Still Going.......

......Had a fantastic couple of weeks in Fontainbleau, photos to follow.

The weather for the first couple of days was pretty grim to say the least, I had to stop on the drive from Dunkerque for an hour of shut eye to let the downpour subside slightly. After arriving early morning and pitching the tent, followed by some more sleep, then trying to find a shop open on a Sunday in France! we hid from it in the tent eating pate and cheese!

We completed the Circuit de 25 Bosses which I thought would translate as something grand like 25 Hills, but unfortunately after checking the dictionary it is only the 25 "Bumps!" oh well, it was good fun. The route does a lot of up and down, admittedly on small hills, and scrambling through the boulders and rocks so it's a pretty interesting outing. We did plenty of bouldering and a bit more walking, I even managed a few runs in the evenings.

One of these was slightly disastrous, to cut a long story short, I was first blocked by a lake, then a motorway and I was considering swimming across the river to get back when I did find a road in the right direction. My own fault I should have taken the map with me, I came back exhausted to a slightly panicking Gemma who had expected me back about an hour earlier!

I've been getting out in the mornings and evenings gradually increasing my mileage, and I'm getting back into the groove. I've got a few training runs planned for the OMM over a couple of days and I am now obsessing over weight, my kit as well as my own!  I received my balloon bed through the post last week, and I have had the scales out weighing leggings, tops, gloves trying to keep as compact and light as possible so I can get it all in my inov8 18l sack. I'll blog with my final kit list when the final decisions have been made. My last OMM experience was 2008 and the great Borrowdale storm, I was one of those unaccounted for runners! so I'm hoping for a slightly less lively experience this time.

I am full of a cold this week which isn't helping, neither is the grim weather, but I have got out a couple of times and have some more mileage planned before the week is out.

Just trying to decide what to do with my days off for OMM training. The 15 Trigs of the Dark Peak looks like an interesting and probably similar terrain to Dartmoor? I quite fancy doing the Ribble Way over a couple of days, Longton-Gisburn the Gisburn-End, coming back on the train. There's also the Bowland 1500' s so I'll have to make my mind up, lots of inspiring stuff on Tony Wimbush's GoFar web site worth a look at.

Should have some more regular updates to the blog now so stay tuned.........

Training ......................

I am back on plan I hope..........................

I now have several goals and a training plan to achieve them.

I have struggled since last year, with a niggly knee, general laziness and lack of motivation, not so sure why but I have been busy changing jobs and getting into a new routine, weekends seem to have been filled with other things and planning my training and getting out has just taken a back seat.

The other week on Bill's Ramsay reminded me though that I can still do it and I still enjoy it, so, with renewed vigour and glucosamine I am back into the groove I think. I am now running in the morning before breakfast, this fits in better and then hopefully getting a few evening sessions in with Gem as well.

We have both entered the Edinburgh Marathon in 2011, Gem really fancies doing a marathon so I said I would run with her and help with her training, this will in turn hopefully give me a bit of a chance to do some tempo/speed work to supplement my training.

I have also entered the OMM, 'A' Class with John, the last one I did was the Elite course in 2008 when the weather went completely wild and the event was cancelled (As shown on the BBC, I was on the news!) Looking forward to this and currently my training is geared up to compete well at this event, or at least beat Ben and Sam. Just need to sort out my kit now and get my weight down as much as possible including my own weight as well !

Future plans for this year/next year are to try and complete several long walk/runs, I would really like to complete a couple of long distance paths in a mountain marathon style, like the Coast to Coast, Dales Way, Ribble Way etc. and increase my endurance. With a long term goal to try and complete an ultra a month next year, culminating in the UTMB in August.

I'd like to do the Wuthering Hike (Haworth Hobble), Calderdale, Fellsman (although this is the week before the Edinburgh Marathon, no PB for me!), West Highland Way Race & the Lakeland 100, I think with a solid 12 month plan like this I can get back into the swing of regular training.

Got a couple of weeks climbing in France coming up so will try and get a bit of running in there as well, before really getting stuck into the diet and training when I get home, including giving up the beer!

Does anybody else keep getting strange comments in Chinese, by the way, on their blog ?

On a sad note, an old caving and walking friend of mine, Dave Ridout, from the scouts who taught me a lot of navigation and mountain craft skills, as well as taking me on my first caving trips, has died aged 63. He had been a scout leader for nearly 30 years in Preston and an article appeared in the LEP last week. Happy memories of exploring underground on the Karl & Karl, Dave & Dave trips will always remain with me. Thoughts go out to his family at this time.

Bill's Ramsay Round

I received a request earlier in the year to support Bill Williams on his attempt at the Charlie Ramsay Round (24 Tops, 56 Miles & 28,500ft). His attempt last year, which would have seen him complete a Bob Graham, Paddy Buckley and Charlie Ramsay round within 12 months, was unfortunately thwarted by bad weather. The plan was that Bill would leave Glen Nevis Youth Hostel at midday, we would then see him for the "2nd Leg" at 20:00 at Loch Treig Dam.

 Loch Treig Dam and Support Team

Ian Cookson and I travelled up on Saturday morning to the Rucksack Club 'Craigallan' Hut near Fort William. We got here around 14:00 and enjoyed some cheese on toast, cakes and plenty of cups of tea provided by Whinn Cliff (Bowland) and Jean (Bill's Wife) till it was time to make our way to Thirsit and down to the dam. It was good to meet a couple of the Bowland guys who were providing the static support, Ian Roberts and Andy Farmer and to see Ian Charters who had arrived on Friday evening. We relaxed and conversation revolved around the usual subjects till the allotted hour arrived and it was a quick dash to sort my kit out and out of the door.

We unloaded all the kit from the cars and carried it all the ten minutes from the road to the dam, once we had set ourselves up on the dam it was time to wait and watch the horizon for Bill, Will and Carwyn to appear. It was quite shocking to see the level of the loch, the water level is usually around the white tide mark you can see on the sides. Luckily there was a pretty strong wind which kept the midges away so I didn't have to wear my mosquito net hat, fashion statement though it is! Our wait was a few minutes longer than expected but we soon saw the three figure appear in the distance and they soon joined us at the dam for feeding and watering.

Bill, Will and Carwyn

Ian and I readied ourselves and as soon as Bill was ready we were off across the railway line and climbing Stob Coire Sgriodain, I was slightly concerned how I would cope with the climbing but obviously my strategy of eating cake all afternoon had succeeded and I felt quite energetic, and was almost setting the pace on a couple of occasions! It was about half way up the climb that the rain started and we were forced to put our waterproofs on, there was not much visibility on the tops and to be honest, not really knowing the route apart from a look at the map the week before, I just followed, occasionally handing Bill food and water as we progressed.

Stob Coire Sgriodain 

We reached the top of Stob Coire Sgriodain and continued on to reach the summit of Chno Dearg before the long downhill to the valley bottom and onto the climb up Beinn na Lap, it is a long way after the initial steep climb to the summit, in fact we almost missed it! It is then another long downhill section followed by a long section of track/path, a river crossing and then a really leg sapping boggy section. I needed a gel to revive my legs after this and to keep up with the pace along the track and down to the next support point and the end of our leg.

 After a bit of cake, and some hot chocolate we saw Bill off with Ian Charters and Bob Wightman and then walked out with Ian and Andy for about an hour and a half back to the car park. We got back to the bunk house for just before five and after a quick bacon and egg butty and a cup of tea we crawled off for a sleep.

Unfortunately the weather deteriorated after we left Bill and he eventually had to cut the round short due to high winds. Hopefully he'll have better luck next time. A great night, although very wet, Scotland is very remote and wild and the only signs of life we saw in six hours were a couple of deer, the Ramsay Round is definitely a serious undertaking and big respect to Bill for a superb effort.

Start of the leg shown by the Green Line

2nd Half of the Leg

Leg Profile

Walk out

11 Fell Tops and 15 miles

Earlier in the year I had purchased tickets to go and see the Legends of Fell Running talk in Keswick at the Theatre by the Lake, Ali and myself decided we may as well make a day of it so we had booked the day off work and headed up early to Keswick with Steve Fish.

We parked the car at Whinlatter and made our way up Grizedale Pike, the sun was out but it was fairly overcast and there was plenty of cloud at summit level, a theme that would continue throughout the day. I felt ten times better than Friday night, maybe due to the slightly slower pace, but I felt like I had different legs!

After the steep drag up Grizedale Pike we had soon bagged our first summit of the day, the conditions are visible here, Steve at the summit.

I had roughly planned a route taking in a horseshoe type shape around the North Western fells, an area of the Lakes I haven't visited in a long time, and we followed the plateau over to Hopegill Head.

We then turned to head over Sand Hill and dropped down to Coledale Hause.

From here we started our climb towards Grassmoor, the cloud was thicker over this side and unfortunately we didn't really get any views, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the summit shelter and then headed off in the direction of Whiteless Pike.

Ali took over the navigation from here, I am trying to teach him a bit more about map reading and navigation and he's not a bad pupil! As we dropped off Grassmoor and and headed over the head of Rannerdale Beck we caught our first glimpses of Buttermere below and over to Newlands Hause on the other side.

We turned back on ourselves and ran over Wandope and on to Eel Crag, practicing taking bearings on the way. This is Steve and Ali at the summit of Eel Crag.

I really enjoyed the descent over Sail and down to Sail Pass, no pain and my legs were flowing well, getting back into my downhill groove. We ticked off Scar Crags and then took another 5 mins for a quick bite, before we carried on to Causey Pike.

It was getting time to head back to the car, so we picked up a trod from Causey Pike in the direction of Outerside, climbed this and dropped off the other side to Coledale Beck enjoying the scree run on the way down.

From the top of Outerside we had great views down over Keswick and Derwent Water.

We followed Coledale Beck down to Braitwaite before retracing out steps back to the car. An excellent day out and one that still had plenty of fun to come. We headed to Keswick for a swim and shower before grabbing something to eat.

Leg 1 Emma's BG

Friday night was a bit of an eye opener for me, I was looking forward to supporting Emma's BG leg 1 with some trepidation due to the lack of time I have spent on the fells in the past 6 months, and the fact I had spent the previous weekend in France eating cheese and drinking wine. I got away from home slightly later than planned but made good time up to Keswick, I did however forget that I had only had a cheese sandwich earlier that day and had forgotten to get something for dinner on the way, whoops!

I joined Emma in the square in front of the Moot Hall as she prepared herself for the next 24hrs on the fells and let the nervous energy build up. I was carrying Emma's sack with her kit and water/food, the plan was that we would meet Yiannis at the top of Halls Fell to follow his "parachute" descent. We were a group of 4 support, Mark Smith(Swiss Toni), Mark, Dave and me.

I could tell from the start that I was going to struggle, she was setting a blistering pace and I had forgotten just how quick the BG pace is compared to my leisurely wanderings in the fells of late. I had to take a short cut below Skiddaw to Hare Crag and then join the group again, I swapped bags with Dave and skipped Great Calva and went direct across the river and up Mungrisdale Common. The group caught me at the foot of Atkinson Pike but I noticed that Mark had dropped off the back. I wasn't sure if he knew where he was going so I walked with him up the scree to the summit of Blencathra. I was now starting to regret wearing shorts as my legs were cramping due to the cold, the temperature had dropped quite a lot.

We could see the torches of Emma's party heading down the gully but I decided to stick to what I know and used Halls Fell, it was pretty greasy at the top and it was now getting quite dark. We picked our way down and after what seemed like quite a long time we made it down to Threlkeld. Emma was long gone but we still managed to grab a brew and a muffin. I also bumped into Duncan which was great to have a chat with him, and being the gentleman he is he gave me a lift back to Keswick before I drove home.

I'm pleased to say that Emma finished in 23hrs 8mins, a fantastic time and well earned. Well done Em :-)