Leg 3 Recce back in the SNOW !!!

Weekly Totals - Miles - 89.7 (60 cycled) Ascent - 7153 ft Time - 10:48:43

I started the week well with an early morning run on Sunday from Rivington, over the Pike, Two Lads, Winter Hill and Great Hill returning by White Coppice and by the resevoir to Rivington. I was running really well and ran 13.2 miles in just over 2 hrs with 2000ft+ of ascent so I wasn't hanging around either but it felt good and I was ready for a good week of training.

I was back on the bike on Monday morning and it was surprisingly mild, it seems a lot easier when you are not in darkness all the way, and I find I am only doing a third of my route in the dark now the lighter mornings have come, which is great. I could feel the weekend in my legs but didn't feel too bad, although when running at lunch time with Ali my legs felt pretty heavy. Cycling home was hard work and by the time I got home I was well and truly knackered. I had a shower and had my dinner but I was not feeling well. I felt as if I had flu or something, I was shivering but felt red hot I had an early night and a lemsip, and after sweating profuseley for half the night, I felt a lot better in the morning.

I took this as a sign to take a couple of days rest so I didn't run Tuesday or Wednesday but felt revitaised on Thursday on the bike to work and back so it obviously worked.

Top of the climb onto the ridge to Steel Fell

Friday I met up with a few guys from the FRA forum at Great Langdale, for a recce of leg 3 from Dunmail as far as Langdale. It was nice to see the fells covered in snow again and there were blue skys as we approached the Lakes, looking like it was going to make a good day, I wasn't dissapointed.

Climb towards Sergeant Man

The initial climb from Dunmail is a bit sudden and doesn't give you much of a warm up, I'm sure on the BG leg1 & 2 will be enough of a warm up! We made pretty good time onto Steel Fell within schedule time, and we headed on to Calf Crag. The cloud had come down pretty low which made navigation quite difficult and we did have a bit of confusion finding the top of Calf Crag, think I need to go back on a clear day and just remeber some features.

Daz, Dan & Kate on Sergeant Man

From Calf Crag we didn't really meet any more problems, and made steady progress over Sergeant Man, High Raise, Thunacar Knott, Harrison Stickle and Pike o Stickle. We were on a dash back for Emma to make the school run so we dropped down from the top of the beck below Rossett Pike and headed back to the car. Excellent day out, the snow was pretty deep in places and did stop me in my tracks a couple of times, but overall I felt strong especially on the ascents.

Looking back where we had come from

Don't know if I'll get any more runs in the snow but today finished clear and sunny and definitely had a spring like feel, almost t-shirt weather (for fell runners!)