Here is the latest ladfromtad.com blog. Less writing and more pics this time. Just back from our first family jollies in the last 6 years. T’Lakes. (Which means this blog is heavily Lakes & fellrunning biased). In this mixed bag summer of sunshine and showers, we didn’t do too badly.
Packing as lightly as possible for 2.5 weeks was always going to be one of our biggest hurdles, but as long as we packed the car in exactly the same way, each time, in between moving around the Lakes, we would manage!
Valentina “borrowed” my phone whilst I was driving, and I found this, and others, later on 🙂
Ambleside Sports
So, we loosely planned our trip around the school holidays, my holidays and a few things going on in the Lakes. kicking off with Ambleside Sports.
The Nipper & I have got involved with a brilliant podcast by the name of “On the Back Foot“, which is mainly about fellrunning, but interspersed with other (mainly daft) stuff too. Although I had met mein host, JT, today was the day that Valentina first met the man himself 🙂
Meeting the legendary Jacob Tonkin, from ON THE BACK FOOT podcast.
Rydal Round fell race, the less said the better! In a nutshell, I got everything wrong; pacing, training, food, navigation, shoes, and more.
Blue ice cream, before watching the Guides Race and Hound Trailing, after the Cumberland Westmorland Wrestling, what more could a person want?!
The Bridge House wasn’t quite as impressive, as in the photos!
Whilst I do like to support the local community, the price of this loaf came as a shock, and it wasn’t made with cocaine and saffron either!
Saturday sporting spectacular!
Saturday 27th August was a bit of a mad day sports and weatherwise. Awaking to torrential rain, we headed from Langdale to Whinlatter Pass, near Keswick for Lina to take part in one of the hilliest Parkruns in the country, for which the monsoon halted and it slowly turned into a cracking day!
Back to Langdale for the British Championship race, The Blisco Dash. It was a bit of a Challenge Anneka for us to get there in time, but we did it.
Still haven’t seen any famous climbers at the ODG.
The men’s winner, Matthew Knowles (Lancaster & Morecambe AC).
Pudsey & Bramley legends: Rachel Pilling (V40 British Ladies champion) and Rob Hope (V50 British Mens champion).
Headlights of Lakeland 50 & 100 runners floating through the valley on the Saturday night. To be continued…
Kendal
We headed back to my hometown for a few days to stock up on Kendal Mint Cake and shoes at Pete Bland Sports.
The best fellrunning shoes I have ever had. VJ Irocks, found a pair which fitted me. Sticky as glue on wet rock. These are the future!
Spent the hottest day of the year in this souless launderette! Always good to have clean clobber though.
Borrowdale
(After Wasdale) the big race of the year for me, coinciding with my birthday and the race being covered by Countryfile (which I haven’t seen yet).
A race I love and a route I know. Last year I fell and bashed my ribs within the first mile. This year was better, but despite the insane grip of my out-of-the-box VJs, I almost took a headlong plunge down the steepest part of the descent off Scafell Pike, my birthday guardian angels were looking down on me, as I somehow righted my right size 13 mid-fall and didn’t kill myself, nor break my neck!
Perfect conditions. Big field. Got under 5hrs. Job done 🙂
Wasdale
We headed up to remote Wasdale for a family meet with the club. It is a place that I absolutely love to bits. A bit of a hike, but more than worth it.
The elusive Emerald Pool.
Before the storm!
Descending from Styhead Pass, blowing a gale, driving rain, Lake District summer!
Less than 24hrs later…
Free fish pedicure! They musy have been blooming starving to tackle my plates of meat
Paddleboarding. I was too traumatised to have a go, due to by trying//failing to windsurf on a school trip to Morecambe Bay, 75 years ago.
Drigg beach, August.
Natterjack Toad, released unharmed, although maybe a bit bemused!
Steel Fell
Got word of a midweek sports special. The Steel Fell race. Fellrunning at its simplest. 100 people in a field, someone (Scoffer) shouts “GO”, run up hill, run down hill. Free entry. How could one resist?
On a day of constant on-off downpours, we just sat in the hut, chatting and I broke my tea drinking record with 14 cups before 5pm!
My first “short” fell race in over 20 years and I absolutely loved it. No need to think about kit, food, navigation. Just a straightforward as it gets up-&-down blast. Steel Fell is convex, so on the descent you can see Thirlmere, but it looks like you are dropping off the edge of the earth to get to it. Pure, trying not to fall on your ar$e, fun 🙂
Josie, too fast for the camera!
Jose, Josie & Johnny!
Even I couldn’t get lost on a race like this 🙂
Josie & Lina.
A special mention to a friend from the club who has done something that I have been failing at for the past few years; tempting Lina on to the fells!
Josie took Lina under her wing and showed her the ropes around Langdale. It gave Lina the confidence to take on her first ever fell race, let’s see where it leads to!
Wild swimmers.
Not a sport I am likely to get into soon, but I have nothing but respect and admiration for people who do it. (I am too much of a wuss, blaming it on Raynaud’s Syndrome and I am sticking by that).
Big THANK YOU to Josie, Rachel & Katie for the motivation for getting the girls in the water.
Next stop, crossing the Channel!
Fiestas Patrias.
Peruvian Independence Day was spent rambling around the Langdale valley.
Fleeing the cloud of Horsefiles which descended on us at Blea Tarn.
We had no Peruvian tucker, but managed to rustle up some Venezuelan Arepas, which meant we were all full for the rest of the week 🙂
Second bite of the cherry!
Rusland Sports. Our friend, Bobby Gard-Storry, had tipped me off about this hidden gem. The original plan was a trip to N.Wales, to recce the Peris Horseshoe route, but this crumbled a few days before, so with 2 days off work, we headed back to Langdale, to try and cram as much in over 3 days as possible!
Lina, not 100% about her impulsive entry into her first ever fell race.
BGS (2nd male) & Lina (1st Lady V40). Although she was the only Lady V40, you have to be in it to win it and with her £20 cash prize, she quadrupled my winnings of the last 35 years.
1st Lady V40 in the BOFRA Fell Race and 3rd in the U12 Fancy Dress competition.
Raiders round-up.
After countless inconsistent results, then a draw against Bradford Bulls and a win last week away against Dewsbury, the mighty Raiders are hopefully
turning things around. They kept their cool against Swinton. This drags us out of the quicksand at the bottom of the Championship league table, with only 5 games left.
Barrow Ladies take a 3 week break but really need to up their game against Featherstone next weekend, with only 3 games left in the Superleague season.
COYR 🙂
Take Hart!
Raynaud’s Syndrome is my standard excuse for being crap at anything in the cold and colourblindness is my excuse for being crap at anyhting arty, (as long as the source of a lifelong pain that I could never make it as a Pilot and then get picked as an Astronaut!)
Thankfully the Youngster has inherited her Mum’s artistic flair.
Capybara made out of clay from the footpath near Blea Tarn.
Drawing done with out-of-date make-up (not mine!)
And finally…
My least shaky video yet! An early morning trot in Great Langdale, with a bonus cloud inversion 🙂
Hasta la proxima amigos Johnny & the girls
All my radioactive socks were kept in an airtight bag, which was then encased in concrete and should be safe by 2253.
p.s. Big THANK YOU to Doni Clarke for lending me the charging lead, lifesaver 🙂
I trust you are in fine fettle. A quick blog turnaround, if I don’t get it down on paper quick, I’ll forget it. A bit fellrunningcentric again. Middle of the racing season. Big race of the year last weekend (for me), the start of the summer holidays (for youngsters, but sadly not the weather, yet!) Plus a very special day paying respect to and celebrating the life of Joss Naylor.
Photo courtesy of Dave Woodhead
Wasdale Horsehoe fell race
The Big One!
The Wasdale Horseshoe is a tough old race. If you stand at the start, near the Wasdale Head NT Campsite and spin round 360 degrees, you get a sense of what is to come!
This year it was chosen as an English Championship race, so instead of the usual 100-ish runners, there were 350 places, which sold out in a few hours. All the big guns were on the start line, but would Billy Bland’s 1982 record (3:25:21) be under threat?
I first ran this race in 2000, there were 47 runners, it was claggy from start to finish and I had to map-&-compass it all the way round. A tough day out.
This year the race was poignant in that it was only recently that we lost Joss Naylor, one of the greatest fellrunners of all time, and Wasdale was his kingdom, where he farmed. A few thoughtful words from the starter and “Three Cheers for Joss” were part of the start, Joss wouldn’t have wanted us all to be miserable.
It is a “horseshoe”, but in effect a full loop (otherwise the start and finish would be separate, not ideal if you’ve run 21 miles and climbed up and down 9000ft, and can barely walk to your car as it is, even when you are parked at the finish!)
From Brackenclose, you go straight up The Screes, a good path that does eventually top out and then it is good running all the way to Whin Rigg (checkpoint 1-cut off: 60mins), then a steep downhill into a gully and then across the valley bottom, through muddy fields, woods and tracks, popping out briefly on the road at Greendale Bridge (checkpoint 2), up the side of the beck, digging in for an endless, soggy climb to Seatallan (checkpoint 3-cut off: 2hrs25mins), and then a good run downhill, aquaplaning through the bottomless bog of the Pots of Ashness, following a hint of a trod around Haycock, and then up to Pillar (checkpoint 4-cut-off: 3hrs25mins) from here it is a fast path round the back of Kirk Fell, and then you get a sight of Great Gable, the steep side! Not many people run up this bit, and any chit-chat dies off, to the summit at least (checkpoint 5-cut off: 4hrs30mins), and then a rocky plunge down to Styhead Mountain Rescue stretcher box and then starts “The Death March”. A long haul up past Sprinkling Tarn, (the wettest place in England) to Esk Hause (checkpoint 6) and then turning homewards over the Scafell Massif (a group of mountains, not a gang of Homeboys), dodging the crowds all the way to the rooftop of England, Scafell Pike (checkpoint 7), from here it is all downhill to the col at Lingmell, rocky at first, and then a brilliant grassy run off down Lingmell Nose, sloping steeper and steeper to the last checkpoint (checkpoint 8) at the wall crossing and the world’s steepest stile, and the world’s best race run-in to the end, dodging the masses, hidden boulders and tree roots and then, the finish, stop, and look back at the skyline and smile 🙂
(Races have cut-off times, to prevent marshals, who are volunteers, from being out on the tops in stinking conditions all day, so you can’t dawdle too much, for fear of being timed out. Wasdale has quite tight cut-offs, as some of the tops are remote and exposed!)
I won’t go in to a blow-by-blow-step-by-step account.
The ladies (U23 up to V70)and V55 men (and above, so that’s V60, V65 & V70) all set off at 10:30, the rest set off at 11am, (I am V50 nowadays so agewise I’m towards the back of that bunch). The winner, the inimitable Flying Scotsman, Finlay Wild, (Lochaber AC), set off like a jet powered steam train and despite running against the very best of the best of current British fellrunners, disappeared into the distance, never to be seen again, until the finish. Time: 3:37:42, the fastest time since 1990, but nobody has ever come within 5mins of Billy Bland’s record.
Men’s winner – Finlay Wild. Photo courtesy of Steven WilsonLadies’ winner, Nichola Jackson Photo courtesy of Steven Wilson
The ladies race was won by Nichola Jackson (Keswick AC) in 4:29:23 and an impressive LV70 winner was Wendy Dodds. Keith Holmes was first MV70.
Ladies’ V70 winner, Wendy Dodds Photo courtesy of Stephen Wilson
For myself, I started steadily, and had a grand plan!
The pack-up that never was…
As the girls were up to support me, I hatched a plan for them to have some food and drink for me at Greendale Bridge; 2 sarnies, a chewy bar and a pint of sports juice, leaving me to carry just a fistful of gels, a dozen jelly babies and an emergency slab of Kendal Mint Cake, plus a tiny 20ml bottle. So running across the valley, I was daydreaming about a Charlie Baker sarnie (banana and syrup) and a Joe Quail sandwich (cheese, ham and BOMBA sauce)…
I arrived at the rendezvous point, to meet, nobody! My support crew were nowhere to be seen.
A mix-up with times left me dithering, what to do, what to do, I had to go, cut-offs were pressing down on me.
I remember watching a video about an American lass doing the Ramsay Round (24hr mountain challenge in Scotland) who said that “Everything can be either positive or negative, but if you want to finish, it has to be positive!”
I mulled over my missing lunch and figured I could get round with what I had on me, so I cracked on.
Daydreaming about my sarnies, somewhere near Greendale Bridge. Photo courtesy of Peter Trainor
The clag came in a bit, as did the rain across the boggy bit to Pillar, my rations were a gel on the hour and a solitary jelly baby on every half hour, plus stopping at every beck en-route to slake my thirst. I was under the cut-offs and feeling good. Pillar done, Great Gable climbed, final cut-off ticked off, then I caught my mate John, at the start of the Death March, and then it was just a case of digging in and getting to Scafell Pike and hopefully finding a good line off the top to the Lingmell col. which is ALWAYS claggy. Glancing at my watch all along the Scafell Pike ridge I figured I might just get under 6 hours, (I ran this last year and back in 2000, but had never got under 6hrs), I think my Guardian Angel was watching down on me as I took a few more risks than usual, lots of slips and trips and had a few near heart stopping stumbles, but no KOs!
Descending Lingmell Nose Both photos thanks to Pete Trainor.
On to the grassy bit, I opened it up and tried to coordinate my tired legs dowhill, coming over the brow of the steep bit to see a bloke with the biggest, most ferocious looking hound from hell, that I have ever seen, which luckily didn’t maul me. I had to slam on the brakes to stop for the stile, not falling on my ar$e on the steep side and legged it down to the finish.
Time: 5:56:39
Fellrunning is not about the times, but I was chuffed to bits to do my fastest ever time. (Finlay Wild had got back 2hrs earlier, got changed, had a nap, had his tea and was halfway home to Fort William, but he is another level!)
Had a late lunch, eating my non-rendezvous sarnies and then went back to our digs, feeling a bit weird after necking way too many gels!
A good day was had by all 🙂
Special mentions to Tim from ARCC, who cycled up from Glossop on Friday, raced Saturday and then cycled back (over Hardknott & Wrynose Passes) to Glossop on Sunday, and, to the bloke parked next to me, for whom it was his first ever fell race! Hardcore you know the score.
If my legs don’t drop off, next on the summer circus tour it’s Ambleside Sports (Rydal Round) on Thursday and then Borrowdale the week after, on my birthday 🙂
Life on the ocean wave
The Nipper and I have an annual summer tradition/treat to go sea fishing off Whitby, to hopefully catch enough for tea and then have a bit in the freezer.
After obsessing about the forecast and booking the best 2 days off work, I didn’t account for: a) Monday: Perfect weather, but the Captain having a hangover after the England match and rebooking us for Tuesday. b) Tuesday: The perfect weather predicted last week for Tuesday doing a complete turnaround and becoming foggy, raining and choppy. c) The crap weather on Wednesday becoming the best day of the week, when I had originally booked the day off but then canceled it and was at work!
British summer, don’t ya just love it! There’s only Captain Bird’s Eye fish fingers in our freezer for now then.
Raiders round-up
Good and not so good. Cracking win for the ladies Vs. Huddersfield 🙂
An uphill and sadly non-victorious battle Vs. Batley Bulldogs for the men. 😦
Sunday sees a double header at home, with the ladies up again Leeds Rhinos at noon and the men up against Sheffield Eagles at 3pm. COYR. Onwards and upwards!
RIP Joss
Friday the 19th of July 2024 was an emotional day. A funeral. Family? No. A close friend? No. A person who you really want to pay your respects to? Absolutely yes.
(I wrote about Joss’s history and legacy in the last blog).
In December 2021 Joss had suffered a stroke. He passed away on 28/06/24. His wish to his family was for fellrunners to run over the hills and Lakeland passes, and to lead in his funeral cortege, to St. Olaf’s Church, the smallest church in England, in arguably the most beautiful corner of the country, Wasdale.
Groups of fellrunners and walkers of all ages and abilities, streamed down into the valley, estimates of 500 strong, coming over from Ennerdale, Eskdale, Honister Pass, Langdale and Seathwaite. Clubs from all over the country.
I ran over with a group of friendly runners from Ambleside AC, from Langdale. Up at 4am, away at 5am and running by 9am. (Managed to leave all my water bottles in the fridge and the becks were dry, so it was a thirsty day out, but a small price to be pay to be present at such an occasion).
A colourful procession of club vests led Joss on his last run out to the church, followed by a touching service and then burial in his final resting place, looking out over the beautiful valley he had lived in all of his life.
Joss was a pioneer in fellrunning, his limits knew no boundaries and he set countless unthinkable records, he raised a lot of money for people less fortunate than himself and always had a word, or a tale, for everyone he met.
I met him twice, once before my first Wasdale race (2000) when I really was going into the unknown and he gave me some tips and hints for getting round, then again in 2016 at a talk with Nicky Spinks. He was the utimate storyteller!
It was a privelege to be involved and a fitting send off. The sun shone and the fells were clear.
Ken Ledward gave a touching eulogy. There is a “Joss Naylor Challenge” for runners over the age of 50. The route leaves Pooley Bridge to traverse 30 summits over a distance of 48 miles and climbs 16,000 feet (77km, 4877m) finishing in Wasdale, where Joss used to meet all finishers, with a handshake.
A runner was doing the challenge on the 28th of June and Joss was being updated by phone, in his bed with progress. At 17:58, Joss was told that the runner had successfully completed his run. At 18:00, Joss passed away.
RIP Joss Naylor – 1936-2024
And finally
Not that I watch the news these days, nor can I say that BBC coverage is impartial, but here is a very good article with a great video about Joss’s last run on Friday. (Link below picture).
I trust you are well. A swiftly produced blog this time, seizing the opportunity whilst waiting in for a plumber. A quick round-up of the events happening in the maelstrom of chaos and nonsense that is called life. (Including a new government and Three Lions into the Euro 2024 finals, but both of those events have been covered in the press elsewhere!)
The one word that has been going round and round my head (and doubtlessly other fellrunner’s heads too) for quite a few months now.
Wasdale, the wildest of Lakeland valleys, boasting England’s highest mountain (Scafell Pike), deepest lake (Wastwater), Biggest Liar (competition held every year in November at the Bridge Inn, Santon Bridge, Lawyers and Politicians are barred from entering), and one of England’s most challenging fell races: The Wasdale Horseshoe fell race, 21 miles with 9022ft of hands on thighs climbing, or 34km/2750m in new money. Not an easy place to get to, but more than worth the effort.
I have run it 3 times, first in 2000, which was a proper on-your-own clagfest adventure, then last year where I got sunburnt and borderline hypothermic on the same day and this year, when it is (using the present tense, as this is the day before and I haven’t run it yet) a British Championship race, which means instead of the usual 100-ish runners, there will be 300 people all trying to be first to get to the stile on the first climb!
What will become of those brave/foolhardy enough to set off from Brackenclose on Saturday morning. Watch this space…
From Gaffer back to Minion.
Well, I dipped my toes in the murky waters of management (again) and decided to abseil back down to the job I enjoyed, could do and didn’t involve spinning 15 different plates at the same time. Good to be back 🙂
In the Summertime…
What a glorious summer we are having, both days of which were gorgeous.
Not a summer of (positive) note, yet, I am still hanging on to the hope that it will turn itself around into an Indian Summer that people will talk about for decades to come. Although I am missing the BBQ of the year (sorry Pete) for Wasdale this weekend, we did squeeze in one sunny evening of outdoor eating at Langdale and fit in a couple of short walks, between and during the showers.
A life on the ocean wave.
The young ‘un and I have our annual summer pilgrimage to Whitby for a boat fishing outing, round about my birthday. The first year was brilliantly productive, last year provided leaner pickings.
2024 trip planned for next week, will we be filling our freezer, or will we be having tea at Kirkgate Fisheries?
Watch this space…
Raider’s round-up.
After being positively mugged by Wakefield Trinity and more recently, shown up by York, confidence is not sky high for an away trip to Mount Pleasant on Sunday (wasn’t that nice last time I went) against Batley Bulldogs. COME ON YOU SHIPBUILDERS!!!
Joss’s last run…
Photo courtesy of Ian Winterburn.
Set amidst yew trees in the Viking fields at the head of Wasdale, near the deepest lake and the highest mountain in England, is the possibly the smallest church in England, St. Olaf’s Church. The church is roofed with massive slate tiles over beams that are claimed to come from wrecked Viking ships.
This will be Joss Naylor’s final resting place, with a perfect view across the valley to the fells that were his kingdom.
Photo courtesy of Tony Simpkins
The funeral is next Friday and a final wish was for fellrunners to “Lead Joss home” in front of the hearse, wearing club vests, after having run over the fells to Wasdale Head. I have booked the day off work and (providing I can still walk after the Wasdale race) hope to be their to pay my respects to a great man.
And finally…
In my quest to force out one-video-per-month, here is my latest offering. Rambings in Langdale.
I have been (and still am) in two minds about making videos when racing, and the shaky ones I have made have had little talking/chit-chat. Think I overcompensated with this one
I trust you are well. Here is the latest ladfromtad.com blog
Bits and bobs.
Summer finally came (and went as quick as it came).
The Nipper had her first ever ballet show 🙂 (All a bit lost and very new to me, but she loves it).
Had our first ever family trip to the Flicks!
The Nipper had her first experience on a climbing wall. (Auto belay device, I wasn’t holding the rope whilst taking photos!)
One Sunday I got chatting to the owners (two elderly twins) of this amazing campervan, as they passed through Taddy, what a beauty!
I read this awesome book (thanks to Baz for the lend).
and creakily started my fellrunning season proper…
All of which leads on to a fairly fellrunningcentric blog, with a snippet of Rugby League, if you are pushed for time, just skip to the Joss Naylor part.
Ennerdale Horseshoe (36.8km/22.9miles with 2290m/7513ft of ascent).
Ennerdale was my curtain opener last year, after the long, dark days of Long Covid. Last year was a “Hotter then Ibiza” heatwave. This year threatened minus 4 degrees of wind chill!
The Friday night drive over to Wasdale was a joy, but Saturday dawned a mixed bag. I have run Ennerdale 4 times and know the route, so I was calm, (although never totally confident!)
Got there early, almost off to a very bad start, with this inches-off bit of parking!
E.S.P or pure luck, prevented me from stoving in the back of Lina’s car, just before the start. I was under pressure from a parking warden and didn’t see the post at all
(With a pair of binoculars) the race goes from the low bit in the centre of the pic (Ennerdale Scout Camp), then crawls up Great Borne (big lump on left) and along the Red Pike ridge as far as Green Gable, then swings over Kirk Fell, Pillar and back along Haycock, Iron Crag and Crag Fell (last hump centre left) before a joyous plunge to the finish (which luckily is the same place as the start!)
The race organiser says “This race route is not for the faint hearted but after completing you’ll proudly display it on your runners’ CV. It is a horseshoe but in many respects it is an out and back race. If you retire at or near the midway point (green gable ish!) you have a 10 mile jog, walk, stumble back to registration along the valley floor.”
It is a race of one-third and two-thirds, the first 18 miles rough and rocky, then the last 6 miles grassy, runnable fells, but with a sting in the tail, (there is always a sting in the tail, Race Organisers are sadistic like that!)
My “Munching on the Moors” pack-up included a “Charlie Baker” sandwich, some malt loaf and a fistful of gels, (although I gave my malt loaf to a lad from Horsforth, as he was struggling as he had forgotten most of his food. Who would make an error such as that I ask you?!)
I give you, the Charlie Baker sandwich.
A friend at work had given me a Kendal Mint Cake caffeinated gel, this was my final emergency battery. I don’t drink coffee these days, so the combination of mint, sugar and caffeine was a potent one! Managed to overtake 6 people on the last climb (they had blown a gasket) and finished feeling fairly fresh, (although driving home immediately afterwards, I did require a crane to get me out of my car when I got home at 10pm!)
Photo by Grand Day Out Photography.
I made a short, shaky race video here:
Two weeks later, inexorably was the day of the…
Buttermere Horseshoe (35.5km/22 miles with 2515m/8251ft ascent)
The RO has this to say “The Darren Holloway Memorial Race is one of the toughest Lakeland races in the calendar and makes a fantastic day out over the quiet Buttermere fells. In memory of Pennine Fell Runner Darren Holloway, this race is based on the original Buttermere Horseshoe.”
This only tells half the story…
Now, this was a new race for me, although I had run most of the race/tops separately, but over the space of 20 years. I had no time/opportunity for a recce, so spent my tea breaks watching the “Fly-by” of the route on the OS Maps app, thinking this would suffice!
I decided on smash-&-grab tactics; a 4am alarm and driving straight home afterwards.
In my giddiness I arrived 2 hours before kick-off, this was my first error. Give me an hour, I have my 1 hour race routine down to a tee: Toilet-kit check-get number-check everything-warm up-toilet-run.
However, give me 2 hours and it becomes: Toilet-kit check-get number-chat for 1 and a half hours – realise time – panic – no time for proper warm up – no time to check everything – no time for toilet – rush to start – forget something important (such as half of my food, keeping nicely cool in my cool bag) – run – have a shocker of a race!
Weatherwise, it was a perfect day for it. Warm, sunny, bit of cloud and a bit of a breeze. The route is a big loop of everything one can see from Loweswater: Up Whiteside -Grasmoor – Whiteless Pike – Down and up to – Newlands Pass – Follow trod (if you can find it to) Dale Head – down to – Honister Pass – to the resting place of Alfred Wainwright at Inominate Tarn (the tarn without a name)- reverse Ennerdale route to – High Crag – High Stile – bypass Red Pike – down to a dip before a stream/ravine crossing up to – Mellbreak – down to the finish.
With visibility of 100 miles+ there was no excuses for navigational errors then.
In my defence your honour, there were 2 races going on at the same time and it was forgiveable to follow the wrong race route off Whiteless Pike (big THANK YOU to Richard from Marsden for shouting me back).
I realised my food shortages right about 5 minutes before this photo was taken .
Photo courtesy of Lakes legend, George Foster
Taking stock, I had a Charlie Baker sandwich, half a bag of jelly babies and 3 gels (and no Kendal Mint Cake rocket fuel). This was around 1/3 of the way round. My stomach was rumbling!
Around halfway round both my knees started playing up, it was like someone had removed the hinges. Uphills were fine, downhills weren’t.
I could see a small group ahead all taking good lines (route choice, not cocaine) including a distinctive CFR vest (Cumberland Fell Runners, local club with most likely local knowledge!) I made it my mission to catch them, which I did on the climbs, only to be dropped on the descents. I was on my Jack Jones for the last hour, when things were getting a bit desperate in the energy levels front, but finished (immediately and officially retiring my trusty but old) Walsh shoes, I went to the legendary CFR buffet. Chilli and rice and nachos and a cake stall which would outface Billy Bunter, all served by an amazing group of ladies who just could not do enough, fussing over everyone. Fed and watered, I made my way home, late and stiffening up by the minute. A grand day out 🙂
I made a short and shaky race video here:
Shoes!
Now this has become a bit of a fellrunnning blog, for which I apologise. Fellrunners talk about all sorts of stuff, most of it not running related, (there is also a tale of which I am not sure is suitable for this blog, but maybe next time!)
One topic of conversation you can start up with any fellrunner is that of shoes! As a sport it is fairly simple and kit has only been overcomplicated by kit manufacturers in recent years. It is all about the grip!
Back in the day (where I generally live my life, unable to move on) there were only Walsh shoes. Hand made by Norman Walsh in a lock-up in Bolton. Simple, bombproof, grippy as brown stuff on a blanket and minimal. Apart from a bit of lame competition by Ron Hill (Rivington Pike), Reebok (Fjellrunner) and the death trap that was the infamous Adidas Swoop. That was all there was, so things were simple. You wore Walshes, you could even resole them, eco-friendly before their time!
Walsh PB, available in narrow or narrower fit.
Then along came Inov8 at the turn of the century, who turned things (& prices) on their head. (Although not as crazy, nor pricey as carbon road shoes so I gather!)
Nowadays, other shoe manufacturers have realised there is a fellrunning market to be cornered and money, money, money to be made.
Back in the day.
1986 – When a bottle of milk cost 2 shillings and a house cost less than £100, Walshes cost around £30.
Now.
2024 – When a bottle of milk costs £5, a house costs half a million pounds and all top end shoes cost £130. Walshes have risen to £60.
So, after too many races where my legs and feet were absolutely trashed, I decided to bite the bullet, sell most of my internal organs and try the 3 best shoes currently on offer:
VJ Irock 4 – Amazing grip. In between sizes. 12 too small, 13 like wellies. Ron Hll Reverence – Very well made, the Harry Bolton Electric Sex Shoe. Sadly too wide Inov8 Mudtalon Speed – Would fit Daisy Duck well, but my canoe feet are too narrow. So they all went back and my bank account became 500 sheets better off!
Then I tried Salomons, I’d worn them before and got on with them, but they have completely changed the last since the previous-but-one model (don’t you just hate that!)
So that is why I wore Walshes at Buttermere and paid the price (for having size 13 feet like narrowboats and not being able to find any clown’s shoes to fit me).
There is just one hope, watch this space…
Wasdale Horseshoe (34km/21.1miles with 2750m/9022ft of ascent)
The Race Organiser starts with this “Deepest lake, highest mountain, biggest liar and hardest fell race – that’s Wasdale. Wordsworth once said that every fellrunner should do Wasdale at least once, or something like that!”
Wasdale is a beast! The sting in the tail is an ascent of Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain, as its final climb, but there is plenty of drama before that!
I have run Wasdale 3 times, but there are so, so, so many places to come unstuck if the clag is down. (Last year a big incoming storm threatened to cancel the race, but the RO took a calculated guess and estimated that it would hit the fells late on. So we started in a sweaty sauna sunny kind of day and the tail-enders (me) got walloped on Scafell Pike. Sunburnt and borderline hypothermic in the same race). The finish off Lingmell Nose is one of my favourite finishes in any race. The first time I ran Wasdale there were 45 runners, the weather was pure choss, so I was on my own for most of the race. This year it is a British Championship race and the 300 capacity sold out in a few hours, things have changed.
I am carrying a rucksack full of niggles from Buttermere, but really, really, REALLY hoping I make the start line in 2 weeks time!
Raider’s round-up
A much needed away win at Swinton for the mighty Raiders. Wakefield Trinity at home will be a trickier proposition.
Barrow ladies will be looking to bounce back against York Valkyrie next weekend!
RIP Joss Naylor
Fellrunning is quite a small, dare I say, niche, sport. I have done it since I was a lad, I once won a race (with only 2 runners), I got on the podium another time (midweek Lakes race, small field), and I once got in the top 50 of a British Championship race, so looking at me, I haven’t even got any matches to set the world alight!
But, I absolutely love the sport with my whole (knackered) body and soul. For me, it is almost a way of life (if only I lived a tad closer to some hills!)
It is not a sport for primadonnas, people take it seriously, but not themselves. It is (generally) low key, low tech and even if you were the very best, it would not be possible to make a living out of it. Races start in a field, go up a hill, or several hills, and then come back to the finish, where the winner might get a sports shop voucher, and everyone gets a cuppa and some cake. It is a simple, uncomplicated sport.
There are way more people doing it nowadays, compared to when I first started (Kentmere Pike race, 1986) and the sport has seen some phenomenal runners in its time: Billy Bland, Kenny Stuart, Ian Holmes, Gary Devine, John Wild, Colin Donnelly, Rob Jebb, Rob Hope, George Foster, Finlay Wild and more…
One name that is a household name, is that of Joss Naylor MBE.
Previous record holder for running the Pennine Way (which most walkers do over 2 weeks, Joss ran it in 3-&-a-bit days) and the Wainwrights (Most folk take a lifetime to walk all 214 tops, Joss did it in a week!)
To list but a few of his achievements:
1971: 61 peaks in 23h37m
1972: 63 peaks in 23h35m
1975: 72 peaks, claimed to involve over 100 miles and about 38,000 feet of ascent in 23h20m (record stood until 1988)
1971: The National Three Peaks Challengehe (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon): 11 hours 54 minutes including driving time
1973: The Welsh 3000s – the 14 peaks of Snowdonia in 4 hours 46 minutes (record stood until 1988)
1974: The Pennine Way: 3 days, 4 hours, 36 minutes (record stood until 1989)
1976: Robin Hood Bay to St Bees: 41 hours
1979: TheLyke Wake Walk: 4 hours 53 minutes (set during the annual race)(record stood until 1981)
1983: The Lakes, Meres and Waters circuit of 105 miles: 19 hours 20 minutes
1986: (age 50) completed the Wainwrights in 7 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes (record stood until 2014)
1997: (age 60) ran 60 Lakeland fell tops in 36 hours
2006: (age 70) ran 70 Lakeland fell tops, covering more than 50 miles and ascending more than 25,000 feet, in under 21 hours.
(Bearing in mind the advances in everything over the years; footwear, clothing, nutrition, communication, paths/trods becoming more defined… These all make the records above even more impressive!)
But Joss Naylor was more than just a phenomenal fellrunner.
All the above are mere results in the life of an extraordinary man. As a youth he had his cartilage removed from one knee, then later 2 discs removed from his spine. Doctors said he might never walk again, but he proved them wrong! People say that the pain he endured every day with his back, was what made him such an incredible force of nature on the fells. Everyone can dig in, but he could dig deeper, and for longer…
I had the honour of meeting Joss (twice). First at the 2000 Wasdale Race, where he happily chatted with runners at the start and then he gave out drinks at Greendale Bridge, part way round. The second time was at a talk at Keswick. Joss was talking about modern sports food (gels, etc..) and said that if a run was less than 50 miles, he would take nothing, if it was over 50 miles, he might “tek a Mars Bar and drink out of becks”.
Joss gave so much back to the sport, and to charity, in particular the Brathay Trust.
He was a proper Cumbrian character, a first class storyteller and a fellrunning legend. King of the fells, Iron Joss. Joss sadly passed away on Friday. The world has lost a great man.
I trust you are in fine fettle. This blog will (hopefully) be shorter than the usual ramble-on-a-thon. Primarily because it is mainly about one thing, JURA. (Secondly, my back is shot to pieces and if I sit down for too long, I might not be able to ever get up again!)
Round-up
Other things have been happening, alongsidethe focus on this race/trip.
1) I passed my Advanced Motoring Test, which wasn’t easy (for me).
2) We all went out for the first time in yonks!
3) We marshalled at the Old County Tops fell race and Lina had her first ever fell run (not the OCT, just up to Stickle Tarn), on a weekend when the Lakes was at its absolutely glorious sunny best 🙂
4) It stopped raining at times!
5) Barrow men and ladies teams both won . Beating the Flat Cappers is never easy, so it felt good 🙂
6) I got promoted at work, (for a job nobody else wanted or applied for), I was kind of pushed into it, so watch this space!
JURA.
Jura Fell Race 25/05/24 Distance: 28 km / 17.4 miles Climb: 2370 m / 7776 ft
“The Paps are not the sort of place people should run. But they do, every year. The Isle of Jura Fell Race is a frankly ridiculous phenomenon, with 250 runners saying their prayers before bashing off from sea level up not just the trio of Paps, but four other peaks, with a scarcely believable 2730m of ascent over nigh 30km.” (Source: The National Scot website)
(IF YOU LIKE, SKIP THIS WAFFLE STRAIGHT TO THE VIDEO IN THE FINAL BIT AT THE BOTTOM!)
The Isle of Jura. 4th largest island of the Inner Hebrides, home to 200 people and 5000 red deer over its 142 squre miles. Famous for George Orwell (he wrote 1984 at Barnhill Cottage), Corryvreckan whirlpool (where Orwell nearly drowned) and a Distillery.
Photo courtesy of the Sunday Post
For me the main event and focus on this race, “The Isle of Jura Fell Race” came along at a bit of a mad time. I like my job, it is generally fairly steady, but it hasn’t been recently, plus the driving test, plus the promotion application/interview, plus other stuff outside work, plus a slow puncture that became a fast puncture the week of the race, plus other stuff (i,e. life).
Which all meant that everything was very last minute. I had set my kit aside, but the rucksack I had did not have Tardis qualities, so my skimped down kit got even more skimped.
Planned kitSkimmed down kit.
Jura is quite different to other races. There are several options:
1) Drive over from Kennacraig on the Calmac Macbrayne ferry to Islay (2hrs), then the shuttle (10mins) to Jura, carry all that you like and either camp, or sell all your internal organs for some digs, (the hotel was full but there was one place offering accommodation for £1000 per night).
2) Take the fast ferry (£30 each way) from Tayvallich, landing on the pier right next to the campsite. 40 minutes each way.
3) Leave your car at Kennacraig, take your pushbike across on the CalMac ferry, then the diddy ferry, then ride 8 miles to the campsite.
Traditionalists go for option 3, so we did too.
My mate John had offered to drive from Kendal, so I was up at 4am on the Thursday morning, away at 5am and Kendal by 7:30am, not exactly feeling the love for the race and thinking of other options (weekend in the Lakes, new shoes in Kendal, turning around and going home!) I don’t know why, but the lead up had been poor with training too and I had hurt my back, so my excuse book was wide open.
Luckily John was up for it, so northwards we went!
The weather was wet, wet, wet on the way up. We made the ferry on time and then got straight on the shuttle ferry.
Feolin ferry port (!) feels like a very lonely place after a long day. The handful of other runners sped off as I tried to work out how to attach a second rucksack to my bike. (Riding a singlespeed bike with SPD pedals and studded fell shoes, with a massive rucksack on my back). John kindly offered to take it on his rack, otherwise I might still have been there now.
8 miles of “undulating” road got us to Craighouse and a blustery campsite.
After the first in a row of army rations pack meals (cheap Wayfayrer’s style boil in a pouch meal), things felt better and I slept like a log.
Friday morning dawned with midges, sunny and dry, but oh for some breeze.
It suddenly felt very relaxing to have no pressure to do anything at all, we were at the race start, a day early, knowing that you could start up a fellrunning conversation (fell shoes grip, nav errors, “Have you races this before?”) with anyone nearby. Happy days 🙂 We decided to go off for a pedal.
The “Three Arch Bridge” is the last checkpoint on the course, leading to 3 miles of road, BUT, for extra spiciness, a mile of that was covered in metal sheeting, to protect the road from heavy plant machinery, used to buld a jetty, to land a boat, to bring a new boiler to the Jura Distillery on the Friday night, to then be taken up 3 days after the race. (Please do not rain on race day was the thought of all, as this would up the stakes even more!)
After a ride down the coast, I headed back to a filling campsite and the arrival of the rest of the P&B crowd. Midges forced an early retreat and quiet descended early over the campsite on the eve of the race.
Saturday dawned early (it stays light late and gets light early in Bonny Scotland this time of year). The midges were out in force, so after kit check and registration, I sorted my kit inside my tent. My jelly babies had all congealed into a massive mutated lump, like some kind of chewy dog toy.
Start time always comes round in no time and at 10:30am, to the sound of a trio of Bagpipers and a decent sized crowd, and OFF.
The race consists of 3 “Pips”, 3 “Paps” and one final “Pip”. The Pips are smaller than the Paps, but they aren’t that small.
An absolute bogfest up to the first Pip, I can feel myself going backwards, with that all too familiar “my legs are not working” feeling I have had in my last 7 races. People steaming past me left and right, then into the clag and on my own. Nobody in sight, in front or behind. Hoping not to get lost so early on, I check my map just as the mists lift enough to get a sighting. Pip 2 follows, then some friendly P&B support on Pip 3 and then the race proper begins.
A long descent to the valley precedes a LONG climb up the first Pap. The clag lifts, the sun shines bright and a tailwind gusts, making pirouettes an additional bonus when lifting one leg on some of the scrambling bits. The view from Pap 1 shows the work left to do… Scree slopes are usually runnable, but this scree is different. Bigger and looser boulders, potential to snap something!
Paps 2 and 3 are in the bag, but Pip 4 has the potential camel to break one’s back, and it does. I had started getting pain early on. It is normal for me (with me being lanky tall, with crap posture) to feel it on climbs, but on the final Pip, I just can’t straighten up, welcome cowbells and enthusiastic marshalls at the summit and the last Pip run off would be a joy if only I could run properly, but that is not a problem for long, as 2 miles of bottomless slop bog follows the bottom of the last Pip reducing me to a ploughing slog, then a river crossing and finally the Three Arch Bridge. All that is left is 3 miles of road. (Some runners change into road shoes here, but my size 13 road shoes didn’t make the cut and are sat in my lounge in Tadcaster, along with a heap of other stuff left behind!)
I dig in and run the best I can, doubled over, trying not to trip (almost going a cropper) on the metal bit. Helped on by a P&B clubmate on a bike, despite busting a gut, I cross the line 24 seconds over the 6 hour mark. (Finlay Wild would have showered, got changed, had his tea and rowed home by this point. His record is a very impressive 2:58:09) A tough old race with a bit of everything (climbs, bog, scree, cliffs, more bog, road, metal road…) Not my best every performance, but I am well chuffed to finish.
Prizegiving waa followed by a Ceilidh, but we were on the early ferry, so I hit the hay and slept the best I could with a jeffed back.
Sunday dawned wet and midgey. By 8am were were off, and with less than 10 seconds to spare, we made the shuttle ferry, then blagged our way onto the early CalMac (we were booked on the 6pm crossing, 9:30am would get us home slightly earlier), back to Kennacraig, back to Kendal and back to Taddy by 9pm.
An awesome weekend. a cracking race route with a bunch of brilliant people.
(For the record, Scotland is my favourite place in the wholem wide world, but I am not keen on midges!)
And finally…
If you can put up with some brief shaky camera footage of the race, this is the before, during and after of my Jura Fell race weekend 🙂
Here is the latest collection of loose ramblings that I call a blog. Spring doesn’t seem to have sprung, unless the future is just a cold and rainy mess. I am hopeful for warmer days ahead!
St. George’s
The youngster was chosen as flag carrier for her Brownies group at the York St. George’s day parade.
Being the hopeless tourist I am (having lived in Peru for almost 10yrs, I never made it to Macchu Pichu), until last weekend I had never been to York Minster!
I have rectified that now, having been twice in 2 days.
A rehearsal on Saturday night, where the Nipper got her first glimpse of what adults do on a night out. (York was on full Hen Do form with a lot of revellers worse for wear by 7pm!)
On the big day (Sunday), the weather was glorious and the crowds turned out in force. I have never been involved in a parade before, it felt a bit like a really slow race, with nobody trying to win.
All went well, nobody got lost and everyone went home happy 🙂
Time for a decent race?
Ever the optimist, after 4 stinkers, I must surely be due a half decent race. (Not including Borrowdale last year when I bashed my ribs in 10mins after the start, which would make it 5-in-a-row).
Half Trog – November – Half of “The Beast”. Took a flying fall and almost knocked myself out. Got lost twice but finished.
Tour of Pendle – November – End of season classic. Just had one of those days when my legs didn’t want to move, took about 3hrs to get going, by which time it was almost over.
Blakey Blitz – April – First race of the year, rusty as anything, never got going until final uphill mile.
Eskdale Elevation – April – Hmmm…
After all heading up to Wasdale on the Friday, the shocking forecast proved to be shockingly true. Cold, clag with visibility of 50yds-ish. Wet rain (very wet rain) and strong winds on the tops.
In the club hut where we stayed, we were joined by 2 fellrunners (father and son) who were out to recce part of the Bob Graham Round and Old County Tops route. We were a little sceptical of the weather, but you do just have to get on with things 🙂 We had a good chat about all things mountain related.
A small field of runners (enter on the day maybe swayed a few folk?)
Little did we know…
The girls would see me off, jump on “Laal Ratty” and we would all arrive back at the car, around the same time, that was the plan. The Eskdale Elevation is a relatively new classic AL Lakes race, 4 checkpoints with free route choice, starting at the lovely little hamlet of Boot, heading to CP1 (a gate), up the back of the Screes to Whin Rigg (CP2), a long haul over to and up Scafell (CP3), then a tumbling descent to Eel Tarn (CP4) and home.
I knew the course as far as Scafell pretty well but was worried about the last bit, as that part of Eskdale looks very samey-samey and finding a tarn in the mist could be tricky.
Uphill start, into the gloom, legs slashed to ribbons through the gorse, over the back of the Screes, found a good “trod” to the dip near Burnmoor Tarn and then came across 2 other groups of runners all coming from very different directions!
Upped the pace up Scafell with a bloke from Ambleside AC, with the weather getting wetter, wilder and colder. I really pitied the 2 marshalls on top, as it was GRIM.
I had written some compass bearings down on my map, but in the dash to get off high ground, I misread them. Running into a bitterly cold headwind and with icy horizontal rain in your eyes, it was definitely teetering on the very edge of Type 2 and Type 3 fun.
I also had the added challenge (excuse) of wearing a new-ish pair of shoes which were as grippy on wet rock as roller skates covered in vaseline! If you don’t have 100% trust in your footwear, you are going backwards.
The few other runners around me had disappeared into the mist and I desperately tried to loose as much height as quickly as possible to get out of the weather. I had most of my kit on by this point and the thought of turning an ankle and having to walk down was simply unthinkable. I laid down behind a rock at one point to take another bearing and then got the hell out of dodge!
One problem with being lost is that you do start to convince yourself that where you are is where you want to be, or you look at features on the map (knolls and streams, of which there were plenty) and mould them into the features you want them to be. I wasn’t exactly lost, but I wasn’t where I thought I was and hoped to be!
So, after 45 minutes of running round in circles, (I wasn’t even close to Eel Tarn) I decided to bail.
(After the race start, the girls had taken the “Laal Ratty” steam train from Boot to the coast at Ravenglass, by this point they would have been back and waiting for me).
I took a bearing due south to hit the road and ended up about 2.5miles away from the finish, necessitating a tarmac path of shame, to report to the finish and declare myself disqualified.
(Apparently a lot of people had issues finding CP4, and either went back to the last checkpoint, or declared themselves DNF).
The Nipper hadn’t seen me at a race since she was a tiddler (Lima Marathon 2017?) She was even more gutted than I was to witness this shambolic run!
My legs felt pretty shot afterwards, so I thought an easier drive (than the A65) would be A590-M6-A66-A1. Which is MILES further, but easier driving, on paper. I had promised Fish & Chips from our outstanding local chippy, which shuts at 8pm. Loads of time…
By this time the afternoon had turned glorious, all the Lakeland fells were basked in sunshine, the Howgills and the Pennines looking equally as enticing. Had I dreamt my bordeline hpothermic race?
After stopping (a bit too long) at Tebay services, where the food smelled amazing, we were on the backfoot for a chippy tea Then the A66 was at a standstill as it was closed. The whole world and his wife were trying to find an alternative route, which proved to be rather contrived. A forced stop at Scotch Corner services where a high pressure handwash dispenser almost blinded me and then, after paying £1.80 a litre for petrol, it sank in that even with Concorde and a tailwind, the Chippy would be long shut, so we trundled back down the A1 south, where luckily a frozen pizza saved our bacon!
Then I bought a new compass on Monday morning…
Next stop, Jura (hopefully, if my knee doesn’t implode beforehand)
(& just in case you think I am some kind of minority sport madhead, the entries for the Wasdale fell race, in July, sold out in 4 hours, bonkers!)
Raiders round-up.
After impressive wins against Dewsbury Knights and a nail-biting-one-point-win against York Knights, we got trounced against Doncaster.
Missing this guy
Barrow Ladies meanwhile had a one way traffic cricket score win against Salford, then were brought back down to earth with a bump against Wigan.
So in essence, both teams are consistently inconsistent right now! (We won’t talk about the latest result, a blip, I hope!)
Onwards and upwards!
And finally
Another video!
Time was tight, so a quick out and back (home by noon) was on the cards.
Rishworth Moor, the big TV mast on the side of the M62, near the Yorkshire/Lancashire border is about my nearest stomping ground. Not especially hilly, but always good to get out on.
The forecast gave a good morning, but when I rocked up at 7am, it was down to the ground clag and blowing a hooly. The hooly remained, but the clag eventually lifted so I made another ladfromtad.com vlog. Still got a lot to learn, (shooting and editing), please bear with me 🙂
Hope you all had a mighty fine Easter. Another month, another blog and another video (two in fact!)
The clocks have gone forward, it is officially spring, so (for a winter hater like me) we are going in the right direction
So, witout further rambling, here is the latest ladfromtad.com blog.
Brownies Gold badge 🙂
Super Jasmin!
Jasmin Karina Paris.
Even if you are not into fellrunning, chances are that you will have recently have heard of this 40 year old Vet (animals and over 40, see what I did there!) Mum of two and absolutely bloody amazing athlete.
Former British fellrunning champion (twice), Scottish Hillrunning champion (twice), Skyrunning champion, Wasdale winner (6 times), Lakeland Classics Trophy winner, former Bob Graham Round record holder, one-time overall/outright Ramsay Round record holder, Womens Fellsman record holder, Womens 24hr Munros record holder, and probably best known for her 2019 Spine Race victory in which she set a new outright course record for the 268-mile Pennine Way route, (i.e, She beat all the blokes too!)
The 2019 Spine race caught media attention as Jasmon was expressing milk for her baby daughter at some of the checkpoints (her daughter wasn’t running, nor waiting for milk at the checkpoints), and she still beat everyone and took more than 12 hours off the fastest previous time.
The Spine race is not a jolly, it is the Pennine Way in its entirety. Very fit walkers might walk it in 2-3 weeks. Jasmin ran from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds.
All of the above is impressive enough, but on Friday 22/03/24 at around 9:18pm UK time, she crossed the line as first ever female finisher of the BARKLEY MARATHON.
No normal marathon and definitely not a normal race, in many ways.
Where to begin? (From a purely selfish spectator point of view) there is almost no media coverage, there is one cryptic twitter/X feed from one guy, but definitely no ESPN/Sky Sports cameras. It feels like following a race on Ceefax back in 1982. There is no race website and no livestreaming.
The race itself derives from an attempted prison break!
“Frozen Head State Park, where the annual race is held, once housed the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. This fortress-like facility counted among its inmates James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1977, Ray attempted a breakout. However, the dense vegetation and harsh terrain thwarted his efforts, allowing him to traverse a mere 8 miles over 54 grueling hours before authorities caught up with him, sprawled in defeat amidst the wilderness.”
Limited to 35 runners with no details advertised publicly. Entrants must complete an essay on “Why I Should be Allowed to Run in the Barkley,” and pay a $1.60 application fee, if accepted first timers must bring a registration plate from their locality.
Photo courtesy of irunfar.com
Previous racers have to supply an item such as a white shirt, or a pair of socks, as a donation potential non-finishers (and there are plenty of them). Past finishers must also bring a packet of Camel ciggies as part of their race fee. The start time is anytime from midninght to noon, with a conch shell horn being blown one hour before the start and the race begins when the race organiser Gary Lazarus Lake Cantrell (Laz) lights up a cigarette.
There is no course map, you cannot recce the course and GPS watches are not allowed. There are no waymarks, no aid stations. The route changes annually, with checkpoints marked solely by books hidden in obscure locations. Runners must locate these books to tear out a page, proving their adherence to the course.
The race itself is 100 miles. A 5-lap course of 20 miles (100 miles with 13000ft of climbing or 160km with 15000m-ish of climbing in total, basically up and down Everest twice!)
Loops are run clockwise during the day and ACW during the night. On the 5th and final lap, runners are sent CW and ACW alternately, so in essence you can’t just follow the runner in front.
The loops start and end at camp, which is the only place runners can receive aid, tape up blisters, replenish food supplies, and take a nap — if they have time. Each loop has to be finished within 13 hours and 20 minutes.
Competitors have 60 hours to finish.
Ultrarunner Damian Hall (the other co-founder of the Green Runners, who ran Barkley for the first time last year and made it to loop five this year before dropping out, called it “a Kafka-esque hell.”
In a word, absolutelybonkers.
Jasmin had previously completed 3 laps of the course (entitled the “fun run”) and was one of only 2 women to have started a fourth lap, but this year, with just 99 seconds to spare she became the first ever woman to finish the entire course.
Photo courtesy of irunfar.comPhoto courtesy of irunfar.com
(As a result of the media blackout of the event itself, there are not many photos, but here are the five finishers).
Photo courtesy of irunfar.com
L-R: Greig Hamilton, Jared Campbell, Ihor Verys(winner), Jasmin Paris, and John Kelly.
All of which adds up to a very historic achievement, in my opinion, on a par with the first ever sub 4 minute mile (and a lot longer and harder!)
I don’t have a telly, so I can’t watch Sports Personality of the Year, but if she isn’t at least nominated, there is something deeply wrong with this world!
Bull ROCK!
Last autumn, the Nipper and her school choir did a collaboration with a local York band, called BULL.
Long, long story short.
The lead singer of the band, Tom, invited us both to a VIP sound check when they played a local gig at the Crescent, York.
A brilliant afternoon and one which put a smile on both of our faces 🙂
ESOL/ESL/TEFL/TESOL
ESL: English as a Second Language
ESOL: English to Speakers of Other Languages
TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language
People talk about “life changing” experiences and mine was at the Puericultorio A. Pérez Araníbar, in Lima, Peru in 2004.
Cutting a very long story short, after a course in TEFL and very little other prep, I found myself in Lima. Naively hoping that I would somehow learn Español via magic or osmosis.
I went there as a volunteer TEFL teacher, with little idea of what to expect. (I had expected the Andes, llamas and condors to be on my doorstep, but later found out that they were a bumpy 10 hour overnight bus ride up north!)
Working at the Puericultorio (a word translating to “childcare”, but in this instance a sizeable orphanage, a word which I could never pronounce as it contained too many rolled “RRRRRs”) changed my life completely. Another story for another time, but the volunteer organisation who I had gone through, became a place where I worked two years later (yet another notch on my sprawling CV), as Latin American Coordinator.
Working for a volunteer travel placement organisation was a job that was as amazing as it was frustrating as it was impossible. Day to day work was just a firefighting exercise with an ever expanding to-do list and a logistical nightmare most of the time, but working with some brilliant people, especially a lass called, Emma, who coincidentally left there on the same day as I did (for smiliar reasons).
In my time as an ESOL/TEFL/TESOL/kind of Northern English teacher, I taught in a lot of different places, to lots of different students, the orphanage, in the jungle, in schools, language institutes, mining companies, shipping companies, telecommunication companies and in a community centre in Woodhouse, Leeds. (Emma from the volunteer placement job contacted me and that was how I became a volunteer there). For me personally, teaching was/is the best job in the world. On a good day I would have done it for free and even on a bad day (of which there were few) nobody died! (Due to screwing up my A-levels bigtime, I never got to university and therefore never got a degree and therefore never became the Geography Teacher I wanted to be. Therefore I was not a “proper” teacher. i,e. I couldn’t teach in a UK school, without getting a degree, which sadly is not going to happen now).
Anyway, generally as a teacher you have an attendance register and know exactly how many students you are just about to teach and their level of English.
Except at Woodhouse!
The big difference was that you never, ever knew who was going to turn up!
Woodhouse Community Centre was an amazing place, run by volunteers, which offers support to the local communty, as their mission statement states “Oblong aims to develop the capacity and skills of people living in socially and economically disadvantaged areas in such a way that they are better able to identify, and help meet, their needs and to create active flourishing communities, and to run a community centre, primarily for the benefit of the Woodhouse , Little London and Hyde Park areas.“
I was there from 2012-2014, slotted in between night shifts at the Brewery and loved every minute of it.
Classes could consist of 5 students, or 25 students, advanced level, or absolutely zero English beginners level. At times I was teaching 2 classes in 2 rooms, spinning several plates at the same time. It was awesome, exciting and I was very sad to leave, but I went back to Peru, so the commute would have been tricky!
User comments
E.O.D. (Enter on the day)
I admit that I am completely stuck in the past, yearning for things “back in the day”, when everything seemed less of a ballache than nowadays!
“Fell races used to cost £1 on the day and you popped 20p in a self addressed envelope, to get your results 6 weeks later! Shoes cost £20 a pop and nutrition involved a choice between a banana or a jam sarnie” you will hear me say again and again…
Nowadays there is the internet, race entries are done in advance online, results are available pretty much instantly, shoes are £100+ and I won’t even go down the nutrition route.
Was the past a simpler (cheaper) time, with less complications (or reponsibilities?) Who knows!
However, nowadays fell running is way more popular, races sell out before closing dates, entry fees are not £1 and if you can find a first class stamp for 20p, I will have a book of 12 please 🙂
All of which is a seamless, albeit lengthy segue from teaching a class of unknown quantity/level to modern day fell race organisers.
Races are booked online to cut out a shedload of admin on the day and to know whether to cater for 20 or 200 hungry post race runners! Why would you not have pre-entry races?
As a result of my hopeless lust for nostalgia and shocking admin, I have either missed the race closing date or not-got-in-before-it-filled-up. Resulting in a change of gameplan.
Life is not linear and races fill up faster than you think! I had planned on running the Half Tour of Pendle, then the Coledale Horseshoe before Jura, but…
I missed the closing date for Pendle and Coledale was full before you could say Supercalifra…
So, the plan is to run ESKDALE ELEVATION
(I won’t go into any details until I have actually set foot on the start line!)
Training – in and out!
In the jumble of nonsense that goes onto my Strava profile (what I loosely call “training”), it is notable that there is less running these days, as 2024 is the year of S&C (not to be confused with S&M).
Adios amigo 😦
I had big ideas with the mighty STAIRMASTER, a kind of uphill treadmill/stairway to pain, but reality means that I don’t get to the gym often enough to make it pay, so sadly the Stairmaster is now OUT.
And I am three months in with Carla Molinaro’s excellent SCY programme.
Just need to find some time to do some running now!
Tight lines
The Nipper and I hadn’t been fishing in a while and rather than getting battered by the North Sea, we opted for a day inland.
Despite having a full week off work, (to be fair the forecast was generally crap from Monday to Friday) I chose the coldest and windiest day to go fishing with the Youngster.
Highfield Pond was our chosen location. “It is fishing really well” said the bloke in the fishing tackle shop.
Arriving early (being the only car in car park was an ominous precursor) we took shelter from the bitter wind and thence started a pretty lean day of fishing.
The Nipper lost one fish (only bite of the day), I managed to snap my rod and we had eaten our packed lunch by 11am, so we went home, just as the sun came out!
First blank in a long time, but it is always good to get some fresh air 🙂
MAN-WITH-A-VAN?
In the last ramblings, I was on the trail of a new (or more like 15th hand) van. After hours and hours and hours scouring ebay, I was on the verge of giving up, then by sheer chance a bloke at a garage told me that his mate was selling his van. It ticked all the boxes and best of all didn’t involve a 18hr train ride to Torquay.
Affordable 🗸 Not a wreck 🗸 Local 🗸
I was given a number for his wife, (as she was better with phones than he was, I was told). What could go wrong???
After some second hand chat with the bloke, a price was agreed and a meet up was arranged.
I sorted out provisional insurance, emptied the ATM and was on my way!
Literally just as I was walking out of the door to go and collect the van, with a wad of £20 notes in my pocket, I got a text saying that he had decided not to sell the van. Make of that what you will!
So (for now), I have given up on the dream as a daft idea!
(As a footnote, one may ask “Why did you sell a perfectly good van last year?” The answer is threefold. 1) It would have been cheaper to run it on a mix of liquid saffron, pure cocaine and unicorn’s tears. 2) LPG garages seem to be mainly located near El Dorado. (The mythical land, not the soap opera) 3) I simply needed the brass.
Raiders round-up
Not a lot of good news coming out of Craven Park of late.
Beaten away at local Jam-eating rivals, Whitehaven, by one point, a late drop goal, means that the only way is up for the Shipbuilders right now. (Although, as no teams actually do get promoted this year, the only real way is not to go down!)
Still looking for an elusive win in the league, at home to York next weekend.
Barrow Ladies meanwhile just got edged out by Wigan by 2pts in their most recent Superleague game.
Both teams need to get into winning ways soon. COYR!!!
AND FINALLY
I am just about keeping up with my promised quota of 1 video per month.
The realisation that the Jura race is about 8 weeks away made me panic, but my mate, Barry stepped in with a suggestion of a trot round the only AL race on the North Yorks Moors (“AL” races are minimum 20km and average not less than 50 metres climb per kilometre).
The Bilsdale fell race starts at Chop Gate and does a big loop up and down every hill and boggy bit in the vicinity. It was a clear but breeezy day on the tops. I went for something a bit different this time with the filming. Less chitchat and much shorter duration. I am sure the old format (sprawling wafflefest) will be returning soon!
So, here is ladfromtad.com vlog episode 3 (<5mins, with an alternative soundtrack from the original!)
Then, inexorably, rearending straight into episode 3 is the red-hot-off-the-press Easter Lakes outing in episode 4. Glenridding-Catstyeyam-Helvellyn-Nethermost Pike-Dollywagon Pike-Fairfield-St. Sunday Crag-Glenridding. Less than 10mins long. The editing was brutal as I chopped and slashed and burned it down to a watchable length.
Plus, a rain free and clear day in the Lakes, priceless 🙂
I trust you are in tiptop form. Here is the latest hotch-potch of nonsense I have the cheek to call a blog. 2nd blog in 3 months, need to step up a bit.
Spring is definitely in the air, at last (I personally hate winter!)
New back cog so I can go and new brakes so I can stop, thanks to Steve 🙂
Will it ever stop raining? Never mind spring, roll on summer!
So without further rambling, here is the blog.
The Nipper.
Just to say a big thank you to all who sent messages. Thankfully we are turning a corner now with the Youngster. A few more follow up appointments this month. Saturday night disco is back. Onwards and upwards. (We shared the chips!)
Man-with-a-van?
Back in the distant year of 2001, I bought a van. I had been looking in the Auto Trader (magazine, pre-online) for weeks and weeks and after viewing a lot of duffers, I found an unpolished gem somewhere on the moors outside Halifax. An old gentleman called William was selling his old Transit van (white, naturally) after a mishap towing his caravan through Portugal. A pothole had flipped the caravan and turned it into matchsticks, so he gave the chassis to a scrap merchant and filled his van with all the caravan paraphernalia, selling it all as a job lot for £999.
An absolutely terrifying test drive (William driving, black ice galore, as fast as an ageing Transit can go…
The V5 changed names and it was mine.
(Despite being a happy snapper all of my life, I cannot find one single photo of it, so for artist’s impression, it looked something like this).
Credit to Andrew Parsons, no relation!
My brother, James, is a Carpenter and with his help we kitted it out as a basic, but very comfortable campervan, which I took everywhere, mainly the Lakes and Scotland, (when I wasn’t transporting fridges and furnture for people. It is remarkable how popular you become when you have a van!) Before the Influencer days of “Vanlife” and “Stealth camping” were a thing, I just used to bomb up to the Lakes the night before a race, sleep like a baby in a layby} and all was good. I absolutely loved that van, it never let me down but when I first went travelling it had to go (it was slowly rusting away). I sold it to the brother of a lass I met in a camping shop in Kendal, who lived in Skipton. I drove it there, sold it and rode my pushbike back, with £999 in my pocket. I never do things simply…
(* When I used the phrase “Sleep like a baby in a layby”, I wasn’t implying nor suggesting that you should let a baby sleep in a layby. A cot in a house is probably better.)
Fast forward to 2021 and the not-so-great Firesale. “Everything must go”, and it did. Pushbikes, guitars, amps, climbing gear and my old faithful Honda C90. I sold a large chunk of my soul on ebay on that sad day.
4 HOURS TO GET TO MARSDEN, (via everywhere!)
That trusty little 90cc grapefruit-engine-sized step-through never, ever let me down, why oh why did I sell it on?
It did however free up some brass to buy a van. I started looking around but in my price range everything had been to the moon and back and/or had some major mechanical fault. Junk basically.
Then by sheer chance a mate at work told me that his sister was selling her van and wanted a quick sale! I booked a one way train ticket to Oxford and filled my pockets with readies. My mate had said “It’s more muscle than van”, which was cryptic, but upon driving home in the almost immaculate Nissan Elgrand (I had to look it up too), the petrol gauge seemed to be a victim of gravity, at a time when fuel prices were at an absolute all time high. (E5 petrol too, which is even pricier!)
“More muscle” now made perfect sense. (In its defence it was a 3.2L V6 automatic after all, fuel efficiency wasn’t its forte!)
Looking around I found a chap called Simon in South Elmsall who did LPG conversions. He did 3 per week and had a 6 month waiting list. “Do you ever get cancellations?” I asked. “Never” was his response, so I waited patiently for 6mths and then paid my money for a conversion, in effect bringing the running costs down to half,
IF I could find any LPG that was.
This rare commodity was a bit scarce, with additional problems of some pumps not working efficiently due to atmospheric pressue, tank pressure and pump pressure. Complicated.
In the end the not-so-great Firesale of 2023 forced me to sell it on and I bought “El Rojo”, my beloved 2002 K11 Micra. My 6th Micra; I learnt to drive in one, one was my first car and another one took us to Mongolia, along with a string of other K11s.
This was all in the middle of Honda Jazz-gate (don’t ask). It was fate, as I was outbid in the last second, but the higher bidder disappeared so a very nice man in Kettering called John sold it to me and I have been happy ever since.
However, whether it is want or need, recently I have been becoming increasingly obsessed with vans of all shapes and sizes. I realy wish eBay did not exist at all at times.
Again, as always ex-work vans have all been thrashed to Jupiter and back and/or have previous MOT horror stories, so I am currently swaying more towards a “Micro Camper” (Citroen Berlingos, Peugeot Partners, Renault Kangoos and Sooty and Sweep vans). Part of me fears it will be a bit too diddy, but watch this space!
Like most of my life, I am living in daydreamland, but you’ve got to have a dream…
Plans.
Training hasn’t quite been going as planned… 2024 was to be the year of S&C (strength and conditioning), which it has been. I signed up for a year of SCY (Strength, conditioning and yoga for runners), with 2 weekly attempts to keep up with the instructor, online thankfully (I only ever tried yoga once before and almost gave the 100yr old teacher called Xena, a nervous breakdown, I am not very bendy at all). The idea/theory is that running alone is not enough, you do need additional strength training to prevent injury (an injured runner isn’t just a bear with a sore head, more like a junkie with no gear!)
Have also invested in a weighted vest and a wobble board too, which are both entertaining and have just done a “Weighted vest Stairmaster” session, which almost killed me but all this is just covering up the blatant fact that running is not going well at all and it is indeed running that will get me up them there fells for my ambitious/audacious/unrealistic race programme which is as follows:
March Stan Bradshaw Tour of Pendle, Witches county, Lancashire: (Didn’t run, good start to season!)
Photo courtesy of Granddayoutphotography & Elvet Striders
(Only one race in July as I was absolutely destroyed after Wasdale last year!)
August
Borrowdale fell race, Lakes
Myself, about 2hrs after falling on my ribs on a boulder.
Borrowdale falls on my birthday this year, 22 years after I first ran it as a young lad!
Same vest, still going strong!
I never plan past August as my legs will probably have dropped off before then.
Ambitious? Perhaps. Best get some running in then, hadn’t I.
(All of the above could be wiped out in a flash, as the fickle balance of training properly/not getting injured is a rather precarious one. In addition to this, I am generally a disaster in normal everyday life, so an empty calendar, giddiness and the FRA Fixtures booklet are a heady and potentially dangerous cocktail!)
Raiders round-up.
The mighty Shipbuilders took a trip to deepest, darkest West Yorkshire at the weekend, Belle Vue, Wakefield to be precise.
Despite being in the game, for most of the game, the ex-Superleague side took the honours and Barrow bowed out of the 1895 cup.
As previously mentioned, we’re focussing on the league this year 😉
And finally
I have been out and about with the camera. Still got a lot to learn, please bear with me, it will get better! Just local this time, but with history, scenery, botany, wrong turns and more, here is the ladfromtad.com vlog – episode 2
The subtitles (again) make even less sense than I do, but that does give me faith that AI will never completely take over the world, as long as there are mumblers about like me!
Thank you for reading and watching 🙂
That’s all for now folks.
Hasta la proxima. Johnny
p.s. If that wasn’t enough rambling for one sitting, I just stumbled across this old link to a past C90 adventure 🙂
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.
Chief Squid & Mackerel slicer!
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!)
Happy times, some time ago!
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.
Patiently awaiting the Premiere, suspense in the air…
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:
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).
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!
Redefining the word “amateurish”
Merry Christmas & a very Happy New Year to you, your loved ones and your lovers.
