Thursday 28 – Monday 31 July – Lakeland 100 Weekend, Coniston

Where was Bertie? Thursday & Sunday: Church House Inn, a 5-van campsite in Torver, £20 without electricity. Friday & Saturday: in a field on Lake Road in Coniston (included in Lakeland 100 entry fee).

Weather: Sunshine and showers. Hot in the sunshine, warm enough in the showers. Windy from Saturday afternoon on.

Thursday

Two years ago we spent the night before the Lakeland weekend by Lancaster Services. Last year we stayed near Milnthorpe. This year, even though we didn’t get around to phoning a campsite until the night before, we got ourselves a pitch at Torver, just a couple of miles along the road from Coniston.

We weren’t the only people to have the same idea, and of the 12 units on the 5-pitch site, at least five contained Lakeland competitors – including the two vans immediately next to us. More were inside the Inn.

Due to our late booking, we were in the car park, rather than in the field, and there wasn’t an electric hook up available, which was fine by us, especially when they knocked a fiver off the quoted price.

We chatted to our neighbours, poured a few containers of water into Bertie’s tank, then had a quiet night.

Friday

By a few minutes past nine, Bertie had driven the five minutes up the road and was settled on the ‘overflow and large vehicles’ camping field. Soon after, Mick went off to registration and kit check. It didn’t take long at that time of day, giving him plenty of time to repack his bag, have lunch, have a little kip, and get ready for the race briefing at 4.30pm.

Relieved at having sailed through kit check and hiding any pre-race nerves well. 

A period of loitering and chatting followed, before he took himself off to the starting pen. Per tradition, and rather appropriately, Nessun Dorma was sung and at 6pm on the dot off they went, all hoping to complete the 105-mile course (6000m of ascent) within the 40-hour time limit.

My period of intense dot-watching then commenced and I soon learnt that, for me, dot watching 105 miles is much more involved than watching the 50. I was a woman obsessed.

Mick entering the first checkpoint. I would have got a better screenshot from the live feed webcam if I’d pressed the right buttons the first time I tried.

Saturday

View from Bertie's roof early on Saturday morning. It seems that a lot of runners own vans. 

Not the best night’s sleep ever, but I managed 3 hours more than the runners out on the course, so I figured that was good enough to put into practice my distraction plan: I was going up a hill. In hindsight, it wasn’t a good plan, as 3km in I decided that I couldn’t bear being out of mobile phone signal at the time when Mick was most likely to phone me, so I hotfooted it back to Coniston, just about making it back into a signal area before he called.

I won’t disclose how much of the day I then spent staring at screens as it’s an embarrassing and obscene statistic. All the things I’d taken with me to do whilst I was waiting went completely untouched.

Alas, Mick’s day didn’t go to plan, and at Dalemain (59 miles and 3600m of ascent through the route) he called it a day*. A two hour minibus ride got him back to Coniston. I’m sorry to say, but watching the honed athletes climb down off that bus was the funniest thing I saw all weekend (remember a time that you’ve finished a long day walk, got in the car then driven an hour or more home, and how stiff you felt getting out the car. These chaps had been moving for 20+ hours, were mainly injured in some way, and had just spent two hours setting into the shape of a minibus seat (they took a scenic route back)).

From my selfish point of view, at least my eyes could have a rest from my phones screens and I was going to get a good night’s sleep. I could even nip up my hill on Sunday morning.

Weather forecast for Sunday morning. The hill isn’t even of a classification that I’m collecting, so I decided it can wait

A small glitch with Bertie’s hot water system**, delayed Mick’s shower, but he was still in bed at a reasonable hour.

Sunday

I wasn’t done with dot-watching yet. We had a friend doing the L50, and the moment I woke up at 5am I needed to know how she’d fared overnight. As delighted as I was to see that she was still going, I didn’t think Mick would appreciate me sharing the news quite that early. I snuggled back down and slept some more.

Having decided against my hill, I opted for a simple circuit up to the car park on the Walna Scar Road, before looping around back to Coniston. Thanks to racing five young chaps up the (incredibly steep!) road up to the car park (I won, albeit I accept they didn’t know they were in a race), I managed to arrive at the Miners’ Bridge at almost the exact moment that Vicky (the very person who we can blame for egging us on to enter the Lakeland 50 in 2019) got there, 49 miles into her 50-mile race. I stayed with her down to the road end, before going on ahead. There’s no support allowed in either the 50 or the 100, and I wasn’t going to risk her being disqualified for me ‘supporting’ her with my company (although, in all honesty, if it had been a random stranger 50 runner that I’d met, I’d have still chatted with them down to the road purely because we were going the same way and I was interested in what they’d been doing).

With Bertie packed away, we tried to attend the awards presentations at noon, but there were just too many people to fit in the Marquee, with crowds outside too. So, we gave it up as a bad job, returned to Bertie, and ten minutes later we were back at the campsite in Torver.

Evening meal at the Wilson Arms, Torver, where almost every table was taken by people wearing Lakeland 50/100 items (myself included; I proudly wore my 2022 Finsisher[sic] t-shirt***)

Monday

With Mick’s protesting thighs no longer protesting so much, his body decided it was time to let him know that he’d been bitten to pieces by midges on Friday night – a fact about which he had previously been completely unaware. His first request this morning wasn’t painkillers (as yesterday morning), but anti-itch cream.

Not much to report from the rest of the day. Our journey home was first via a roadside café where Mick had an excellent breakfast and I had something a bit more modest (although, oddly, bits from Mick’s plate kept landing on mine; I didn’t object), then via Halifax.

Breakfast. The generous teapot was just out of shot.

A slow journey home from Halifax (road works, breakdowns and just too much traffic), but we got here in the end, although the complete emptying of Bertie will wait for tomorrow. It had been a long day and other things took priority – like having tea and SORNing Bertie, who won’t be going back on a public road until at least September.

(*One of his problems was his right knee, about which he was concerned before he set off. His training went really well, without any significant injury, this year. Then last Wednesday he did his final run pre-race – just a little 8k, for which he decided to not risk anything by tackling the mud and roots on his usual routes, but to stay on tarmac around the village. He was 8.1km through his 8k, and a couple of hundred metres from home, when he tripped on a manhole cover. He came home with a bloody elbow and a bloody, bashed knee. It could have been a whole lot worse (in that he didn’t do anything that would prevent him from starting the race), but it wasn’t ideal and he was mightily cross with himself. Incidentally, it was the only time he fell over in just shy of 1000 miles of training this year.

**I did the Virtual Lakeland 100 in 2022, most of which I achieved in my 24-hour race. The Virtual t-shirts had a typo on them, so whereas people who did the real event were ‘Finishers’, the virtual runners were ‘Finsishers’. I love the t-shirt for that feature.

***The hot water glitch was related to me changing Bertie's failing pump a few weeks ago to one of a different design, not having a suitable jubilee clip and hoping that the barbed fitting would be adequate to hold pipe onto pump. It became detached on Friday morning, was soon reseated, but I’d not twigged that disconnection from the non-return valve had allowed the whole contents of the hot water tank (cold at that time) to drain back into the main tank. I thus heated an empty tank, and Mick turned on the shower to find no water coming out.)

If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

It felt like we were doing something illicit, walking through the local woods in the dark, flashing torches on and off

The last two laps of my race last weekend (see previous post) required a torch, whereupon we discovered that the mount of one of our headtorches had broken. Not a problem in the context of last weekend’s race (using it as a hand torch was fine), but very much a problem if Mick had found himself needing to use his back-up torch in his race next weekend.

It was Wednesday before I thought to look up whether Alpkit offered a 2 year warranty (purchased 16 July 2021 – so just over 2 years ago by Tuesday, but I would have argued the period between order and receipt). As it happens, Alpkit offers a 3-year warranty. The offending headtorch was duly sent back, but its replacement likely wouldn’t arrive in time for Mick. The answer seemed to be to buy a new one, then return the replacement when it arrived, except that when I read the reviews it seems that the fault we’d incurred is a common one, and either Alpkit’s design or choice of materials is not up to the job.

The result, after much browsing, was to bite the bullet and buy a significant upgrade from a specialist company (from 240 lumen max output to 1400 lumen max output, and from 5hrs run-time at a meaningful light level to 22 hours at double the light level). The new purchase arrived yesterday and it seemed like a good idea to nip out in the dark, firstly to see the difference between old and new, and secondly for Mick to familiarise himself with the controls.

What a difference! All of our old headtorches (we have amassed a collection over the years) are perfectly adequate for backpacking and even the weakest of them has been successfully used for night-hiking, but if we’d known two years ago what we were going to get up to over the next couple of years, it definitely would have been worth investing sooner.

on 'low' - only impressive in terms of battery life on this setting

One of the higher settings (but not highest, which uses the 1100 spotlight and the 400 floodlight simultaneously).

Me trying it out, Mick trying not to trip over roots or slip in the mud ahead of me.

We didn’t venture far through the woods, but it was enough to tell me that the tendons in my left foot still haven’t forgiven me for last weekend. Boo hiss!

Mick’s other panic-purchase this week was a new waterproof, having belatedly discovered delamination on the hood of his old one (a Kit Check failure, if spotted). Having reassured him that this is not a case of ‘goodness, these races don’t half turn out to be expensive’, because he would need a new running waterproof whether he was taking part in an event or not (and his old one hadn’t done badly with >7 years' use), more internet browsing was done, a selection made and an order placed.

Said jacket was ordered on Wednesday and dispatched ten minutes later, with delivery promised the following day. I got the usual suite of progress emails, except for the key: “Your package is ready to collect”. Checking the tracking info on Friday it said it was out for delivery, but again no “ready to collect” message arrived. This was a concern, with time running out to sort out a replacement if it had gone astray, and with the vendor’s FAQ making it clear that we weren’t to contact them until three working days had passed, but which time it would have been too late for it to reach us before we leave home. Another buy-again-send-one-back situation? 

First, however, I thought it was probably worth a rummage in the sack of parcels at the pick-up point. We did that on Saturday lunchtime, and there it was, at the bottom of the pile. I’m pretty sure it had been there since Thursday after all and they’d just failed to scan it. Panic over!

Hopefully that’s all the last minute kit panics. Just a few days to go now.

 

Friday & Saturday 14&15 July - St Neots

Where was Erica? She spent the weekend in a field next to the River Ouse at St Neots, at a cost of £15 per night for a patch of grass with no facilities, save for some portaloos (not even a tap).
Weather: Friday: wet, wet, wet! Saturday: some rain, lots of sun but winds up to 45mph from noon onwards. Sunday: sunny start, afternoon irrelevant.

A few weeks ago I was offered a place at the inaugural edition of a 12-hour running event, free of charge provided that I ran in a Spider Runners top. The top cost approximately the same as an entry to this (remarkably cheap, in the scheme of running events) race. However, as I was in need of a new vest anyway, the free place seemed like pretty good value. The camping fee was extra, and on the face of it not good value, but we’d never been to St Neots before, so we figured we’d be happy to have a weekend away there, no matter what happened at the event, so we booked it.

It’s now Sunday evening, and I’ve still not seen St Neots. This is how the weekend went:

Friday
We woke to rain and the forecast said it wasn’t going to cease in St Neots until 7pm. Not feeling inclined to go exploring in that, and not wanting to just sit inside Erica in a rainy field all afternoon, we delayed our departure from home until after lunch. Arriving at the field in question, after a smooth journey, at just after 3pm, having not known in advance what the site/course layout was (i.e. whether we would be able to park a short distance from the running route), we were pleasantly surprised:

Through a rain spattered rear window, the running course is two paces behind Erica, and we had a view of the river just across the grass.

Mick's view, 24 hours later when the weather was much drier. 

Our main late afternoon entertainment was watching our neighbour spend over 90 minutes, in the pouring rain, erecting a small drive-away awning on his Erica-sized van. We didn’t have the luxury of outdoor space, but at least we only had to apply the handbrake on arrival, and move three crates from the rear to the driver’s seat, to consider ourselves set up.

As the rain eased off sometime after tea, I wandered over to the registration desk to pick up my race number. A bit of TV, then early to bed (the running event was happening alongside a full-distance triathlon, which was starting at 6.30am, thus we expected people to be up and moving around from 5am).

Saturday

The 7km lap that I was going to repeat as many times as I could within 12 hours. 

Over breakfast we watched triathletes swimming up and down the river. I have no idea how much wind affects open water swimming, but with the river looking decidedly choppy, it didn’t look as easy as it might have been on a calm day. Everyone was out of the water and on their bikes well before people started gathering for the 12-hour run.

Spider Runners (except those who were in the Portaloos or faffing with kit elsewhere) 

With ten minutes to go until the off, the heavens opened. “At least with this wind it will pass through quickly” I said, but it was a bigger pocket of rain than I’d thought, and was still going when our starting klaxon sounded. There were two other occasions throughout the day that I put my waterproof jacket back on, but in total I can’t have worn it for more than 20 minutes, so it wasn’t a bad day from a rain point of view. There was certainly more sun than rain, but it was the wind that was the most notable feature – a blessing and a curse, but perhaps the blessing outweighed the curse, as not only were the tailwind sections of the course nice, but it stopped the temperature from feeling too warm.

We were under a Met Office weather warning for strong winds and the course became more littered with tree debris as the day went on.

The whole thing was good fun (maybe less so in Lap 10; lots of aches and pains by then, particularly during the period when my right little toe nail was parting company with my toe), with superb supportive marshals, and good chat with other competitors. A not-quite-unique-but-unusual feature was that we ran through the huge beer tent on every lap, with the excellent announcer announcing every runner each time, whipping up lots of cheers and support.

Start of Lap 1

Lap 6

Gradually, from a few laps in, we were joined on the course by the triathletes running 6 laps for the marathon element of their event. Not so much chatting with them, as, by the nature of their event, they were focused on finishing as soon as possible, rather than pacing themselves to go as far as possible, but I managed to spend a couple of hundred metres with a few of them before they pulled ahead.

Mick, having tended to all my needs and diva-ish wants (“Can you make me a hummus and avocado wrap for the end of the next lap? And can you cut it into quarters for me?”, that sort of thing) throughout the day, came out with me for the final two laps as I wasn’t happy with the thought of making my way around the now almost deserted (most other runners had stopped, and those who remained were well spread out) public paths through the parkland by myself in the dark, with the prospect of gathering yoofs and random drunks* and, who knew, maybe mad axe murderers and rapists.

After Lap 10 it had felt touch and go as to whether I would complete Lap 11 in time to start Lap 12 (this event had a hard 2230 cut off, not a ‘you’ve started so you can finish' policy for the final lap), but I managed to speed back up almost to the pace of my first laps, and finished with a whole eighteen minutes to spare. I’d covered 84km (52.5 miles) in 11 hours and 42 minutes.

What I really wanted to do then was to go back to Erica, have a recovery drink, have something to eat and get changed, but then I discovered that I’d either come first or second female, and I really wanted to know which. Plus, I’ve never stood on a podium before and had a great heavy medal put around my neck, so there was that novelty too (I can now report that getting back down from the podium after spending almost 12 hours of running is a challenge!).

On the podium, in the dark. Third placed woman, also a Spider Runner, had (quite sensibly!) already gone home.

It turned out that I’d come second. First lady did the same number of laps, but 4 minutes faster. Could I have gone 5 minutes faster over the course of 12 hours? Undoubtedly. I didn’t need to walk the majority of laps 3 and 8, but did so because I was chatting with interesting people. I didn’t need to stop to chat to one marshal in particular on every lap (I spoke to all of them in passing, but this one I stopped for a few words each time). And I didn’t need to help by recovering signs that had blown away and re-siting them. But would I have had such a fun day if I’d omitted all of those things? Definitely not. So, I’m delighted with taking second place (quite frankly, just meeting my own goal was enough. The podium place was the icing on an already magnificent cake).

We finally got to bed at midnight, without me having had any post-race food (not helped by the fact that whilst packing Erica on Friday I said I would check her gas level, I then got distracted in the 10 seconds it took to get from house to vehicle, and didn’t check it. We ran out on Saturday afternoon, so couldn’t heat our evening meals). Initially I lay there with my mind far too active for sleep. Then I just couldn’t find a comfortable position with so many bits of me hurting. Then at 2am the hunger hit, and I couldn’t retrieve any food without disturbing Mick, so I lay there hungry until 5am when I finally fell asleep. At 6.30am we were woken by some noisy machinery nearby (we didn’t investigate, but I now think it was probably the portaloos being serviced and emptied, ready for another, shorter-distance triathlon today).

Sunday
With no gas to make a cup of tea this morning, and having forgotten to soak our porridge last night, and with my left hip screaming at me when I put weight on it, and an angry lumpy tendon in my left foot** (yes, Saturday was fun, honest!), walking into St Neots didn’t greatly appeal. So, we got away early and drove to the first McDonalds on our route home. A McMuffin meal was exactly what I needed, but perhaps I should have got myself two cups of tea.

We were home by mid-morning, having completely failed to see St Neots during our visit there, but an excellent time was had (more so by me, but Mick enjoyed his day too).

 

I could identify with this in other contexts, but in this case, I'd only entered two weeks ago

⁽*as it went, the gathering yoofs I encountered on Lap 10 had all gone by dusk, and only one staggering drunk was seen, who went off in a different direction before we caught him up. No idea if we met any murderers and rapists - a minuscule risk but not a category of person you can identify in passing.

^{**when I entered this event 2 weeks prior, I knew I wasn't properly trained for it but also thought I was in good enough shape to give it a go. For me, the difference between training and not is the level of pain incurred.)}