak Sport camera and 2 phones, ending up with loads and LOADS of footage, which takes forever to mangle into some kind of watchable film.
(Plus the fact that I have never, ever edited a second of video footage and owe an unpayable debt to my mate, Matthew P, for editing weeks of junk to get a very satisfactory end product here 🙂

The quality of cameras available nowadays is amazing. GoPros were a real gamechanger: High quality footage, simple to use, bombproof and best of all, not a million quid. Action cameras mean that with some effort, it it possible for people outside National Geographic cab make high quality films, (with a lot of work, and a bit of magic/luck!)

However, as I said earlier, I have zilchio (post production) editing experience, which is where YouTube comes in, thank you tutorials!

The offshoot of all of this waffle is that I am thinking about switching this minestrone swirl of words, also known as a blog, into some kind of video format. It would have to be skimmed down and might be a bit rough and ready, but rather than spend 3-4hrs typing, I could spend that time editing and hopefully producing some kind of interesting content.

Why?
For fame or fortune? I am not a massive fan of social media, so am I a hypocrite for now posting videos? Tricky one.
Tiktokanory?
Not really my thing to be honest.
Just wanting to show a wee bit of the great outdoors, but definitely NOT in a “My perfect life is amazing-hashtag-look-at-me” kind of way, because it’s not.
(Never ever used a hashtag and I am not about to start now!)

The biggest drive for me is to learn a new skill; making videos and editing. I am starting from scratch, so please bear with me.

I would be curious to hear any thoughts on this, if you have any 🙂
As always, watch this space…

Top reads!

Need a new book?
Buy this, now!

Available HERE.

And finally…

I am (told and I agree that I am) stuck in the 1970’s.
However, I almost wish I had been born in the 60’s, as just 3 years before I was born, THIS was happening!

Egremont Crab Fair, home of gurning and Speed Pipe Smoking!

Hoping to squeeze in one more wrap-up of 2023, before the blog turns into a pumpkin and self destructs at the chime of midnight on New Year’s Eve, to be reborn as some kind of YouTube channel.

Hasta la proxima amigos 🙂
Johnny

Good morning folks

Here is the latest wrap-up of gubbins that is the blog that is my jumbled up life!
WARNING: The second half of this blog is a bit hillrunning heavy, if in doubt please just scroll down to the video at the end 🙂

It had been a bit of a quiet time since the last blog, ergo, no blogs.
I bashed in my ribs at Borrowdale, which although not a showstopper, was enough to put a BIG spanner in the works for the remainder of summer.
I couldn’t really do much at all for 2 weeks, then started training (pitifully lightly) but not enough to make a difference, so put all races on ice.

I did however get a late call up to the mighty P&B team for the Ian Hodgson Relays in Patterdale, a 4 leg-2 person relay, in which my old Morley mate Charlie and I ran the anchor leg from Hartsop over Hart Crag and St. Sunday Crag before plummetting down to Patterdale. Lack of fitness on my part, a very short distance (7 miles is the shortest fell race I have run in a long time) and a distinct lack of balls on my part (fortunately coupled with Charlie’s patience, as he was flying) left us mid-league at the end.
It was however AWESOME to catch up with some old faces and meet some new ones. Some people flit from club to club to club, but Charlie and I both agreed that we were both P&B forever 🙂

Tight lines.

Just one fishing trip for the bairn and I of late. A boat trip off Whitby. Spent a lot of time sailing around and not a lot of time fishing, but caught enough for tea for 2 nights 🙂

New wheels!

After watching summer turn into autumn, back to summer, to autumn and then fade into darkness…

A series of events of coincidence, fate or maybe just sheer magic led me to Kettering to buy a second hand eBay bargain Cyclocross bike for a knockdown price.

In the not-so-great Fire-sale of 2021, I got rid of all my bikes, and the only wheels I had nowadays are those on my commuting bike, which I am borrowing on loan, so the birthday money and ebay sales fund was just enough to cover it.

A possible return to the (very back of the) muddy CX grid potentially beckons.
Watch this space…

Carry on Camping!

Managed one last summer weekend trip away with the bairn. Just before the August Bank Holiday deluge.

Raiders round-up

As far as the men’s team goes, it was (as ever) a gradual nervous breakdown over the course of the season. After being in the promtion play-offs last year, 12 months on we had a desperate fight to survive the drop, and (as always) it went to the wire, to the last game, where Newcastle and Keighley went down and the poor old Flatcappers, Featherstone Rovers, were somehow denied promotion as Toulouse got it together to go up.
Barrow men finished 4th bottom and survived relegation, just.

MEANWHILE, in the Ladies team, it was a very different story.
An all-Cumbrian (Furness, Westmorland and Cumberland, but mainly Furness) side beat Leigh Leopards to get promoted to the Superleague!!!
Always in top form, wining the last 6 games on the bounce.

Onwards and upwards for both teams next season!

“Up the road….”

As a young lad growing up in Cumbria (was Westmorland and now is Westmorland once again, but we won’t go there), this tune is one that sticks in my mind forever (followed by “This is Border Television, broadcasting to Cumbria, South west Scotland, the Isle of Man and North and west Northumberland, from the Caldbeck, Selkirk and associated transmitters of the independent broadcasting authority“, but you had to be there!

Anyway, as a result of being brought up on news of sheep rustling in Dumfries, Moffat and Peebles, I feel (and maybe other Cumbrians also feel) some kind of affinity with our geographically close Caledonian neighbours.

I have travelled round the World a fair bit, but my favourite place on this whole planet is the Scottish Highlands, I would move there in a hearbeat.
I love Cumbria and the Lakeland fells, but the Scottish Munros (tops over 3000ft) are next level!

Round, round get around, I get around.

A “round” is a long distance fellrunning challenge. Not a race, not marked and a route which can be done anytime you fancy (although a winter round is a different proposition). The main objective of a round is to get round within 24 hours, even if it is 23:59:59

Bit of history. The Big 3.
The Bob Graham Round (England, Lake District)
First run in 1932 by Keswick Hotelier, Bob Graham, running in a pyjama top and sustained by boiled eggs. Traversing 42 fells, starting and finishing at Keswick Moot Hall taking in 66 miles (106 km) with 26,900 feet (8,200 m) of ascent. I did mine in 2009, it was an obsession, but it had to be, it was a grand day out!

The Paddy Buckley Round (Wales, Snowdonia)
Cooked up by Paddy Buckley, but first run by Wendy Dodds in 1983. A round of 47 summits, 61 miles (100km-ish) 28000ft (8534ft) of uphill, another stiff day out.

The Ramsay Round (Scotland, Western Highland)
The Tranter’s Round (devised by Phillip Tranter, a benefit of these rounds being that if you are the pioneer, you can name it after yourself) used to be the Scottish 24 hour challenge, taking in the Mamores, the Grey Corries, the Aonachs, Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis. At 37 miles (59km) with 17717ft (5400m) of climbing, it’s a bloody long day out.

THEN the formidable Charlie Ramsay extended this to 58 miles (93km) with 28500ft (7500m) of climbing, by adding on a group of additional munros around Loch Trieg, which has more ascent than climbing Mount Everest from sea level!

(More about this chap later on…)

All of which leads to the latest obsession.

A possible 2024 Ramsay Round attempt???

I mentioned the idea to my mate John, who is a top bloke to spend time in the hills with and an outstanding Youtuber.
He really knows his onions and also makes top class videos HERE.

https://www.youtube.com/@lakelandtrailrunner/about

The seed of an idea quickly sprouted into a plan, which quickly became reality.
“Let’s go and have a look at it”.

So we did!

A loose plan of driving up to Fort William on the Monday, staying overnight in the Youth Hostel (conveniently the start and finish of the route), 3 days/2 nights in the field, doss down in Youth Hostel then drive home. Simple.

Doing what is nowadays known as “Fastpacking” (carrying all your kit and moving as fast as possible, but realistically not as fast as you would if you weren’t carrying a 10kg brick on your back!)

In essence, moving as fast as possible in the hills whilst being self contained with only the basic essentials. Simplicity.

Or so it sounded, then I tried packing enough in my ancient, diddy 27 litre racesack and skimmed down everything

Bare bones kit included:
Tent-Sleeping bag-Sleeping mat-Stove-gas-Pan-Cup-Headtorch-spare clothes-first aid-enough food for 3 days on the hoof.

It was a squash and a squeeze, but in the end I had to scale everything right back to the lightiest/skimpiest I had, especially my sleeping bag and tent.
In its day the Rab “Top” bag was a revolutionary concept in its day for all weight-freaks, racing snakes and outright masochists. It would not be out of place at a Rocky Horror Show.

It weighs about the same as a bag of chips as it is basically half a sleeping bag. Its design means that you cannot move at all whilst sleeping as the mesh base lets any heat you may have in there, fly right out…

Coupled with a tiny tent that would make a good crisp packet, I wasn’t in for a cosy night, but sometimes needs must!

Powered by Tailwind drink, Active Root Gel, malt loaf and a bagful of sugary carbs, I hoped it would be enough.

The round can be roughly split into 3 sections:
1) Glen Nevis YH over the Mamores to Loch Eilde Mor
2) Loch Eilde Mor round the tops of Loch Trieg to the Lairig Leagach.
3) Lairig Leagach over the Grey Corries, The Aonachs, CMD and Big Ben Nevis down to the YH.

This was just an exploratory recce, “having a look”, so the whole route was ambitious, especially with our loads and the time of year. A bit of a suck-it-and-see/play-it-by-ear approach.

So, after a great drive up in clear conditions, at 7am on Tuesday morning, after kipping in the red hot furnace that is the YH, we were ready for the off with the sun yet to rise (this is October we’re talking about and this is Scotland!)

Day I

Early doors-ish, heading up the Glen Nevis road in the half-light, looking for the secret fence crossing, which would lead us onto the forest track and then a kamikaze (abandoned) attempt to cut through the blown down forest beating a hasty retreat to the forest track, breaching the cloud inversion and up, up onto the ridge.

Heaven!

Munros as far as the eyes could see, including the mighty Ben Nevis uncapped with cloud, but capped with a dusting of snow. We started ticking off the unpronounceable Gaelic name summits.

Mullach Nan Coirean-Stob Ban (one of two)-Sgurr a Mhaim-Sgurr An Lubhair-Am Bodach-Stob Coire A Chairn-An Gearanach, including “The Devil’s Ridge!”

A gorgeous morning had given way to a brooding, grey and an increasingly gusty afternoon. The Mamores ridge includes 2 out-and-backs, the second of which we decided to drop off to find somewhere to camp, as time was ticking.

A noise that had been with us all day was the sound of rutting stags (what a great band name that would be!) We seemed to be in a valley surrounded by them, nature taking its course!

A Wayfayrer’s Veggie Curry disappeared down my gullet way too quickly and by 6:15pm, it was lights out/sundown for a l-o-n-g, cold (and generally sleepless) night, kept awake by the calls of randy deer!

Day II

Alarm set for 5:45am, which was ambitious and still absolutely pitch black but with the distinct possibility of rupturing my bladder, I got up and started the faff-a-thon which is breaking camp.

We hadn’t quite finished the Mamores, so therefore had to rethink our ideas.
The Loch Trieg loop would be ambitious tagged on to the last few Mamores, and indeed, when we finally got on the ridge, the wind had other ideas for us.

(In reality the full route over 3 days would have meant 3 superlong days if the conditions had been favourable. As we had cut our first day short, we had to rejig our plans).

Although we had been following the mountain forecast very closely up to our departure, we were unaware that Storm “Babet” was brewing…

After summiting Na Gruagaichean (glad I am typing that and not tripping over the pronunication) the winds beat us down to the lonely valley along Loch Eilde Mor, but the winds still not letting up nor easing down.

Another route reassessment led us to head for the Meanach bothy.
A “bothy” is a stone shelter, free to use and open to all, some more basic than others, but a good place to hide from foul weather. Meanach is a great two room bothy. After a brew, we headed north for the Lairig Leagach bothy, sacking off the Loch Trieg munros for another day. Even in the valley bottom, the swirling crosswinds and gusts made for an entertaining passage!

The only downside of a bothy is that you never know whether it will be full, (you can’t book and there is no way to check), so we plugged on, hoping there would be space as by now the wind was reaching crazy strength and there was little or no shelter to pitch our tents.

It was empty (other hillgoers must have seen the forecast) and we listened to the wind trying its utmost to rip the roof clean off all night, along with rutting stags (in between gusts).

In bed by 6:30pm for 10 hours in bed, but in reality a fitful few hours of shuteye before dawn, when at times the storm sounded to be dying down, but in fact it was merely building up!

Day III

The home straight, not!

The original plan had been to do the Grey Corries, The Aonachs and then Carn Mor Dearg arete, leading up to the high ground of Ben Nevis and down, down, down to the tropical climes of Glen Nevis Youth Hostel.

Heading up Stob Ban, the wind was howling in and also abruptly gusting.
Now, if wind is (unidirectionally and constantly) strong, you can kind of brace yourself and adjust how you move, but sudden gusts are real sucker punches.
The wind got wilder and wilder the higher we got, almost feeling like someone was angry with us for even being there!
About 50ft from the top, the wind was pinning us down, preventing upwards or downwards movement. The main danger was not getting to the top, but getting off the top. We faced a very exposed ridge, at least where we were, we were being pushed into the slope.
So, by sign language (for it was impossible to hear each other’s voices) we agreed to contour round to hopefully get out of the wind, which took time, but in actual fact was just as exposed. Pursuing the rest of the Grey Corries would have been suicide, so we decided to drop down.
As we contoured further round, the relentless wind pursued us.
I was about 10ft in front of John when I heard the rustle of his jacket.
I turned around and a monstrous gust caught me off guard, taking me off my feet and dumping me several feet away, very, very fortunately not on a big pile of Quartzite! I had got my stick handle wedged under my bottom rib and ripped my jacket, but apart from a painful attack of cramp in my calf, I was unscathed.
Definitely time to get down to lower levels.

(Not many photos taken during this time!)

We plotted a route to lose some height and try to get out of the wind, but it took time and even in the valley bottom, it was still blowing a proper hooly, thankfully a tailwind now though. We passed a young couple in full gear with BIG rucksacks heading up the valley, I wondered if their friendship would still be intact by the end of the day?!

Apart from the rutting calls of stags and ferocious gusts of wind, all was quiet in the pathless valley. A sheet of rain was racing up to meet us but with the wind behind us we made good progress hitting the path and then dribs and drabs of bedraggled daytrippers around Steall Falls and below. All downhill now, onto the road, past a group of shouting workmen wrestling with fallen trees, (the trees were winning) and eventually back to what would be the finish line on a round, Glen Nevis Youth Hostel.

I absolutely LOVE being out in the hills, in any weather, but it was good to get a warm shower, despite having to wipe a ton of Lochaber mud off the shower room floor (twice, after dropping my clown shoes on the way out too!)

Food for thought.
– There are less summits but much, much longer climbs on this round (than the BGR).
– Despite poring over maps for weeks and months, the (real life) scale still caught me out. Humbled is a word that sums it up, (as is spanked!)

I take my hat off to anyone who has had a crack at the Ramsay Round and as for a winter round, those folk are beyond Superhuman!

It was an awesome trip. It opened my eyes and upped my psyche levels 100pts+

There was a lot of talk about this chap whilst we were out on the hills, The Monarch of the Glen, Finlay Wild. 12 times Ben Nevis race winner and Ramsay Round record holder (along with a shedload of other records).
A man of inspiration!

Next step, a potential second exploratory recce in the spring?
The question of going supported or unsupported?
The logistics are complicated. It is a long way to Fort Bill.
The weather can change at the drop of a hat.
The racing calendar is pretty full throughout May and June. Prior to May is a risk as winter lingers on in the north. After June is midges galore season!
So, watch this space

And finally

Watch THIS video NOW 🙂

That’s all for now folks.
Until the next time.

Cheers
Johnny

Good morning folks

I trust you are in fine form.
Two blogs within a week! What is happening? Some kind of record.
Off work, free morning, thought I’d scribble a short one!

The big recent focus was the Borrowdale Fell Race.
Not the longest, nor the hardest race in the calendar, but long enough and hard enough to keep you on your toes and with a rich 49 year long history in which local legend Billy Bland still holds the record 2:34:38 (back in 1981), which I personally couldn’t do in a taxi.
Billy Bland won it 9 times, Simon Booth 11 times and Ricky Lightfoot 8 times.
It is a race locals want to win and local Brennan Townshend has won the last 2, so watch this space!

17 miles including 6500 feet of ascent (27km, 2000m, in new money), starting and finishing at Rosthwaite, visiting Bessyboot, Esk Hause, Scafell Pike, Styhead stretcher box, Great Gable, Honister Pass, Dale Head and down to the finish.
Shorter than Ennerdale (heatwave, goosed), less climbing than Wasdale (completely destroyed) but during a period when everything seemed tpo be coming together nicely. I was really looking forward to it.

I last ran it in 2002 on my 30th birthday, when I was given number 30.

Last Thursday I was 51 and (without prompting) I was given number 51, what are the chances?!

There used to be an infamously good party afterwards called the Borrowdale Bash, held in a marquee in the finish field, but alas it is no more.
Last time I ran it, I set off at world record pace and blew up really early on, crawling round and then drowning myself in beer at the Bash, making a teeny-tiny walk up to (very) nearby Watendlath Tarn the next day feel like the north face of K2. The good old days!

The forecast (the Met Office sticking a wet finger in the air) was a mixed bag for the day. Wet, windy, clag, not too hot/cold, the ambiguous pattern of this not-so-tropical British summer so far.

Race day

Superkeen, I was up and off and parked up before 9am and chewed the fat with my old Morley mate Charlie, who also runs for Pudsey & Bramley, who I hadn’t seen in 10yrs+
He had a plan to take it “steady” until Great Gable then go for it.
My plan was to hang on to Charlie until Great Gable, then hang on until the finish! Training had been good, I had no major injuries and had my racing head on.

And they’re OFF!

I personally hate big races, especially the start. If everyone was in the exact position/order where they would finish, it wouldn’t be a problem, but that would be dull. Some poor sod fell over in the middle of the scrum, on the road, about 5 seconds after the start. There is always a lot of jostling and with a big bottleneck very close to the start people were keen to get going.

There are generally 5 different types of terrain to deal with in fell races:

Road: Very little of this, maybe a bit at the start/finish, but generally rare. Made of tarmac, this is smooth and hard. Not good to fall on.

Grass: Green stuff, normally plenty of this. Can be soft, hard, grippy or slippy. If you are going to fall, try to fall on this stuff.

“Technical”: Normally rocky and demanding full attention, rock hopping from boulder to boulder. Do NOT fall here. (Photo taken on this route, but not in the race. You can just see the queue of punters on top of Scafell Pike).
If wet/icy, spiciness levels go up by 100 points.

Mixed: A combo of rock and grass. This is tricky terrain as it is always at a stage in the race when one is cream-crackered. You need to pick your feet up as otherwise it WILL trip you up. If you do have to fall here, try to avoid the rocks.

“Lakeland gravel”: Normally found at the start (when you are giddy and just want to get going), or at the end, (when your legs don’t work). When I say gravel, I mean bowling bowl sized rocks, normally round (like you’d find in a fast flowing river) and slippier than ice covered in vaseline if even slightly wet.
Potential for tripping/stubbing your toe is HUGE, especially if you don’t pick your feet up.
If you fall here, you’re going to have problems.

If you are good, you can float and fly across any of the abpve.
If you are a clumsy oaf, like me, falls are just par for the course, it is where/how you fall that determines your destiny!

Borrowdale has a long along-the-valley start before a steep climb to Bessyboot, with a lot of contouring and good or bottomless bog until Esk Hause where it gets technical, an insane scree-surfing descent to the Corridor Route, mixed running to Styhead, then labouriously placed steps (thank you volunteers for what must have been back breaking graft) up Great Gable, then mixed/technical going all the way to Dale Head and then some slate (slippery if it has rained in the last week with zero friction) to the valley and then Lakeland gravel to the finish. Piece of cake!

Falls happen when you least expect them. If you expected it, you would be ready and put your arms out. If you are quick witted, with your very next step (opposite leg) you can save things, but if your next step doesn’t expect it

So, I was trotting along, chatting to Charlie and John and just settling into the race when at about 2 miles in, a guy in front suddenly stopped, then I suddenly tripped with my right foot and my left foot then suddenly slid sideways and I fell with all my weight onto a boulder with my ribs.

You always do that “Nothing’s happenedhere, move along” jumping up movement, but I had gne down with a bump, winded myself and shouted out like a baby, so it was noticed!

But, it was only 2 miles in and way too early to bale, I hadn’t banged my head, so kept on going, just gradually getting stiffer and stiffer in my upper body, to the point where I was probably running lopsided to compensate.

The drop off from Scafell Pike is ridiculously steep, loose and good fun, you just have to get your centre of gravity low and let go, but then a lass in front of the pack I was in suddenly stopped and my centre of gravity was too high and I had one of those heart stopping moments when you think “Sugar! I am going head first here” and then you recover it, phew!

I lost Charlie here and he powered on, my legs felt great and full of running, but my top half just wasn’t working.

Great Gable was very familiar, as I had been up it 3 times in teh last 4 weeks and race photographer, Steve Wilson was placed well to catch runners in various states of suffering.

Off Gable, I took a crap line (too far right) but it was clagged in by then and then to Honister I went to far left and then off Dale Head, too far right.
“Lines” are what you learn in recces/previous races. Races often don’t just follow paths and aren’t marked in any way. In addition GPS devices are not allowed, so there is a certain skill to it, but top runners do sometimes make monumental cock-ups, ending up in the wrong valleys, so it happens to the best of us!

Down to the finish in the rain and into the village hall for endless cups of tea and cheese and jam sarnies (surprisingly delicious) and a post race dissection chinwag with other runners, then the prize giving (of which I was not part of!)

I took a rambling route back home, stopping in several laybys for a cuppa and a groan. It turned into a glorious evening, the start of summer part II even?

To nicely summarise the above mumbo-jumbo in a brilliantly made 13 minute video, here is the LAKELAND TRAIL RUNNER. (My very awkward running style can be contribute (and hopefully not attributed) to my earlier tumble, I hope!

Getting home late, I went to bed and experienced a new level of pain getting into bed and of course, needing the toilet (again) 30 seconds later, getting out of bed was equally as painful!

Was no better first thing Sunday, so went to Kendal Hospital for an X-ray and as I arrived an hour before it opened, I was first in the queue. The NHS get a lot of flak, but every single person I saw was amazing.
Verdict: Nothing broken, suck it up you big baby!

Raider’s round-up

I try to watch my beloved rugby team whenever I can and as I was close, went down to Craven Park, breaking my neck to get in the ground before 2pm for the pie voucher (“No, we don’t do them anymore”).

Playing against an in-form London Broncos side, with an injury/suspension depleted side, we got off to a bad start and never got going ending up in a 26:6 defeat.

On the plus side, the sun shone.
On the minus side, I forgot where I had parked, in my pre-match pie chase, so spent 30 minutes wandering around Barrow.

It will now take a miracle not to be demoted

Leaving Las Kendal…

I had planned more running, a few Wainwrights and an exploratory look at the”Abraham’s Tea Round” route, but as walking and breathing were difficult, I headed home, leaving my hometown in an amazing cloud inversion, conditions which always happen when there is nowhere to stop to take a photo and parking on the side of the A6 was a bit risky!

Tight lines!

Had a very steady days fishing at nearby Highfield pond, nothing of note apart from catching this slippery fellow!

30 years ago, eels were ten-a-penny, nowadays they are quite rare.
I had forgotten whant slimy buggers they are as they wrap themselves around your arm and cover you in stinky mucus!

Got a few other tiddlers, plus this bream, gorgeous sunny day 🙂

And finally

I love this guy!
He talks a lot of sense.
The world is mad and whilst mad is not always bad, social media has a lot to answer to…

Until the next time amigos 🙂

Cheers
Johnny

p.s. Got back to a lovely £100 parking fine for overstaying my welcome in Morrison’s. Let’s be careful out there…

How do folks

I hope you are in fine fettle.
This blog comes to you live, from Kendal, Cumbria (well, Westmorland actually, but I am still not acknowledging that minor administrative fact).

A mini-break t’Lakes, don’t mind if I do. Like everywhere in Blighty the last two months, since summer finished in June, it has pretty much p!$$ed it down every day, but summer in Europe this year seems to be either hotter than the sun on fire, or just torrential rain. It is what it is as they say.

Using up all my hard earned jollies at work, we had a mini 2-day break to Wasdale last month and have generally saved a fortune on suncream.

So here is a wrap-up of events in what I call my blog.
Apologies if it is a bit photo heavy this time

Dave Angel, Eco Warrior.

If you do one thing today (apart from read my mumbo-jumbo) start using ECOSIA. (It like the word for Scotland in Spanish, but minus the S).

https://www.ecosia.org/

Think of it as an environmental Google that plants trees whilst you search for stuff on the internet. I have (not personally) planted 6 trees this month. They are carbon friendly not for profit, it helps the planet and is FREE. It is as good as Google in my eyes. Don’t believe me? Watch THIS

Highest mountain, deepest lake, biggest liar…

Wasdale is an amazing place with Scafell Pike (England’s highest mountain standing at 978m/3210ft above bath water), Wast Water (79m/258ft below bath water) and an an annual competition to find the World’s Biggest Liar!

Competitors have 5 minutes to tell the tallest of tall tales, without script nor props. Naturally, politicians and lawyers are barred from entering.

Along with Cumberland-Westmorland wrestling, Egremont Crab Fair and gurning, it is a big part of Cumbrian history!

Having stayed at the Achille Ratti hut for the Wasdale race, I was keen to take the girls there and we managed to pick those 2 dry-ish days in July 🙂

Back in the mists of time, when I was around the age of the Nipper, my mate Chris and his Grandad invited me to climb Great Gable and despite growing up in the Lakes I had not really done much in the Lakes, so on a day when it did not stop raining, we dragged ourselves up to the top of Great Gable and it was BRILLIANT.

Repeating history, we all set off to climb Great Gable, which although not the highest (898m/2949ft) peak is definitely one of the finest looking. The kind of mountain (shape) a kid would draw if you asked them to draw a mountain.

So, with sarnies and flask, we set off on a big day out. I love running up and down mountains, but occasionally it is good to just slow things down and get to admire the views a bit more.

What are the chances? Bumped into my mate John (Lakeland Trail Runner) on the top, he was doing a recce of the Borrowdale course. Check out his awesome videos HERE.

https://www.youtube.com/@lakelandtrailrunner/about

We hotfooted it down to catch the ice cream shop open with 5 minutes to spare and saw the biggest dog we have ever seen, a Bernese Mountain Dog crossed with a poodle (“Bernapoo”?) called Blue.

Then the Nipper wanted to paddle in the lake where we got chatting to a lass all about the mad world of wild swimming.

A top 2-day trip.

Pannus mihi panis.

Kendal, the Auld Grey Town, which was listed as within Yorkshire in the 1086 Domesday Book, then Lancashire up to 1226 and now lies happily in Cumbria (Westmorland).

Famous for its Mint Cake, its Snuff (tobacco that goes up your nose, not the movies) factory and a castle which once was the home of Kathryn Parr, last wife of Henry VIII.
It always feels ace to come “home” and whilst I never actually lived in Kendal, I was born here in the auld grey town and spent a lot of my youth here, living just downstream on the River Kent, so it does feel like coming home.
I had no massive plans, bar some training and a race (Borrowdale, tomorrow).
The weather was wetter than an otter’s pocket coming across from Yorkshire and stayed that way for a run around Borrowdale on Monday.

Then dried up a touch for a round of the Kentmere Horseshoe on Tuesday.

The temptation was to just go out and do long days in the fells, but that would not help for Saturday so I have had to rein back a bit, so I did a bit of wandering around town (and wrote this blog!)

Meet-ups/trying to stop being a hermit

It has taken me forever to get out of bloody lockdown mode.
Although it seems like a lifetime ago now, the habits of the pandemic are still hard to shift (for me at least). Even when it was officially declared “over” by the W.H.O, I would do anything to get out of going out, (work is work, you have to go there!)

In the last month I have seen my Britanico teaching friend , Debs, down from Scotland, my i-to-i mate Dave, in Market Rasen, had a great run on my birthday with my old CELTA amigo, Neil, then met up with the man who first introduced me to the world of mountaineering and also fellrunning, Ray.
There was also my mate Pete’s annual BBQ, which was awesome as ever.
We are social creatures as humans, but there are times (like this week and rignt now), when I do just prefer not to go out at all, but when you do, it’s always worth the effort:-)

Tight lines!

We have had a couple of fishing outings, plus the Nipper’s first ever match.
We recently found a great little pond outside Leeds where the youngster caught this beauty.

Planning a boat trip for a birthday treat this month too 🙂

Raiders round-up.

It has not been a halcyon season.

Apart from the pre-season friendlies, we have not played much good rugby.
13 defeats, 6 wins and one draw puts us in the bottom 4, BUT if you discount Newcastle, 6 points covers the bottom 6 teams with 6 games to go, so it is all to play for. We did beat Bradford Northern on Monday (away), so we might be turning a corner. Hoping to go and see the Shipbuilders put one up the London Broncos on Sunday, Fingers crossed.

And finally…

I have lived in noisy places, but remember, there is alwys someone worse off

That’s all for now folks!
Hasta la proxima
Johnny

Good morning/afternoon folks

Here is the latest hotch-potch of nonsense which is my life in the form of a blog. Perhaps the fastest successive blog this year? Taking advantage of a day off work (whilst completely ignoring my list of “jobs”).
This somehow used to be a weekly blog, which was probably down to craziness levels in Peru. Not quite as much happening nowadays, but all good.

‘Ello John, got a new motor!
Check out this old Austin beauty.


New addition!

Ruby, a diddy Shetland Pony foal was born last week 🙂
Mother and filly are doing well.

Scott’s BIG day out.

In the previous blog, I mentioned Scott.
I met Scott in May, after the Calderdale Way Relay when we were both running back to the start after leg 1, and conversation (as always) got round to future plans/aspirations. Scott mentioned that he was aiming for a July Bob Graham Round, at the time I was just starting to get back to some kind of training, so I agreed to help if I was fit.

Remember that runners are one of 4 types:
i – Injured
ii – Coming back from injury
iii – About to be injured
iv – Combination of all three above.

So, 11am on Saturday 1st of July saw me (with too many fitness question marks to mention) at the familiar lay-by that is Dunmail Raise, on the A591, between Grasmere and Thirlmere at the start of leg 3, with Richard (who I had run the same leg with 2 weeks earlier), an amazing support team. Sinhead and Christine did an amazing job.

Support runners are there to carry food, drink, kit and help with navigation, finding the right lines, and forcefeeding/encouraging/bullying/cajoling/convincing the BGR attempter into thinking that continuing is a good idea!

(Solo and/or unsupported rounds have been done in the past, but that it definitely a big step up in the madness stakes!)

If you ever see people at the summit of Dunmail Raise squinting up the slopes of Seat Sandal, chances are they are supporting a Bob Graham Round!

The main man Scott arrived, after having been been battered over legs 1 and 2 by high winds, torrential rain and clag. The recent heatwave was over.

By sheer chance, a friend I used to work with at Leeds Climbing Wall and a fellow member of Pudsey & Bramley, Jake, appeared (unplanned) and agreed to run with us and help with support and navigation. (BIG thank you to Jake for use of his photos).

We set off up the steep-as-ever Steel Fell, 20 minutes up on schedule, but were blown about by some of the strongest, gustiest winds I’ve felt in a while. (After not feeling more than a gentle breeze in Peru in all the time I was there, a less windy place I have never been to).

The now familiar Steel Fell-Calf Crag-Sgt Man-High Raise-Thunacar Knott-Harrison Stickle-Pike o’ Stickle-Rossett Pike (groan)-Bowfell-Esk Pike-Great End-Broad Crag-Ill Crag-Scafell Pike (deep breath)-Lord’s Rake leading to Scafell and a vertical scree run down to the NT car park at the top end of Wastwater route was done whereupon Scott, 2 new support runners and Jake (who carried on to the end) stormed up the even-steeper Yewbarrow for a shedload more summits into the night and into more crappy weather.
(Whilst us supporters were fed with pies and pasties. and a bottle of local beer for all supporters, after their leg).

I couldn’t stay for the finale as I had to get home, so I reversed my 6am route back to Taddy, home by midnight, but was transfixed by “dotwatching”, the live tracker that Scott was wearing to show where he was. Leg 4 done and into the night proper on leg 5.

He only bloody did it!
Sub 24 hours and a very worthy member of the Bob Graham Round club.

Well done Scott 🙂

Richard’s turn next!

For me personally, it was the best day I’ve had on the fells, with like minded people (ie, nutters) since my own BGR in 2009 🙂

Wasdale Horseshoe Fell Race

If you Google “Wasdale fell race route” this is what you get:

“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!”

I had run Wasdale once before in 2000, but only remember a very small field (35 runners and only 25 finishers) and attrocious weather for the second half.
I was younger, fitter and dafter back then.

The thing that originally drew me to fellrunning was the simplicity and complete lack of BS. You don’t need any fancy kit (despite what the manufacturers say), a pair of shoes that will keep you upright, some kit to keep you warm if the weather turns bad, some kind of sugary food to keep you moving and something to carry your gubbins in. You pay your entry fee, get a number, run/crawl/walk/fall round a route then at the end you get a cup of tea in a throwaway cup and a piece of flapjack. No t-shirt you’ll never wear again, no medal that will go into a box and no hype, brilliant!

23 years on, my head was a bit full of BGR leg 3 routes and Ennerdale maps, to really focus on this route, which was to bite my ar$e to be honest.

The luxury of a day off on Friday allowed a morning of unparalleled faffing, before a long ride up the A1-A66-diddy road-A595 and 5hrs later, I was at sunny Wasdale.
The Saturday forecast was somewhere between biblical and catastrophic, which felt hard to believe given how pleasantly benign it was on the Friday evening.
Even dawn brought in a warm and breezy morning, but the organisers were wary of thunder and lightning (marshalls are stuck on the summit checkpoints) and the plan B was for the race to be shortened at Pillar, which we would not know until arriving at a checkpoint with no marshalls.

The race goes straight up a haul onto the Screes, first checkpoint at Whin Rigg, dropping steeply through the bracken (check for ticks) down to Greendale (CP2) via the valley floor. Somewhere along the way I pulled my groing, which didn’t help me much then the endless slog up horsefly ridden Seatallan (CP3), up to which point it was sweatier than (enter your own superlative/comparative) and then dropping down into the clag around the Pots of Ashness, sloshingly skirting around Scoat Fell and up onto Pillar, I was 1/3 of a trio here, sharing the lead/nav with a NE bloke and a Calder Valley lass who was super determined to get to Great Gable, getting out of the valley and onto the col the winds really picked up on the way round Kirk Fell (CP4), I took a fall here, (it is a fell race after all). A downhill face plant that happensed quicker than you could swear).

This was followed by a brutal (will try not to overuse this word) climb up Great Gable (CP5) which is the final cut-off point.
Back to race description:

“This is where the race really starts – it’s hands on knees work, not even Jebby will be running up this one. Gable is
the last checkpoint with a time limit. If you can’t make it this far in 4.5hrs you are not fast enough to continue. Do
not argue with the marshals here!!!”

With the clock ticking, nobody was talking going up Great Gable. To be timed out here would mean a long slog back down into the valley and a DNF status.
To get to the top of GG (the first mountain I ever climbed as a youngster) with 10 minutes to spare was a massive relief, but there is still a long way to go, down to Styhead and up to Esk Hause (CP6) and then along the rocky ridge to the ceiling of England at Scafell Pike (CP7). The weather took a real downward turn here and the temperature dropped as quickly as the heavens opened. Compared to the usual weekend crowds, only 2 very hardy marshalls were atop Scafell Pike, as we dropped into the gloomy mist for Lingmell, eyes straining for other runners and hoping to drop below the storm and clag. It got cold, I was cold, I remember the legendary runner, Nicky Spinks once said “If you think about doing something 3 times, do it” so if that refers to food, drink or putting on some more/warmer kit, do it!
(Fellrunning Association race rules enforce runners to carry a waterproof jacket, waterproof trousers, hat, gloves, map, compass, whistle and emergency food, in my case a slab of Kendal Mint Cake, only to be broken into in dire circumstances).
Common sense was shouting at me to stop and put my cagoule on, but the thought of just keeping moving and getting to the finish was winning the battle.

A runner (from Ashbourne) asked which club I was with. My brain/nose and mumbling was feeling the cold here.

When I replied “Pudsey & Bramley“, he thought I said “Putney & Bromley“, which must be a London branch of my Leeds club!

Over the World’s steepest stile (CP8, see winner, Finlay Wild, below) and down Lingmell Nose to the finish.

The incredibly steep, convex slope gets even steeper here and a Geordie bloke called Craig (one of the trio from earlier) urged us to “leg it to get under 6.5 hours”, which we all did, just, before retreating to my car, with blowers on full heat, trying to ward off hypothermia, which was lessening the effects of a sexy sunburnt “vest tan” from earlier in the day.

(Finlay Wild had had a dip in a stream, collected his trophy and driven back up to Scotland by this point!)

I resisted the bathing urge and sheltered from the thunder and lightning, which really was directly overhead by this point.

After shivering my way back to the climbing hut in the car and a hot shower, I was semi-human again, and after a brilliant ARCC BBQ, retired to my pit early, unable to sleep due to some heavy duty pains in my knees, feet, ankles, shoulder and everywhere else in between.

Awesome race, brilliant weekend, followed by a few days of inactivity and possibly the Borrowdale race, or the Tea Round (or both, or neither) in August.
Watch this space…

Whereas Ennerdale seemed very special (in a heatstroke/dehydration induced way) as it was my first Lakes race in years, Wasdale feeled very satisfying to actually get around and beat the cut-offs.

The race was fantastically summarised by my mate John (@lakelandtrailrunner
@johns_fells for all you Instapeople)
in this excellent video below. This guy is awesome 🙂

Raider’s Round-up

Grim times at Craven Park

Second from bottom in the league and with our main playmaker, Jarrod Sammut, banned for 5 matches. (Alleged aggressive language/body language during Halfix match).
It is going to a testing run-in now.

Be more like Steve.

There is a grainy photo on a frame on a set of drawers to my right, with my 2 brothers, myself and the late, great Steve Irwin.
I went to Australia Zoo in January 2005, a year before his premature, tragic death and was overwhelmed by the man’s passion for the planet. (I am definitely not a zoo fan, but this place was very, very different).

Steve was a complete one-off, you won’t find many people more genuine.

RIP an incredible man.

And finally (not like these!)

At the other extreme of the social spectrum.
I ask yer!

That’s all for now folks.
Hasta la proxima 🙂

Johnny