Thursday 28 July - Milnthorpe

Where's Bertie? He's back at Halforth Farm, by Milnthorpe, where he spent two weeks just a few weeks ago. Once again we've opted not to have an electric hook up, so it's £8.
Weather: Overcast with some showers.

The major road construction work immediately next door to last night's campsite probably wouldn't have disturbed us if it hadn't been for the almost constant 'vehicle reversing' warning sound that started not long after 7 this morning. Even so, the disturbance was minor enough that it wouldn't put me off staying there again.

That said, we didn't feel like we'd got good value, although the fault there was ours, having arrived and immediatley gone out, got back and gone to bed, then we got up this morning and soon after, we left. It goes against our usual mission on campsites to arrive early and leave late (albeit within the windows of acceptable arrival and departure times).

With a road closure blocking the short way back to the motorway this morning, we took a tour through the outskirts of Preston before stopping off at a supermarket and finally hitting the M6.

Within the hour we were pulling into this campsite, which on this occasion we're just using as a staging point to allow us easily to get to Coniston at around 9 tomorrow morning.

Not much has been done this afternoon. Mick has been for the last little jogette of his training programme (Couch to 80k in 8 weeks, as I called it, after his injury/poorliness isues earlier in the year), whilst I took a walk up and down the lane - there will be no running for me until at least the week after next.

Wednesday 27 July - Lea, Lancashire

Where was Bertie? He spent a night on a hardstanding pitch at a certified (5-van) campsite at Bryars Farm, Lea, where it cost £15 including electricity and access to a toilet.
Weather: Sunny intervals and warm, but with rain overnight into Thursday.

I didn't feel too bad after finishing my 24-hour race on Sunday. We went home, I had a couple of hours of kip, sent Mick out to get me a pizza for tea (not something I usually consider to be an evening meal; pizza is a lunch item in our house, but it's what I fancied), then had a good night's sleep. My expectations for Monday were that I would be refreshed, muscularly sore from the excess of exercise, and ravenously hungry.

Surprisingly, I wasn't very sore at all, with no issue walking up or down stairs, but, my goodness, I felt poorly, suffering from what I can only describe as the worst hangover of my life, even though not a drop of alcohol had been consumed (in the last decade, never mind on Sunday night). I was also a kilo and a half lighter than I had been on Friday morning, so I think we can safely say that there was some dehydration involved.

Eating and drinking was a struggle and even though I had a long to-do list, nothing got done (by me; Mick did lots on my behalf).

Monday night's sleep was poor. My mind was on unfocussed overdrive, so it took me a good hour and a half to drop off, only to wake up at 0230. I never did get back to sleep, but lay there listening to my audiobook, then a few sleep meditations that, on this occasion, failed to perform their service, whilst simulatenously fixating on the left-over pizza that was in the fridge (Mick had been sent on another pizza mission for Monday lunch and came back with huge ones; it seems that after a long run, pizza is what I need). Not wanting to disturb Mick, who needs sleep ahead of his race this weekend, it was just gone 0630 by the time I gave in to the pizza:

First breakfast at 0638

It was soon apparent that I hadn't made a miraculous recovery overnight and Tuesday was again spent feeling horribly hungover, although I did manage to stir myself to pull my weight in the repacking of Bertie.

All hangovers must eventually come to an end, and by Tuesday evening I was feeling perkier. I slept like the deadest of dead people and on Wednesday initial signs were good when I managed two breakfasts.

Even better, I could think coherently again and communicate other than in groans, so, after a drive up to Lancashire, we had a good day visiting Al & Nicky, before going out for a meal with them in the evening.

Bertie meanwhile spent most of the day on Al & Nicky's driveway, before being moved at around 7pm to Bryar's Farm, where they have a commercial campsite (looked full) and the CL (empty, bar Bertie).

Previously when visiting this area we have stayed at the Aire at Lytham St Annes, and that had been our intention this time too. Then we saw the price had risen to £15, which in my world is too steep just for a space in a car park. Scouring resources for options, I happened upon Bryar's Farm, where the same price bought us not just a pitch, but electricity, use of a toilet, a tap and a waste point.

Friday - Sunday 22-24 July: Catton Park/24hr Trail Race

Where was Bertie? He spent Friday and Saturday nights at Catton Park in Derbyshire. If camping hadn’t been included in my race entry, it would have cost £24 for the weekend, including a water point and use of Portaloos and Portashowers.

Weather: Some sunshine. Some showers (worst on Friday evening and overnight into Saturday). 21 degrees on Saturday, 18 degrees overnight into Sunday, and getting back to around 21 by noon on Sunday.

Long Short Story: I took part in a 24-hour trail race, on a 10km lapped (and not easy!) course, and managed to cover 130km (81 miles), placing me as 6^th female! Even if I’d been male my result would have come in the top 10.  I’m delighted!

 The course. An undulating 10km route through woodland and across pasture, with 150m of ascent per lap. I've drawn a blue arrow roughly pointing to the start/finish point.

Long Story Not So Short:

Friday

One of my measures as to how hard a long endeavour has been is: “If someone told me I had to go another ‘X distance’, would I cry?”. After Lakeland 50 last year (50 miles, 3000m ascent; it didn’t go well – you can read about it in the set of posts starting here), I said to Mick that if someone had told me I had to go another 10 miles, I wouldn’t have cried. From that statement, I quickly leapt to the conclusion that it would be entirely sensible to do a 100km race. The only problem was that there are too many things about the logistics of long races that I don’t like.

The solution, I concluded, was to enter a 24-hour lapped event, setting myself the target of 100km. After attending Equinox24 last September (as a volunteer and spectator – you can read about that here), I wasn’t put off and entered Thunder Run 24.

After six months of training, only briefly derailed by Covid (1750km covered in 132 activities versus a plan of 1900km – not bad, I’d say), the race weekend finally came around and at just gone 11 on Friday morning Bertie found himself queuing to get into Catton Park.

The race didn’t start until noon on Saturday, but we chose to arrive as soon as the gates opened, so as to nab an advantageous spot in the ‘solo competitors’ camping field, thus minimising the distance I’d have to detour from the course to go back to Bertie for support. 

This opening in the railings was the only point at which soloists were permitted to leave the course. We got an excellent spot for Bertie.

Another view, showing the start/finish area in relation to Bertie (he's far left of shot).

Saturday/Sunday

At Lakeland 50 last year I barely slept on the Friday night, struggled to eat on the Saturday morning and was dehydrated before the event even kicked off. Thunder Run started better: I got a decent night of sleep, ate my breakfast without any problem, and had no issue with having my lunch at just gone 10am. A cup of tea, a pint of sports drink and a coffee saw me start hydrated.

 On the start line (kinda: I opted to start at the back of the field) with Michelle, whose van was parked next to Bertie.

Things continued well – from noon until around 3am, I ate and drank well, both out on the course and between laps and I felt really good. The eating didn’t go so well after 3am, but I was so close to my target by then that I figured it didn’t matter. The something-behind-the-knee niggled a bit from the start, then on Lap 6 it *really* made its presence felt on the first hill, such that I feared the next 40km would be unpleasant. Then, incredibly, it stopped hurting and I heard not a single peep out of it for the rest of the race. I’m sure the use of the massage gun on the calf between laps helped its remarkable recovery.

I was 70km in before blisters started appearing. About the same time various muscles also started feeling the effort, with more and more parts of my body adding their protests as the kilometres racked up. However, I wasn’t injured and there was nothing to make me think that meeting my target wasn’t achievable.

It’s a trail race. This was one of the more friendly rooty sections. The bits that weren’t on rooty woodland trails were on rough grass, with just two short sections (totalling about 500m) of rough track on the whole course.

Even though I’d been told that setting a target was a really bad idea, as when you meet it your mind will convince you that you can’t possibly go a step further, by the time I was on Lap 10 I was sure that I was going on to Lap 11. There were still over 6 hours of the race to go and I felt great, so why stop?

I did, however, reward myself after Lap 10 with a 20-minute lie down. Maybe not a good idea, as getting back up took some will and the first 2km of Lap 11 were hard. I started perking up as time went on, but at the Drinks Station (at 5.5km), I stopped to thank the volunteers and to tell them that this would be my last lap. On Lap 12 they reminded me of what I’d said on my previous lap. “It turns out” I said “that I was entirely wrong. I felt great for the rest of that lap so it seemed silly to stop.”

At 118km, Mick phoned me to remind me to let him know when I was a kilometre away, so he could be sure to be on the finish line to snap a photo. “Well” I said a little sheepishly “I’m thinking of going out again”, going on to rationalise that the only thing wrong with me was some blisters and they didn’t constitute a good reason to stop. By my calculation, I would finish lap 12 at around 10am and if I could get myself back out by 10.15, then even if I walked every step, I could finish by noon (not that I needed to finish by then; any lap started before noon still counts, but my own desire was to finish within the 24 hours). I didn’t *need* a 13^th lap, but would I kick myself afterwards if I didn’t go for it? Yes, I decided, I would.

Unfortunately, only a few moments later the lack of food over the last few hours (and maybe the effort and lack of sleep) caught up with me. The final 1.5km of lap 12 were a slog and took me until 1004.

It was the only time I didn’t enter Bertie. I collapsed into a deck chair, probably grunted and grimaced at Mick as he tried to pour food and drink into me and my will to get back out of that chair ebbed away from the moment I sat down, although I do remember questioning Mick at length as to what one last lap would mean to my final standing.

Top marks go to Mick for managing to prise me out of the chair by 1020. He walked me back to the course, pointed me in the right direction and agreed that if I still felt so awful at 2.5km through (when I would pass within 50m behind Bertie), I could stop. I did still feel dreadful, but (whether it makes sense or not) this was my thinking: it’s only another 2k to the 4.5km point; from there it’s an easy 1km to the Drinks Station; from there it’s only 4.5km to go and surely I can manage 4.5km? So on I slowly plodded, feeling really quite horrific and knowing that any chance of a noon finish was gone.

Even at 5km through, it was touch-and-go as to whether I would finish that lap*. I attribute my success to the team at the drinks station who raided their car boot and gave me a tube of salted Pringles from their personal food supply when I asked them if they had anything salty I could possibly have.

It was thanks to the same team who cheered me at great volume just outside of the finish area such that I managed to muster a sprint finish, crossing the line at 1213, having covered 130km, securing 6^th place of the solo women.  

What a fun weekend! Genuinely – of the first 120km there were 5km (split across two laps) that I didn’t positively enjoy, and whilst the final 10km were grim, considering the distance involved and how well my body and mind held up to the first 120km, I can’t really complain about that.

Thanks, of course, go to my one-man support crew who also spent 24 hours awake tending to my every need. I should write a separate post about what it was like being support to a diva like me...

(*At 124.5km I realised that: a) I wasn’t sweating much at all, even though it was hot and humid and I’m a sweaty sort of a person;  b) my heart rate was far too high for the pace I was doing. I put these facts together with a few others, such as: a) I’d not added any salt to my second bowl of pasta over night; b) I’d forgotten to have any salt tablets in the previous few hours; c) it had been really sweaty weather on Saturday and overnight such that I’d paused between Laps 8 & 9 to shower the coating of salt granules away; d) I’d been weeing excessively for the previous few hours, out of proportion with my liquid intake. All of these facts I put together to realise that I was potentially in a dangerous state. On the one hand, my assessment may have been wrong and surely I could manage another 5.5km; on the other hand, I didn’t want to be the cause of a medical emergency and would have been prepared to stop rather than having that happen.)

Wednesday - Saturday 6-9 July

Wednesday

Where was Erica? She spent a small chunk of the day at Milnthorpe.
Weather: Overcast morning, coming in mizzly later on. No recollection what the afternoon was like.

It was a running day for Mick, but a rest day for me and, in a continuation of yesterday's route-swap theme, Mick opted for the Fairy Steps route I did last week.

Fairy Steps

With no other plans, and not wanting to spend the day sitting in Bertie and/or walking the access road, I played chauffeur, taking him the 2.5 miles to a parking area near Milnthorpe. From there we set out together but soon parted, as Mick trotted off at the first access to the deer park, and I walked up the road to the second access point.

Somehow Mick didn't see me as I snapped this photo of him (admittedly from a bit of a distance, but not *that* far away) 

The length of his run gave me plenty of time to sit around and enjoy Erica's amenities once I'd finished my walk, and I opted to use that time by casting on my first attempt at knitting a pair of socks simultaneously on one long circular needle. (Update: these socks were meant to be for Mick. However, between buying the needles (January) and now, I forgot that I'd decided to go down a quarter of a millimetre in needle size, and thus I didn't adjust the stitch count accordingly. I'd got to the heel before noticing that they looked a bit small for Mick. I don't think I can be moved to rip them back out, so it looks like this pair will be for me.)

About an hour later it seemed, from inside Erica, that the rain that had come in was fine but driving. Mick returned reporting that it was just a fine mizzle and rather pleasant for running. Indeed, he'd had a nice time in general, enjoying the route.

Not the clear views I'd enjoyed.

The problem of not writing these blog posts on a daily basis is that I have no idea what, if anything, we did for the rest of the day. (Given that the reason I write the blog posts is to act as my memory, I feel there's a lesson to be learnt here!)

Thursday
Where was Erica? She spent a sweaty couple of hours in the car park to the south of Hutton Roof Crags.
Weather: Much sunnier and warmer than forecast.

Mick had some work to do, and I had a Marilyn to bag, so I left him staring at a laptop screen and allowed Erica to take me over to Hutton Roof Crags. It's one of three English Marilyns that we pass close to a few times each year, but I'd not yet visited, partly due to access in a Bertie-sized vehicle (there's a 2.1m height restriction on this car park, although I now know that it wouldn't be difficult to park outside), and partly because of the "We'll be passing again soon" feeling.

Unsure as to whether I was going to do an out-and-back or something longer, the latter became the case, finally completing a 14.5km figure-of-eight. It was 85% enjoyable, marred only by a section of pathless knee-high grass, needing to escape a yard guarded by high gates (and this on a public footpath), and being plagued by horse flies. As I write this on Saturday, I have itchy legs.

Back at Erica, the thermometer on her dashboard, with her nose facing into the sun, read 51.9 degrees. In the back was 37 degrees. Definitely sunnier than forecast.

The only notable occurrence of the rest of the day was the chunk of time spent trying to work out how the mapping and navigation features work on Mick's new watch. Nugatory effort as it turns out. More research and playing around is going to be required. Meantime, I'm loving the navigation features on Mick's old watch. Even without having plotted a route for my morning's outing, just being able to see paths on a map on my wrist was incedibly helpful (moreover as it uses open maps, and thus isn't limited to just showing the Public Rights of Way).

Friday
Where was Erica? She visited Sadgill, Kendal, Skelwith Bridge, Tilberthwaite and Coniston.
Weather: Early morning fog soon burnt off, giving a glorious sunny day until early afternoon when some cloud started developing.

Another early start had us at Sadgill, at the end of Long Sleddale, at 7am. The clue about the nature of that valley is in the name, as it's a 4.5-mile drive in from the A6. Given the nature of the location, it wasn't a surprise that the road up the dale is single-track, but being the height of growing season, it's currently hemmed in by hedgerows and undergrowth, making it barely wider than Erica, with curtailed visibility, both of which factors made it a slow drive. It certainly wasn't a relaxing start to the day, made worse by the knowledge that as soon as I reached the end, I needed to turn around and drive back out*.

As it went, I only encountered one vehicle on the way back out: a bin lorry!

The last of the morning's fog burning off

Whilst Mick trotted over to Skelwith Bridge via Kentmere, Troutbeck and Ambleside, I nipped down to Kendal, put diesel** in Erica, bought a few groceries and drove on to Skelwith Bridge myself. There I breakfasted, did a crossword and generally procrastinated on changing into running gear. Having told Mick I would head out to meet him, I did eventually stir myself and with no regrets: what a fine day to be out.

The composition of this shot makes it look a lot cloudier than it was. The clouds were only sitting above the fells.

Waving Mick off from Skelwith Bridge after he'd been fed, watered and resupplied, it was just a short hop for me, up to Tilberthwaite. The Lakeland 50 route takes a rather more meandering line, so I had time for a coffee and a snack before heading back out to intercept Mick for the second time.

More representative of the reality of the weather

Back at Erica (who wasn't too hot as I'd taken the precaution of deploying all of her blinds before leaving her in the sun), I poured some more liquids into Mick and refilled one of his bottles, before waving him off on his final ascent of the day.

Looking down on Erica (far right) at Tilberthwaite

Another short hop had me in Coniston and this time I didn't head out to meet Mick, choosing to just sit around until he emerged from the direction of the mines. He'd covered 40km with just short of 1500m of ascent, on a hot and sunny day - it's no wonder he looked a little on the tired side!

I soon had him back at Bertie, with the water heating for a shower.

Incidentally, my notion of what it would be like to support Mick on these long runs involved hours of sitting around in Erica reading and knitting. In reality, with the driving, preparing food and drink, and running out to meet him, there's barely any sitting around at all. On neither of the two Friday long runs of this trip have I picked up my knitting, and only a few pages of my book have been read.

Saturday
Where was Erica? She spent another Saturday morning at Fell Foot (£1)
Weather: Glorious sunshine and warm.

Saturday = parkrun day, and it was back to Fell Foot so that I could go better prepared for a post-run dip in the lake.

We also arrived earlier so I could get my extra kilometres in before the parkrun.

Pre-parkrun snaps from the course

All-out legging it to the finish, yet looking like I'm just doing a power walk

Emerging from the lake, after a post-parkrun dip

The dip in the lake was surprising. I thought it would be gaspingly cold and that it would be a quick in and out. The reality was a pleasant (cool, but not oh-my-goodness-gasp-gasp-gasp) temperature in which I happily swam around. There was no shivering at any point, even when sitting in the breeze drying my feet.

Post-parkrun treat (actually Mick's but I performed a detailed quality control).

A stop in Milnthorpe on the way back had Mick visit the pie shop whilst I paid an outrageous sum for a few cooked-breakfast ingredients in Booths.

The final activity of the trip has been a tiny trip out this evening for a gentle stroll through Levens Hall Deer Park. Perfectly pleasant surroundings but somehow less pleasing than Dallam Tower Deer Park, just up the road. 

And that's it! Our two weeks is over and we'll be heading south again tomorrow. 

(*I had originally intended to go and bag the Marilyn of Tarn Crag whilst at Sadgill, but decided the timings wouldn't tie up with supporting Mick's run, so I postponed it for another time. By the time we reached the end of Long Sleddale I was regretting that decision, as I would happily never drive the length of that valley again. I think I'll either do in in winter when the hedgerows are less of an impediment, or will approach from it from Mardale Head.

** I paid more for diesel at Morrison's in Kendal, than it was in Coniston or Milnthorpe (£197.4 vs £194.9). There's something wrong when a supermarket in a town is charging more than a 'branded' station in a village.)

Saturday-Tuesday 2-5 July

Saturday
Where was Erica? AM: a couple of hours in the car park at Fell Foot (Newby Bridge; £1); PM: Conrad's house.
Weather: After heavy and persistent rain overnight on Friday, Saturday gave us sunny intervals with just a few hints of rain.

As much as I wanted to go to Fell Foot parkrun on Saturday morning, I was nearly put off by the uncertainty as to parking charges. Googling had suggested (via sources other than the horse's mouth) that the fee for the National Trust car park was £4 for 2 hours, but the National Trust website only referred to an 'entry fee' of £5 per person. Even employing a "We're on holiday!" attitude, paying £10 to attend a parkrun was not going to happen. My final decision was to trust the non-National Trust sources and thus expend the fuel in getting there. That we did, and were greeted at the gate by a volunteer asking us for a £1 donation in return for a 'parkrun special' 2-hour parking ticket. Bargain!

With his injury history, Mick no longer runs on consecutive days, so in view of the previous day's efforts, parkrun was to be a walking affair for him. Then, as we stood together at the start, he shed his jumper and declared that if I jogged around gently, he would accompany me. End result: he finished ahead of me*!

Taking a swim in the lake is a common occurence post-parkrun, but I wasn't suitably attired or equipped, so I stuck with the plan and ran another lap instead.

Back to Bertie, showers to make ourselves as fresh as daisies, then we were off the few miles down the road to Conrad's for lunch and a few hours of chat - my favourite activity when we're in this neck of the woods. Thanks are due to him not just for the tasty food and good company, but also for the use of his ailing washing machine. Our running gear (and thus Bertie's shower room) smells much better now!

^{(*In fairness we did go gently, and he only finished ahead of me because in the last half a kilometre I hung back to have a chat with a woman, running with her just-6-year-old daughter)}

Sunday
Where was Erica? She had a quiet day, just taking us into Milnthorpe for a short while in the afternoon.
Weather: Neither of us can recall what it was like in the morning, but photos tell me we had sunny intervals in the afternoon.

After a lazy morning, it was somewhere between early- and mid-afternoon when we finally stirred ourselves to go for a short and gentle walk.

The only real downside we've found so far with this campsite is that it's at the end of a dead-end road, so to go anywhere on foot you're looking at a 1-mile each way, out-and-back road walk as a minimum, and it's not an interesting road. So, we called upon Erica to take us the short distance to Levens Bridge, from where we planned to take a walk through Levens Park, alongside the river.

Apparently we weren't the only people with that idea and the parking area was more than full. A quick change of plan had us drive to Milnthorpe instead, where Erica was left in the Market Square car park whilst we walked a short circuit around Dallam Tower Deer Park (where I'd been earlier in the week, but not with Mick).

I took a snap with Mick in it, but so badly framed that I'll include this one instead.

Other than tarrying in the car park whilst I took advantage of a more effective phone signal (my phone is showing a good signal here at the campsite, but the data connection is usually unusably slow), nowt else occurred on this quiet day.

Monday
Where was Erica? She had a little trip to Ambleside, spent quite a few hours in Coniston and the evening in Torver.
Weather: Some showers in the morning, improving to sunny intervals in the afternoon. Whilst out we only caught a few short and light bits of rain.

As we were going to be driving through Ambleside anyway, we thought we'd stop for a mosey around. That took us all of 30 minutes (including the walk from our edge-of-town free parking), although if we'd thought at the time about Erica's need for a new kettle we would have poked around a few shops and entertained ourselves for longer.

As it was we arrived in Coniston earlier than intended, which resulted in us having lunch at 11am, before heading out in our running gear just before noon.

Mick was to run a 15km figure of eight via Tilberthwaite (to take in the final 5km of the Lakeland 50 route) and Park Coppice. I needed another 10km on top of that, but figured I may as well go with him as far as Park Coppice, where he would peel off to return to Erica (for the second time; she was the middle point of the figure of eight), and I would continue on towards Torver.

Mid-run snaps

With both of us back at Erica several hours later, we made no moves to return to Bertie. Instead we loitered for the rest of the afternoon, before moving to the Wilson Arms at Torver, to meet Ali and Adrian, who had walked in on the Cumbria Way. A good evening of food and catching up was had and the sun had long since set by the time we headed back to Milnthorpe.

Tuesday
Where was Erica? She spent a few hours in the Promenade car park in Grange-over-Sands (£1.20)
Weather: Sunny intervals, with the cloud decreasing as the day went on.

Having surveyed the local options for a couple of hours of exercise (for me) today, I decided on a return to Grange-over-Sands to do the circuit that Mick did last week. A good decision: what a fine route with interesting and varied views. In fact, so good were the views from Hampsfell Hospice that rather than adding on the extra distance I needed at low level, I opted to go up there twice.

Mid-run snaps

Meanwhile Mick had walked the Promenade, returned through the town, visited the pie shop and complimented a lady on her garden:

Other snaps from Mick's Prom/Town walk

Our stay in the car park was rounded off by watching a tractor, fitted with a 'grab', lifting some huge chunks of tree trunk into its trailer. It looked a skillful exercise, not just doing the lifting, but manoeuvring the tractor and trailer into the small space behind some parked cars. No photo of that, I'm afraid - I was too busy watching.

Friday 1 July - Lakeland 50 Prep

Where was Erica? She had one of the most adventure-filled days of her life, taking in Pooley Bridge, Mardale Head, Kentmere, Kendal, and many miles of lanes in between. (donation to park at Kentmere Institute, everywhere else free)
Weather: Some sunshine, mainly overcast, a bit of rain (one heavy shower and a few light sprinkles).

An early start, to arrive at Pooley Bridge (right at the other end of the Lake District) for 0730. There I waved Mick off and watched as he started up his first ascent of the day:

Then I made haste (or rather, drove carefully along some single track roads) to Brampton, thence to Mardale Head. 

Not a breath of wind disturbing Haweswater as I drove in. The calm state didn't last. 

After my own breakfast (I hadn't felt inclined to join Mick in breakfasting at 0530), I laced my trainers and off I headed for a trot along Haweswater.

I'm not a fan of the Haweswater path, knowing that it's a succession of trip hazards along its whole length and thus not much of it is (in my world) runnable. However, Mardale Head was where I needed to be, so that's the route I took and I was determined to lift my feet up and not trip.

I made it 300m from the car park before I tripped, no doubt because I hadn't yet joined what I consider to be the lakeside path, so I wasn't yet paying attention. The culprit was one lone rock protruding in what looked to be an innocuous grassy/muddy section of path. The belly slide I performed through that mud was impressive. Even more impressive was the amount of mud covering me, my clothes and my pack as I emerged at the other end. Regret of the day: that I didn't take a selfie for illustration.

Post clean-up selfie. It would have been a nice view if I hadn't shoved my face in the way. 

Fortunately, I wasn't far from an easily accessible stream and a few minutes there with a rag had me looking presentable again.

Almost exactly 6km of progress later I looked at the time and realised that I was in danger of bumping into Mick. An accurate assessment, as I looked back up and there he was. This was unfortunate, as I was meant to have a cup of tea and sandwich waiting for him when he reached Erica. That gave me an imperative to be speedier (but still careful) on my way back. Success: His tea was made and sandwich 30 seconds away from ready by the time he arrived.

It rained whilst he ate and drank, but was dry again by the time he set out. It didn't last and he got caught in a downpour as he ascended Gatescarth Pass at the start of his final 9.5km to Kentmere.

Looking back to Erica at Mardale Head as an excuse for a breather going up Gatescarth Pass. 

For me it was a 50km drive to the same destination, and I arrived only about twenty minutes before Mick's ETA. I could have just sat and waited, but Mick's sudden appearance before me at Haweswater earlier in the day had slightly curtailed my outing, so I thought I'd make up the distance by trotting out to meet him.

If the two women who greeted me with "Hello again!" by Kentmere Church (almost certainly also recce-ing the Lakeland route; really should have chatted) put any thought into the matter, they must have wondered as to my route, as they'd also seen me on the Lakeland course earlier in the day, but both times I was heading in the 'wrong' direction and they had no way of knowing that I'd driven between the locations. 

A kilometre later, I reached a large wall stile where I hoped, from the top step, I would be able to see Mick approaching along the road. Over the wall popped my head, and there he was, greeting me with "I'm glad you're here!". His phone, with its ailing battery, had just died and my appearance saved him from having to use other methods to confirm that this was indeed the stile he needed to take.

We were soon back at Erica, with Mick having had a successful day out on a reasonably long chunk of the course.

Next stop was Aldi in Kendal for some groceries, badly timed to have us leaving just as schools kicked out. It was a slow crawl to get out of town to make our way back to Bertie.

Two of Mick's views of Haweswater