Sunday & Monday 27-28 July - Kendal

Where was Bertie? He spent Sunday night at Spittal Caravans on the edge of Kendal at a price of £23, including electricity. He spent the daytime on Monday in the Cricket Club car park (honesty box)

Weather: Sunday showery; Monday largely dry.

I probably should have said right at the beginning of this set of posts that our original intention had been to do this trip in Erica. Erica is, however, still out of service, hence we found ourselves in Bertie. Had we been in Erica we would have based ourselves in Coniston. However, we didn't really want to be driving around the Lake District's roads, in the summer holidays, any more than strictly necessary in a vehicle of Bertie's size*. Had Ali still been in the race then we would have driven down to Ambleside during the night, seen Ali through, then continued on to Coniston before dawn. As it was, we opted not to go to Coniston. We would have liked to have gone to Ambleside, but having read reports about how chocka both its roads and car parks had been on Saturday, the risk of arriving and finding there was no room for us at the Rugby Club (currently the only overnight motorhome parking nearby) was too great, and left us nowhere as a fall back. 

So, to Kendal we went, but with a stop just S of Shap on the way so that I could go and run a circuit of Wet Sleddale Reservoir. 

It started raining just after we left the campsite in Clifton, and it was at this point that we discovered that, without any warning, Bertie no longer had functioning windscreen wipers (as in they were completely dead; when Erica's failed earlier this year they gave us plenty of advance warning signs, and only completely failed when she was on her way to the garage to have them fixed). My run was postponed whilst I checked the obvious causes (fuse; disconnected connector), then off I trotted.

For the last 25 years, if I've had a fit of histrionics, Mick has exclaimed 'Don't be such a melodrome!', making this an absolutely perfect photo opportunity.

Back from my outing, down to Kendal we went, encountering just one more shower on the way (it had stayed dry whilst I'd been out; it seemed like the rain was saving itself for when we were driving, like it knew of our wiper predicament). The campsite there turned out to be another good one. Very tidy, with hard-standing pitches, each with tap and electricity (not optional here), and it was only a mile out of the town centre, so an easy walk. That said, we didn't walk it, because Ali & Adrian came to pick us up to take us into town for tea and a race debrief from Ali. 

By the end of the day, based on the weather forecast and our need to drive home in dry conditions, we'd decided we would stay on the site in Kendal until Wednesday. By good fortune, someone had already booked the pitch we were on for Monday night - which was fortuitous, because if they hadn't, I would have extended our booking on Sunday night. As it was, I was just walking around the site on Monday morning, deciding which of the empty pitches to move to, when it occurred to me that I should check the latest weather forecast before paying for the extra night. A change in the forecast said that travelling at 5pm on Monday gave the lowest chance of rain, which in turn meant we needed to move off the site by 10am (as we were meeting Conrad in town at 11). 

So, to the Cricket Club we went. Unsure of whether we needed to pay the £10 motorhome rate (which includes an overnight stay) or whether we qualified as a car (as we were only staying for a few hours and only taking up a car-sized spot), we deferred the question until we got back (hoping there would be someone there to ask by then - there was - they said to pay the lower rate of £2).

A very pleasant few hours were spent with Conrad in Booth's cafe where we didn't receive a single disgruntled look for our long stay (we did pepper it with food and drink), only leaving when we realised that Conrad needed to move his car.

Back at Bertie another check of the weather forecast suggested we were safe to leave immediately, and so we did, arriving home with not a drop of rain hitting the windscreen. In fact, the only rain we'd had all day started the moment we left the campsite and ended a couple of minutes after we arrived at the Cricket Club. Really!

We now have both Bertie and Erica booked in at the garage next week. Erica's stay may be of some duration, given that a) her failed part is no longer in production, so we need to have the failed one repaired or a new one custom made; and b) she has to be significantly dismantled in order to access said failed part.  

(*Bertie isn't actually that big (6m x 2.1m; many motorhomes are 2.35m wide) and fits nicely down all of the roads we would have needed to use, but we've observed that the number of people we meet who think that their small car is 8-feet wide and who stray onto our side of the road at busy times of year is too high for a pleasant journey on wiggly roads. Erica isn't massively slimmer than Bertie at 1.9m, but those 20cm give more flexibility to dodge out of the way of errant oncoming cars - plus we don't care about her bodywork as much as we do Bertie's, so scraping along hedgerows isn't such an issue (I would say "but don't tell her that!", if it wasn't for the fact that the multitude of hedge-rash witness marks along her nearside may have already given her the message)).  

Saturday 26 July - Clifton (again), via Pooley Bridge

Where was Bertie? After spending the entire day in the bridge car park at Pooley Bridge (£9), he unexpectedly returned to Crossfells Campsite for the night.

Weather: Mainly overcast, but with some sunny intervals. 

We were away from the campsite at 7am for the 15 minute drive to Pooley Bridge. The Lakeland 100 (L100) had started in Coniston at 6pm on Friday, and the front runners had already come through Pooley Bridge (61 miles in), but we'd only missed about 10 or 12 of them, so Mick was almost immediately outside cheering everyone who came through, whilst I quickly sorted myself out with breakfast (although I did nip out to see a couple of runners who I follow on Instagram, who coincidentally came though within a couple of minutes of each other).

At 9am I abandoned Mick to his cheering, and trotted off against the flow of runners (which at this point was really more of a trickle than a flow) to get myself up to Dalemain for the start of the Lakeland 50 (L50). There I met Ali and Adrian, and as Ali went over to the start pen, I headed a hundred metres or so up the course. One of the many nice things about the L50 is that whilst outside support (other than spectating/cheering, which is only allowed in certain places) is not permitted, they do allow friends and family to join competitors on the first 4 miles of the event, which is the 'Dalemain Loop'. So, as Ali came along, I trotted down the hill to join her.

A stampede of L50 runners

Technically, I had to drop out as we finished the loop, but given that I was parked in Pooley Bridge and had to get back there, I continued with Ali until the first gate on the river side of the road, where I held the gate for a whole stream of people, before continuing on alongside another L50 competitor, who I'd first met on the Loop. Appointing myself as official gate opener, I then dashed along to the next gate to hold it for the same batch of people as the previous one, then dashed to the next gate to do the same again, pointing out to one particularly smiley L100 runner that I wouldn't be able to continue offering the same service along the entire course! 

That said, I was meant to be doing 25km myself on Saturday, and arriving back at Bertie I'd only covered 11.5k, so after a brief pause and a snack, I decided that with all the L50s having cleared the area, it wouldn't be unreasonable to head up the next climb behind them (holding the one gate for a couple of L100s), before veering off in a different direction at the top. The plan was a good one, but it came a cropper when it transpired that there had been a fraud incident with my credit card. After a couple of failed phone calls with the fraud line, and with the signal drifting in and out, I decided I should probably head back down and sort it out sooner rather than later. Turns out someone had managed to pay a parking fine with my card, but a £900 transaction at Carphone Warehouse had been blocked (and the £100 parking fine is, of course, being refunded to me). The biggest inconvenience of all this is the need to memorise a whole new set of credit card details, after having had the same ones for years, and my memory no longer learns strings of numbers as easily as it once did.

The next place we would be able to see Ali on the course was Ambleside at, we estimated, somewhere between 3-4am, so there was no value in us moving from where we were. Hence we spent the whole of the rest of the day in the Pooley Bridge car park, which was incredibly busy the whole day through, with large numbers of people playing in the water and the terrace of the pub across the river heaving. And, of course, there was the whole of the rest of the field of L100 runners, with the final ones coming through at just before 5pm.

Just after we'd had tea, by which time the car park was finally starting to calm down a bit, Adrian, who had been out touristing for the day, swung by to say hello. His plan was to go back to their accommodation for a bit of a kip, and our plan was to try to find a layby between Pooley Bridge and Ambleside for the same purpose. First though, we wanted to see Ali go through the race checkpoint at Mardale Head - a task in which we weren't assisted by the tracker blackspot around Haweswater.

We ended up watching the checkpoint live video feed (which has a good picture, but no sound) for an hour and a half. Alas, as we saw her approach, some thirty minutes after we had expected her, based on the time and her speed when her tracker had stopped moving, we saw that she was limping quite badly. We learned later that she'd had to step aside repeatedly along the narrow, bracken-hemmed path for L100 runners to pass, and on one of those occasions she'd slipped as she stepped off, and tweaked her hamstring. 

There then ensued an extended period of us trying to guess how badly she was injured and whether she was able to go on, based on the little we could see on the live feed (at most of the checkpoints, you get a good view of the whole checkpoint from the camera; at this one you could only see the entrance and the drinks table). It was only when the check point cut-off time came and went, and she briefly appeared on the camera with her fleece on, that we deduced that she was stopping. 

There was no longer any value in us going to Ambleside, which meant we needed somewhere to spend the night. Returning to the previous night's campsite seemed like the best bet, so that's what we did, arriving just before 9pm. 

 

Thursday & Friday 24 & 25 July - Clifton (S of Penrith)

Thursday 24th  

Where was Bertie? He spent Thursday night in the staff car park at the George and Dragon at Clifton

Weather: Dry with sunny intervals, to the best of my recollection. 

Our night at Langsett hadn't been entirely undisturbed. At around 1am I'd heard car doors slamming and an engine running. At 6am there was more car door slamming. At 7am I stepped outside and found that there was no sign of the family who had been camped in front of us. I deduce they didn't have the most comfortable of nights, had warmed up in the car in the middle of the night and had started packing away soon after first light. 

The weather had dried up overnight, so as I set out for a jaunt on Midhope Moor...

...it was overcast but not in a threatening way. The moorland circuit I did was most pleasing, at least until about 1km from the end, when I just needed to cross the dam to get to the lane back to the campsite, whereupon I came upon this sign:

I'd already spied highways vehicles with flashing lights blocking the dam and had thought it didn't look promising, and this sign just confirmed it. My heart sank, as I really wasn't in the market for an extra 5km to go back around the water. After a slightly melodramatic text to Mick, I looked at the map and realised that heading downstream to the next bridge would only add on 1km, albeit at the expense of having to negotiate the verge of the main road for about 800m. 

Back at the campsite, I test out the shower in the toilet/shower trailer (perfectly adequate), then we were off to Halifax for me to mow the lawns at Ma-in-Law's house. 

Then off to Clifton we went, where we were sitting in the bar with a crossword when Ali & Adrian arrived. Not only did they treat us to a very nice tea...

Only snapped the starters. The souffle was deceptively filling.

 ...but they'd also gained permission for us to stay on the staff car park, around the back, overnight. It was so hot in the restaurant, that we escaped to Bertie for post-dinner tea/coffee, but it wasn't a late night. 

Friday 25th 

Where was Bertie? He spent the night at Crossfells Campsite in Clifton at a cost of £17 for a hard-standing pitch. Electricity was available for an extra £6.

By mid-morning we felt like we should probably vacate the staff car park, so headed up to Penrith, as I had a parcel I needed to take to a post office. It turns out that Penrith is not motorhome friendly, and it took a bit of driving around before we found suitable parking - on the road outside of the cricket club, a ten minute walk from town. 

We'd been so full after last night's meal that neither of us had eaten at breakfast time, but by the time we arrived in Penrith we weren't averse to the thought of something to eat, so a very late breakfast was had before we located the post office. 

The traffic getting out of Penrith was dire, with roadworks disrupting any flow, but we weren't in any rush and eventually we popped out the other side of the holdups, from where it was plain sailing to our campsite. 

When Ali had said that they were staying at the George and Dragon (and without even thinking about the possibility of staying in their car park) I'd checked out nearby campsites and found this one, with a public footpath leading across the field between campsite and pub. We'd ended up not needing it on Thursday night, but thought we may as well stay there on Friday, with it being a convenient drive from Pooley Bridge, where we wanted to arrive early on Saturday morning. 

The campsite turned out to be a little gem. The owner (who we didn't meet, but I talked to someone who knows him) has a motorhome and wanted to create a campsite that he'd like to stay on. I assume he also decided to price it at a level that he would like to pay, as it offered good value. The hard-standing pitches were level, each has an optional hook up point, its own water tap and a patch of grass with a picnic bench (yep, one for every single pitch). On top of that the toilets were the smartest I've ever seen in the category of 'toilets housed in a garden shed', and were clean too. 

We did nothing for the rest of the day, although we did have some evening entertainment, when the campers near to us went to go out and realised the key to their motorbike was missing. The search was extensive and went on for over two hours (and having previously lost a key in grass, we had every sympathy; I vetoed going to assist the search on the basis that with the current states of our backs, we weren't in a fit state to be crawling around in the grass. It was only later, when we were in bed, that it occurred to me that they were probably trying to go out for food, and we could have assisted by offering to cook them something). We were tucked up in bed by the time we finally heard their bike start up, although we didn't know whether they'd ever found their key, or whether someone had brought them a spare. I also heard them return at 3am.

 

23 July - Langsett

Another week, another trip whose start depended on the arrival of a delivery. In January of this year, just before we set out for Spain, one of Bertie's LED lights (in a set of four around the main skylight in the middle of his ceiling) started flickering. I contacted some Spanish motorhome/caravan shops and enquired about a replacement, but none could help. In fact, the only places I could find that sold the unit we wanted was Brownhill Motorhomes in the English Midlands, or a supplier in Germany. So, we got through that trip without using that set of lights.

It was a few days before we set out for Scotland in April that I next thought about that light, and with time not on our side, I went for the expensive option: I bought an identical replacement from Brownhills (£24, with a £2.30 discount applied!!). I duly fitted it the day that we travelled, and that very night one of the other identical lights started flickering. Harrumph. 

I then promptly forgot about the issue until we came to use Bertie again last week, whereupon I spent an inordinate amount of time searching for an appropriate spec of LED disc, so that I could replace just the bit of the unit that had failed, rather than needing to replace the whole thing. I eventually bought two different ones from China (£1 each, delivered to the UK), but also sent an enquiry off to a company called Aten Lighting. They confirmed that they still offered a (not mentioned on their website) repair service and could supply and fit new LED discs for £4 each. I bit their hand off (although only figuratively, as soldering in a new disc with one hand could be tricky). I sent them (two failed units plus two good ones that would likely fail soon) off in the post on Friday, and got a Royal Mail tracking message that they would be back with me by Wednesday. Excellent service by Aten Lighting. 

Our Postie quite reliably arrives between noon and 2pm, so we had everything packed into Bertie and ready to go by noon. Then we sat and stared out the window willing Postie to appear. This is like watching a kettle. By quarter to three I was convinced we just weren't getting a delivery, when suddenly he appeared. Five minutes later all replacement lights were fitted and off we went.

Where was Bertie? He spent the night at small campsite just above Langsett Reservoir in S Yorkshire, at a cost of £25 for a grass pitch without electricity.

Weather: Showery later on.

Mick had been on some strong painkillers for his back for a few days by now, so I was still in charge of driving. Given that this was less than a week ago, and that I did the driving, I have no recollection as to how the journey went, which probably indicates that it went smoothly. 

I do remember that as we drove up the steep lane to the campsite and got our first glimpse of it, my first statement was 'that looks a bit slopey'. 

So, we paid £25 for a grass pitch on a field so slopey that even our ramps couldn't get us level, without electricity, and with a very rustic unisex toilet trailer. I have no problem at all with basic campsites, as long as they're at the right price and, based on others we have stayed on lately, this one was very much not charging appropriately.

Camped in front of us was a family (mum, dad, teenage daughter) whose kit looked rather basic and inadequate. We hoped the weather was going to prove to be benign overnight, as their tents didn't look like they could stand up to even mild wind or rain, and they didn't look to have any sort of insulation to sleep on.

By the time we went to bed, rain was pattering down... 

 

Sunday 13th to Wednesday 16th July - S Wales

Sunday 13 July - Abergavenny(ish)

Where's Bertie? He spent the night in the National Trust car park below Ysgyryd Fawr, at a cost of £6 (although I would have had to have paid £3 of that to cover the time I was up my hill)

Weather: Hot and sunny

A mid-morning conference call for Mick, then it was time to leave Bridgnorth and head for S Wales, via lunch in Hereford. 

We arrived at our destination car park earlier than I'd wanted, which on an ordinary sunny Sunday would possibly have been a problem, as it tends to be busy on a weekend. We found it almost empty, probably because temperatures of over 30 degrees tend to put people off going for walks up hills. 

We'd arrived not knowing exactly where we were going to spend the night. I knew there were a couple of campsites not far away (cheapest: £28), but we didn't need any campsite facilities. I'd not even considered spending the night in the car park, because I'd expected it to be full of 'no overnight parking' signs, so it was a surprise to arrive and to find no such thing. So, rather than buying a £3 ticket for the two hours I would need to nip up my hill, we bought a £6 'all day' ticket. There was also a lack of signage to say what 'all day' meant, and having bought a ticket I found that it expired at 6pm. I took that to mean that charges weren't applicable between 6pm and some unknown time in the morning. 

I went up my hill. I came back down again. The few cars there on our arrival left, then an evening batch of (presumably local) dog walkers arrived, then they left and one other small van arrived and put themselves right at the opposite end of the car park. A quiet night was had. 

Monday 14th - Abergavenny and Glanusk Estate

Where was Bertie? He spent the night at Glanusk Estate Caravan Park at a cost of £30 for a hard standing pitch, including electricity and good wifi.

Weather: Sunny start, then some sunny intervals, but mainly overcast with some showers

Mick's back was so poorly by Monday morning that I drove myself to my start point for my morning's hills leaving Mick just a few miles to drive to the end point of my walk. 

With my hills visited, I found Mick exactly where I expected him to be (I'd set the SatNav for him before I'd left), and via a supermarket, we headed off to the Glanusk Estate campsite. 

As explained on my walking blog, my reason for choosing to stay there was because the next hill I wanted to visit lies on their land, with no public access and with no obvious nearby parking for a Bertie-sized vehicle. I'd sent an email enquiry over the weekend, asking for permission to visit the summit, but hadn't received a response, and I'd held off booking a pitch pending the response. Equally, I was sufficiently confident that permission would be given, that we went to the campsite anyway, and I figured I'd enquire about the hill in reception when we arrived. 

It turned out that they don't have a reception, but rather have a board saying which pitch is allocated to each pre-booking. So, we sat at the entrance and booked a pitch, and after two phone conversations and one in person conversation, I had the okay to go up my hill (I phoned the Estate Office to enquire about our pitch number and spoke to Harry but before I got as far as asking about accessing the hill he said he'd come out to see me, however, he sent someone else to escort us to the campsite and she said that she couldn't give permission but that I needed to speak to Harry. I phoned the office again and got a different person again who said "that should be fine", which I took as sufficient permission). 

Had I not walked through the estate to access the summit of Myarth, we wouldn't have appreciated how much this campsite has to offer. They've put in permissive paths, a picnic area, a riverside beach area and a firepit, and a sauna (which unfortunately we didn't have time to use). On top of that they had a smart toilet block (the postage-stamp-sized showers left a little to be desired, but they were hot) and even provided washing up liquid at the sinks (because they only want eco-friendly stuff to be used). It was also a bonus that they provide dog-poo bags (we availed ourselves of one as we'd run out of rubbish bags ... or rather had forgotten the whole stash in the wardrobe). 

It seems that £28-30 is the most common price range for campsites hereabouts, and this one offered much more for the money than some others I'd looked at (see tomorrow's comments!). 

Tuesday 15th - Talybont-on-Usk and Llansantfiraed

Where was Bertie? He spent the morning in the Village Hall car park at Talybont-on-Usk (honesty box) and the rest of the day and night in a large layby just S of Llansantfiraed.

Weather: Overcast and very windy with some showers, but nothing like the forecast of almost certain continuous heavy rain between 11am and 7pm.  

Had the weather forecast been better, we would have happily lounged around at the campsite. As it was, if I was going to avoid the heavy rain and strongest winds on my first hill of the day, then I needed to get out relatively early.

It's not possible to access Glanusk Estate Caravan Park from the A40 because of this bridge...

 

...and it's also not possible to use the next bridge to the north in a Bertie-sized vehicle as it has a 7' width restriction. That meant that we needed to use the B-road up to Talybont-on-Usk, which in turn made me think that I may as well tackle the hill Tor-y-Foel from there, if we could find somewhere to park, otherwise I would get the bike out and cycle in from Llansantfiraed (on the original plan for this trip, this hill was going to be combined with two others as a linear walk, and Mick was going to meet me at the campsite in Talybont; however, by this point of this trip we'd discovered that it would be beneficial for us to go home on Wednesday, rather than Sunday, which threw all plans into disarray). 

 

The B-road to get to Talybont wouldn't have been so bad to drive had it been just after the hedges had been trimmed in autumn. As it was they were nicely trimmed up to 6' high, then bushy above (like in the photo below, but far bushier than that example ... and the road was also a lot wider than the one in the photo, which I'd walked up). 

 

So, two cars could comfortably pass, but taller vehicles had a narrower road and, of course, taller vehicles tend to be wider too. Most of the time, we met oncoming vehicles in places where we could pass fairly easily (even if Bertie had to get more friendly with the hedgerows than he would have preferred) and the hierarchical rules of who gives way to whom on the roads ("I'm bigger so you can reverse") only came into play once. When I rounded a bend and came upon a tractor towing a trailer, it was clear that it was me who was going to be reversing all the way back to the nearest field entrance. Thank goodness that the bus I met a while later hadn't been 300m behind him, requiring me to reverse on the same section of road twice! I met the bus just as I got to a driveway opening. 

 

Phew, that's a lot of words before 9am! So, more succinctly, road signs sent us to the car park at the Village Hall and Google told us that there was a cafe a two minute walk away in the Post Office/General Store. Thus as I set off towards my hill, Mick came along for the first two minutes before veering off into the cafe. 

 

He was back in Bertie by the time I returned and even though it was only noon, we were soon off to our nightstop - which happened to also be from where I would be setting off for my afternoon hill.

 

It's a good layby, set well back from the road, with plenty of flat-enough roadway, and with a snack wagon and toilets (although we didn't explore them). 

 

There's access to a small holding from the layby, and they have a campsite (advertised by a shoddy hand-painted sign at the bottom of the track, although I'd already looked it up online as a potential night-stop before we set out). They describe themselves as a 'wild camping' experience, although they do have a 'no frills' toilet and a shower (but no electric hook up) and for this they charge £35 a night, on top of which you need to be a member of 'The Greener Camping Club' (I'd never heard of them, but they have a network of 170 campsites) at a cost of £12 per year. I have no idea who is paying that much just for somewhere to park overnight, especially when you compare it to the facilities at other nearby campsites, but I can understand why we were joined by two other vans in the adjacent layby overnight.  

 

Wednesday 16th - Dinas Castell Inn & Home

 

Where was Bertie? He spent a few hours in the car park of the Dinas Castell Inn at a cost of £5 (a steep increase from the £2 they were charging last year, but not unreasonable)

Weather: Back to hot and sunny 

 

Snapped on my way to my hill. The caravan being taken over by brambles and blocked in by rolls of hay would have been good in itself, but it was the open door of the caravan that made the scene in my eyes. 

  

Dropping me off at Waun Fach, for me to have far more of an adventure than I'd bargained for, Mick went to spend a few hours at Dinas Castell Inn - or, more precisely, in their car park as he found them to be closed.  

The car park filled up around him, but he reported that everyone else headed up Waun Fach (the hill; not the place where he'd dropped me). 

 

I arrived in the car park by late morning, and took to the wheel to get us home, whilst Mick sat uncomfortably, with his poorly back still plaguing him. Goodness, it was a long journey on a series of slow roads - and I had to stay awake for all of it! 

 

 

9-12 July - Bridgnorth

Where's Bertie? He's at a C&CC Temporary Holiday Site next to the River Severn on the edge of Bridgnorth, where it costs £13 per night.

Weather: hot and sunny

Wednesday 9th
My original intention was to set out on this trip a few days earlier, but Amazon Prime Day was almost upon us and there were a couple of things I'd been putting off buying until the price came down. The prices duly did come down (in one case to the same price I'd failed to buy at earlier in the year, in the other case to the lowest price it has been this year), orders were placed then we had to wait at home until they arrived (because one item we wanted to take with us ... a new tablet in place of the Kindle Fire that I killed through my negligence a few weeks ago).

With the estimated delivery time window slipping repeatedly, I had my doubts as to whether we would get away on Wednesday, but get away we did ... just in time to hit rush hour. So, it was a slightly slow journey, but we got here by 6pm and booked in for two nights.

The site is busy! It's quite a size, and far busier than any Temp Holiday Site we've seen to date. Unsurprising, as it's a firm, cropped field right next to the river, within an easy walk of the town and with plenty of other walking routes nearby*.

View from Bertie's door, looking across the field

Thursday 10th
The last time I came to Bridgnorth must be around 30 years ago. It turns out that I remember almost nothing of the place. Mick had never been here.

What a nice place it is!

We're a 1km walk along the riverbank from the bridge that separates High Town from Low Town, from where, if you want to go to High Town, you've the choice of going up one of many sets of steps between buildings/sandstone escarpments, or taking the Cliff Railway. Two women with a pushchair and a small child were just entering the latter as we started up the steps. They came out at the top just as we walked past the exit.

We did a decent job of walking around all of the streets of High Town, discovering along the way that the library/Tourist Info desk doesn't open on a Thursday, and also discovering that there is a guided town tour on a Saturday afternoon.

The plan when we'd left home had been that we were heading down to S Wales on Friday for me to do a spot of Marilyn bagging, however, with the forecast now predicting 34 degrees for Friday & Saturday, and 32 for Sunday, Mick suggested that maybe we should just stay put here for a couple of extra days, as 34 degrees is a silly temperature to be scampering over hills. I couldn't fault his thinking, so the walking tour got pencilled in for Saturday.

Having seen enough of the High Town, we ventured into the Low Town, which I'd somehow expected to be much more modern. It's not! Our only aim there was to pick up comestibles from M&S Food for tea. (As an aside, I do intensely dislike X for £x deals; just give me a lower price for each item and don't force me into buying more than I need, potentially being wasteful, and don't prejudice single people who don't need, for example, three quiches. We came back with our bags overly full, including three quiches, when we only went in for one.)

Riverside path into town

High Town from the bridge

From the castle walk

Castle

Pretty!

The only bit of Bridgnorth I positively remember from previous visits: the old town hall.

Friday 11th
As we descended from the High Town yesterday we passed a cafe that caught Mick's eye. We'd not long had second breakfast up at the top of the hill, so weren't in the market for anything, but I said that we'd go back for tea and scones this morning.

Thus, after a sweaty run along the river and showers back at Bertie, off to said establishment we went.

The scones were good, the jam excellent, the building historic and the tea was Yorkshire. But goodness it was warm in there! It was only as we were leaving that I spotted the rear courtyard with nicely shaded tables and, undoubtedly, some air movement.

In protest at the X for £x pricing structure in M&S, today we made the effort to walk the extra distance to Aldi. Amongst our purchases there was a box of ice-pops, four of which were despatched over the next couple of hours as we sat in the shade outside of Bertie.

It was gone 3pm when we decided that the best thing we could do to keep cool was to walk back into town and find an air conditioned pub for a cold drink.

The walking back and forth to town today also made us think that maybe we're not so enthusiastic about a guided tour of the town tomorrow afternoon. Spending 1.5 hours walking around, with unknown amounts of shade, in 33 degrees may not be entirely fun. 

Elevenses

Afternoon 'tea'...
 

Saturday 12th
I've been comparing this portion of our trip with a summer tour in Germany. It's hot and sunny, we are by a river and the nearby town is historic with plenty of half-timbered houses. The key differences are that you can go out for cake here without being mobbed by every wasp in the area, and swimming in the river is prohibited.

Feeling like I'm in Germany, it seemed reasonable to start Saturday morning in the same way as we have on our German tours: with a parkrun.

StreetView didn't make access to the park's car park look promising, but I located a residential street where we were able to slot Bertie without an issue, and it was under a mile, entirely downhill, to the parkrun's start line.

After the 3-2-1-go! it was a continuation of the downhill theme. This didn't bode well for later! It turned out to be a lovely course, but far from easy. My recorded stats said 60m of ascent, but it felt like so much more, perhaps in part because it was also jolly warm. I'm not sure I've ever run a UK parkrun in 24 degrees before, although I remember some German ones that were that toasty. On the plus side, at least today I was only covering 5km rather than embarking on a 24-hour race!

The finish line lay (unsurprisingly!) uphill, following which it was an uphill walk back to Bertie, following which I was ready for a good sit down for the rest of the day. Instead, once back at the campsite and with Bertie's water tank topped back up to 50%, it was a quick shower then out into town.

We vaguely glanced at the market stalls on the way past, but I was more interested in finding somewhere for a cheese scone and even more interested in somewhere with air conditioning. Unable to fulfil both requirements, we compromised and had an early lunch in Wetherspoons, followed by buying cake from the bakery across the road.

Having finally opted against the town tour, it was back to Bertie for an afternoon of lazing - and in Mick's case wincing and ouching. He's done a mischief to his back and it's rather painful for him.

View from near parkrun start line

Where I paused to take a photo and nearly dropped my phone in the river!

Obvious attire for a hot, sunny day: all in black.

(*The Temp Holiday Site is on the rally field of a campsite. There are also motorhomes at the campsite. They are paying £25 mid-week and £30 on the weekend, vs our £13. The campsite has no toilet block, so the only things they're getting that we're not is electric hook-up, and a closer proximity to the river (some of the pitches here are riverside, but only 4 of the ?100.) )

Monday 30 June - Otley

Where’s Bertie? He’s at a C&CC Temporary Holiday Site on the rugby practice pitches, just outside of Otley, where it costs 12 per night.

Weather: Sunny intervals and hot (29 degrees max)

I thought the car park in Otley looked to be a good one, and so it proved. A perfectly quiet night was had. I nipped over to the payment machine this morning and bought a ticket for four hours, giving us until 11.30 to have breakfast, go out for second breakfast and decide where to go today.

Breakfast was had in Bertie. Second breakfast was had in Wetherspoon’s, where the service was not up to the standard encountered elsewhere, and they seem to like to keep slices of fruit on their carpet…

Back at Bertie I spent what felt like an age looking for somewhere to go today. The big impediment is my current desire not to walk very far (the shin is no longer painful, and I have full movement back in my foot, but I can still feel it, and in the interests of it getting better as soon as possible* I want to rest it as much as possible). There are so many things I would like to do, but they almost all involve walking, and the things that don’t involve too much walking aren’t open on a Monday!

The ideal would thus be a parkup with a nice view, but without going too far out of our way. I scoured the maps, finding a dearth of options in the places that looked most appealing. In the end we opted to stay in Otley. With the Temp Holiday Site not opening until 2pm, we popped another couple of hours on Bertie’s ticket, then travelled the mile here via a prolonged stop at a very small Asda. We arrived at the site at 2.15, to find a curiously large number of units already fully set up, considering they’d only opened fifteen minutes earlier!

(As an aside: why didn’t we go to Halifax today, borrow the key from the Estate Agent, then continue down to the Peaks, as I’d mentioned yesterday? Because last night we messaged a friend in Halifax about meeting up today, but she didn’t see the message until this morning and assumed that when our message said ‘tomorrow’ we meant today’s tomorrow, not yesterday’s tomorrow. Wanting to see her, we decided to delay our visit until tomorrow.)

So, I type this from the middle of a rugby pitch, from where the view isn’t bad at all. We’ve done nothing since arriving, save for sitting outside, reading our books and trying not to burn or bake when the sun has emerged. It’s one of the very few occasions when we wish that Bertie had a sun canopy. That said, as I type this at 1715, the row of trees at the edge of the site is now providing some shade to our pitch.   

(*Despite statements during Lap 5 of my race last weekend, I have my eye on another 24-hour race later in the year.)

Sunday 29 June - Otley

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park in Otley, where it's free on a Sunday, then 50p per hour from 7.30 on Monday morning.

Weather: Hot and sunny,

When I said yesterday that it wasn't impossible that we might return to the Yorkshire Air Museum within the year's validity of our tickets, I didn't expect to do so quite this soon! Having surveyed the options of where to go today, and selected one of them, I realised that our onward route was going to take us past the museum. Yesterday's lunch in their cafe had been sufficiently substantial that I hadn't room for cake as well, and I thought it would be remiss to pass so close by and not take the opportunity to sample the Battenberg cake that I'd had my eye on yesterday.

 

Mick went for the TwixKat, whilst I had the Battenberg. Neither of us was disappointed.

A quick visit to a few exhibits of the museum, then back to Bertie to continue on to our next destination, on the way driving past the two other overnight options that I'd identified, having selected the furthest, here in Otley. We arrived to find that the Temporary Holiday Site we'd intended to use doesn't open until tomorrow (in my defence, when I gave the App start and end dates for our stay, I thought it would only give me options that coincided entirely with those dates, particularly as it was only two nights!). Contemplating what we could do instead, one of the possibilities was to continue down to Halifax, mow the lawns at Ma-in-Law's house (for which purpose we are currently carrying a lawn mower around in Bertie's boot. Bet there aren't many motorhomes driving around the UK so equipped!) then go on to the Peak District. That plan met a stumbling block when we realised we'd forgotten to bring keys to Ma-in-Law's house with us. We can 'borrow' a set from the estate agent, but not on a Sunday.    

In the end we popped Bertie in the far corner of one of the town's car parks and, after a look around the town (didn't take long) and a very short walk along the river (my shin is still recovering from last week), we decided we would just stay here for the night.  

Friday & Saturday 27-28 June - Melbourne, East Yorks

Where's Bertie? He's on a 5-pitch campsite a mile outside of the village of Melbourne, just SE of York, where it costs £16 per night, plus 27p per unit of electricity. 

Weather: Sunny intervals, and windy, but pleasantly warm (shorts & t-shirt without a fleece)

We were sitting at home a couple of days ago when Mick read that the engines of the Nimrod at the Yorkshire Air Museum were going to be run this weekend. "Well, let's go!" I said. We'd no reason to be at home and, in fact, there was even greater incentive to go away, as Erica broke last Monday morning and the garage couldn't fit her in until next Thursday, so we were without a car. 

Mick booked this campsite, and we drove up on Friday. It's a nice site: a flat, mown field split into five enormous pitches, each with an electric point, a tap and a waste water point. Payment for both the pitch fee and electricity use is on an honesty system. 

The downside is that it's not close to anything - although under normal circumstances I wouldn't think anything of the 1-mile walk to the village, but right now my left shin is only just starting to forgive me for the abuse I gave it last weekend.

It is, however, only a fifteen minute drive to the Air Museum, and that's where we headed this morning. 

We spent the best part of five hours there. Just before we went in search of lunch in the cafe, we nipped over to the Nimrod and chatted to one of the volunteers, whose time at RAF Kinloss coincided with Mick's. At the end of that, Mick asked if they ever had open days when you can go inside the aircraft, whereupon we were invited to hop over the rope and do so there and then. 

Mick's old office

Lunch then filled the next hour, before we returned to watch the engines be fired up, run up to 80%, and all the moving bits (rudder, flaps, bomb bay doors) get exercised. It's a process they try to do every month, to keep it as a 'live' aircraft - one of only two remaining Nimrods in that state.  

With the engine run complete, a group of people were asking questions of one of the volunteers, who in turn pointed to Mick, and said that he had first hand knowledge. There ensured a lengthy Q&A session -  Mick and one chap in particular could probably have carried on for half the afternoon!

We didn't quite see everything there was to see on the site, or at least some of it we only saw at a glance. After four and a half hours, we were flagging. However, our ticket is valid for a year so it's not impossible that we'd find ourselves nearby again during that period.    

Our intentions had been to go from there to the pub in Melbourne for tea, but it transpires that the pub changed hands in the last couple of weeks, has only just re-opened and today was their 'Midsummer festival' with live music and a barbecue. We drove past, but I declared it too busy, so we didn't trouble ourselves to find somewhere to park, instead returning straight to the campsite.  

I recorded a video of the whole engine run process, but otherwise only took these three take photos..   

Another 24-Hour Race

When I entered this race I was open about my objectives: to achieve a podium position*, and to increase my 24-hour Personal Best, which stood at 130km. As the weather forecast started trending upwards in the days before the event (the highest I saw was 32 degrees with an overnight low of 18), I moderated my expectations and decided that 100km would be a more reasonable objective.

Not only was the weather not ideal, but my state of rest wasn’t either. Friday night had been hot (29 degrees in our ill-insulated bedroom at 11pm) so it was an uncomfortable night. I woke up fully at 3.30am, got up at 5.30, and by 7 we had loaded the final few things into Erica and were off.

Emergency purchase last week – a fridge/freezer for Erica. I didn’t think the usual coolbox would cope adequately in the heat.

The camping/campervan set-up at the event has changed and whereas last year we were in a nice shady spot within paces of the start/finish area, this year we were further away and in full sunlight. We wasted no time in getting blinds onto all of Erica’s windows, then sat around for a few hours.

I’d like to say that at noon the 3-2-1-Go came, that being the start time of the race, but at noon we were called to enter the starting pen, which wasn’t a quick process with someone writing down each person’s bib number as they entered. Then, once we were all gathered there was a briefing that no-one could hear as the loudhailer broke after the first sentence. We started 15 minutes late. 

(*the day before the race I discovered that the podium at this event only comprises 2 places, making this objective a little harder to meet.) 

Lap 1 (10.55km)

Happily, there was full cloud cover at this point, so even though it was 30 degrees, we weren’t also being baked by the sun. I started near the back and after walking the first 5 minutes I proceeded at a 2:5 run:walk (as against the 3:1 I’d originally intended). That seemed manageable even in the heat, but it was early days.

To save losing time in walking to and from Erica between laps, Mick carried a chair over to the start/finish and met me with a bag full of stuff I might need. I did my first turn around in 2 minutes last year; it took 4 this year and the only extra things I did was to soak my hat and shove a bottle of frozen water down my bra for a minute (my times this year are taken from my recorded gpx track, which, with the software I’m using, only gives me a hh:mm time, so all 'in camp' times are plus or minus 59 seconds).

 

During Lap 1, still settling in and not yet questioning my life choices 

Lap 2 (21.1km)

Things started feeling hard during Lap 2 and as much as I felt like I should at least try to run some of it, I also knew that I didn’t need to run at all at this stage. It was more important to make it to the cooler hours in a fit state to go on than to get laps under my belt. In reality, Lap 2 was only 2 minutes slower than Lap 1, but I finished it feeling like I’d already done 12 laps, which really didn’t bode well for later.

Lap 3 (31.65km)

It rained! Never have so many people been so happy to have rain during a race**! It was light and intermittent, but it brought some relief from the heat.

I returned to Erica at the end of this lap to change socks and shoes. After my feet dissolved into blisters during my race in March, I bought new shoes with a massively wide toe box and I had been optimistic that they would work so well that I’d be able to wear them all race. By the end of Lap 3 I had three blisters: inside of left foot; outside of right foot (pressure against the footbed – looks like a need a wider heel for hot weather as well as a wide toe box); and outside of left big toe. As I’d walked across Scotland in warm weather without incurring a single hot spot, never mind a blister, Mick suggested maybe I should switch to those shoes, and even though they are uncushioned trail shoes, it seemed like a good suggestion. They felt comfy, so that’s what I went with.

(**This probably isn’t true, but you get the idea.) 

Lap 4 (42.2km)

By the end of Lap 3 I could see, with a sinking heart, patches of blue sky approaching and soon into Lap 4 the sky cleared. Thirty degrees now felt so much warmer, and of course it was even more humid after the rain.

I started chatting to people during this lap, and spent the second half with a woman called Katy. We distracted each other nicely and I would have happily continued with her, but she was taking a pause after that lap (her 3^rd).

Another quick start/finish line turn around, where I downed a can of ice-cold ginger beer, whilst sitting with a bottle of ice shoved down my bra, after which Mick surprised me with a Calipo ice-lolly to take on the next lap with me.

Lap 5 (52.75km)

Lap 5 was miserable. It was too hot. I was too tired. I only had a few fleeting conversations, and the second half of the lap went on for weeks. I just desperately wanted to lie down where I was for a kip and could not see any way that I could possibly even get myself to 8 laps, for a double marathon, never mind to achieve my new target of 10 laps.

The only slight ray of light was when I thought “I’ve never felt this bad at this stage of a race before”, only then to remember the hideous 10 hours of indigestion during Lakeland 50, allowing me the positive thought of: “Well, it’s not the very worst I’ve ever felt at this point in a race!”.

Messages between me and a friend during Lap 5

To add injury to insult, in the last kilometre, I developed a pain up my left shin.

I went back to Erica at the end of the lap completely dejected and Mick had to put up with even more whinging. That doubled when I accidentally tried ripping off my already bruised big toe nail (existing injury, not from this race). That pain was quite something!

Amidst my whinging (to which Mick did quite reasonably point out that I’d chosen to do this), I asked, if I wasn’t going to achieve any of my objectives - not even my reduced hot-weather one - what was the point of exhausting myself and incurring a long recovery period? Why not just go home right then and be immediately fit to go out and do other things that are on the wish list?

What I actually did was, with hindsight, exactly right: I went for a shower, tended my feet, had a big bowl of pasta, a cup of tea and a couple of salt chews, then I lay down and told Mick to wake me in an hour. About ten minutes later I got up and said we may as well get on with it (‘we’ because it was now dark and Mick was going to join me for my first night lap – after midnight I was happy to be out by myself, but not between 10pm and midnight). Despite the tiredness, I didn’t feel like I was going to manage to sleep and if I was going to get to 8 laps then the sooner I did it the better (not only from the point of view of the cooler night temperatures, but the fact that lots of people would be targeting 8 laps, and the faster I got there, the higher up the leader board I would be). 

How Lap 5 felt

Lap 6 (63.3km)

I’d like to say that Mick got to see the course that I’ve been around so many times, but it was, of course, dark – that was the whole point of Mick being with me.

We chatted our way around and saw a dozen other people – a mix of those we overtook as they were walking but slower than us, and members of the relay teams who would speed past as we called ‘well done!’ in their wake. By the end of the lap I was no longer miserable and I had a glimmer of hope that I could get to 8 laps.

Mick, of course, couldn’t be on the course with me and also preparing whatever I wanted at the end of the lap (during every other lap I called him from half way round and with <1km to go to relay what I wanted), so I grabbed water from the water station, then whilst I nipped to the loo, Mick fetched my mug, so I could make a cup of tea in the competitors’ tea tent. I then set out on Lap 7 as Mick went off to bed.

Lap 7 (73.85km)

I enjoyed Lap 7! This was the first night time lap on my own, but I was only about 500m in when I saw head torches ahead. It took me 3km to catch up with them, then I spent the next couple of km or so with company. Perhaps not the best tactical approach, but I’m generally happy to slow down to chat at the expense of faster progress, but keeping an eye on my objectives, when this pair slowed, I bade them farewell and trotted on. I’ve no idea if I saw them again, as not wanting to blind either of them with my headtorch, I didn’t see what they looked like.

I passed a few others on this lap too, and the universal topic of conversation was questioning how it could be so hot at that time of morning (1-2am).  

The only downer in this lap was the pain in my left shin.

Lap 8 (84.4km)

This one was truly solo. Three relay runners shot past me, at different points in the lap, but otherwise I saw not a soul, unless you count looking across the lake as I was finishing the lap to see a relative stream of people just coming out of camp. They’d timed themselves nicely to see sunrise across the lake; I’d missed that this year.

Whether to continue for a 9th lap? I asked the chap manning the timing mats whether there were live standings available, and he said not, but that there was a print out on a board in the main marquee. It had been published at 10pm, and the next iteration was due to go up ‘soon’. On the one hand disappointing to not know exactly where I stood, but I also couldn’t decide whether I really wanted to know.

I visited the marquee, just in case they’d already put the morning standings up, but only learnt (via a most user-unfriendly set of data) that at 10pm the leading lady had completed 6 laps, with me and one other on 5. What I didn’t know was whether: a) the leader had completed a lap a few minutes before 10pm and thus was only just ahead of me; b) they'd slept overnight; or c) they'd been out on laps at the same time as me. 

A quick trip to Erica, disturbing a slumbering Mick, I grabbed what I needed and headed back out again. 

Lap 9 (94.95km)

Absolutely nothing about this lap sticks in my mind! At the end of it, I went back to Erica, got Mick out of bed so I could access the cupboards, and made porridge and tea, tending my feet again whilst I ate. I also had a text conversation with Ali (friend and very knowledgeable retired GP) about how things were going. The general view on the shin problem was that whether it was shin splints, a stress fracture or tendinitis, I probably wouldn’t significantly affect the recovery time by doing one more lap on it.

But did I want to go back out? Given that everyone else would also have been affected by the temperature, would 9 laps be enough for second place this year? Possibly, but without seeing those standings, I couldn’t form any sort of informed view. Mick repeatedly went over to the marquee, to no avail.

Deferring the decision a little longer, I lay down and vaguely dozed for twenty minutes, then I got back up and declared that I had another lap in me.

Mick walked me to the start line, via the marquee, where the standings were just being pinned up. “There’s only one woman on the leader board, and that’s Aggie with 9 laps” I was told. “But I’ve also done 9 laps!” I said. I looked at the leader board, and sure enough, there I was, two places behind (thus she had completed her 9 faster than I had). I then scanned the full participant standings as fast as I could and confirmed that, as far as I could see, there was no other woman on 9 laps.

Lap 10 (105.5km)

The news that I was definitely in second place gave me a boost of adrenaline. My blisters stopped hurting, and I ran more of this lap than I had any since Lap 1. In fact, I finished Lap 10 only 2 minutes slower than Lap 1. Conversations were minimal – if there was another woman who could squeeze in extra laps, I wanted to get to ten before they could, to maintain second position.

Towards the end of the lap, my mind naturally turned to the potential for an eleventh lap. I’d felt so good and energised in Lap 10, that even acknowledging that I could crash and feel awful within minutes, I couldn’t see any good reason not to go for an 11th.

Foreseeing this scenario, Mick had already checked with the organisers that I had until 1215 to finish (due to the late start; last year they started 3 minutes late but finished on time), and was unsurprised when I ran over the finish line and declared my intentions. To save time, I grabbed some water and a flapjack from the adjacent water station and darted (relatively!) back out. 

 

I took advantage of every little bit of downhill on Lap 10 to get a bit of easy speed  

Lap 11 (116km)

My shin was really not happy on this lap, but my feet were still fine and whilst energy was dipping, I was still moving fine (when the now near-gale wind wasn’t in my face!).

The final 400m of the course comprises a gently downward slope, a tiny up, then flat to the finish, and I didn’t half put a sprint on during that section, for no good reason other than I could. Seeing two women ahead of me, I called “Is that Katy?”, she turned and confirmed it was, but I didn’t stop for another chat, just explaining “11!!!” over my shoulder as I passed.

Having crossed the finish line (at 11.37, so the late start didn’t come into the equation in the end), I waited for Katy to finish, to congratulate her properly and thank her again for her company way back on Lap 4. The timer chap then came over to congratulate me on what he saw as an excellent performance in the conditions. 

Overshooting the finish line

The Medal and Prize-Giving

Once you’ve finished all the laps you intend to do, you go over to the marquee, give your name and the number of laps you’ve done and they give you a medal and the appropriate pins (half marathon, marathon, ultra & double marathon) for your distance (this honesty system for pin-giving worries my sister, but the official results aren’t affected even if someone did lie to get more pins than they are due).

I discerned some excitement in the volunteers voice as she asked me for my number of laps, and when I told her, she declared “You’ve won!”.

“Really?!” I questioned. I was so sure that Aggie would have been matching me lap for lap, that I hadn’t really contemplated the possibility of having passed her, but it turned out she’d stopped at 10.

Having finished with time to spare, I had time for a quick shower before returning for prize giving.

Receiving my trophy and a bottle of bubbly that I designated as Mick’s, not just because I don’t drink, but because he deserved an award for the excellent support he’d provided

With hindsight…

It was such a good decision not to stop after 5, 8 or 10 laps!

I ended up enjoying more laps than not.

I feel like I did all the right things in terms of food, drink and rest, as well as taking time for a shower when I was wilting after Lap 5 and over all don’t think I could have done much better.

The Aftermath

An even greater surprise than winning was that I woke up on Monday morning feeling perfectly well. No post-race dehydration hangover and mental fuzziness. My body wasn’t too sore either – except for the shin, which is very sore indeed. 

 

Even though there wasn't an awful lot of running involved, there's clear evidence that had I been able to keep moving forwards at the times when I took long breaks, I could have easily fitted another two laps in. 

Incidentally, it took me over 4 hours longer to reach 81k than it did during my race in March, entirely due to the temperature. 

Let’s talk about the weather

In the lead-up to an event, I find it fun to screenshot the weather forecast each day. In my opinion, you may as well draw weather icons out of a hat as look at the BBC’s forecast 14 days out.

This is how it played out preceding my most recent event: 

Now let's look at actual recorded official Weather Station data to see how the day really planned out:

In terms of max temperature reached, Saturday was the joint hottest day of the year, tying with the previous Thursday, with both days hitting 31 degrees:

However, Saturday was the real hottest day, having more hours of high heat, as shown in this chart showing official weather station temperature data:

As these charts show, the temperature was slow to fall too, and of course, those temperatures are in the shade; in the sun it felt like a humid furnace:

24 degrees at 1.30am! That’s a nice summer’s day, yet it was the middle of the night.

It also got a bit breezy on Sunday (quite pleasant, for most of the morning), building to ‘Near Gale’ by 11am, but I was nearly done by then, so it didn’t affect me much.

All of this is to say that of all the weekends this year, Saturday at noon was not the ideal time to be setting out on a 24-hour race, coinciding exactly with the hottest 24-hour period of the year. One comforting factor was that this wasn’t the first hot weather of the year, so there had been some opportunity to acclimatise at least to the mid-twenties. I could also draw on the knowledge that I’ve coped well with hot temperatures in the past (41 degrees in the Mojave desert on the PCT; 34 degrees in the Pyrenees). And, of course, everyone else was going to be dealing with the same weather, so I could only hope that I was able to cope with the temperature better than my competition!