Lakeland 100 - "The most important muscle in your body is your brain"

For the last couple of years my blog has been mostly good news  -   places visited, runs run, achievements achieved, interesting things learned an so on. Well, last Saturday I had a bit of a downturn and pulled out of a race that I could and should have completed. It annoyed and frustrated me hugely, but I've had a day or two to think about it and look at some of the facts, and I think I now know what went wrong. Setting it down will be good for me and may be of interest to anyone who has had a similar experience, either last weekend or at other times.

The Lakeland 100 is a tough but by no means impossible event for the average tourist ultra-runner. I had run it twice before. In 2010 I stopped at Ambleside (with 90 out of the 105 miles completed) because I had wasted too much time in the middle stages and simply ran out of time at the pace I was able to go near the end. In 2011 I completed the course a couple of hours or so inside the 40 hour time limit feeling I could have speeded up a bit at the finish if it had been required. I know the route well and last year I finished the Lakeland 50 in just under 10 hours. This year I was generally better trained, having run PB's at the Highland Fling and West Highland Way races and finished a number of other "training" ultras comfortably and in good shape. I went into the Lakeland with a plan for 35 hours which I felt was conservative and which I was confident with, and didn't doubt that even if I needed a bit of wiggle room for unforeseen setbacks, that I would finish OK.

The outline story is that in the event I was very comfortable to Braithwaite (32 miles) but then spent the next 35 or so miles unable to eat or drink anything of note due to constant nausea. I eventually accepted that I had been running on empty for too long near the top of the climb out of Howtown (around 68 miles), so returned to Howtown and retired. I had not been remotely near the cut-off times. I got the bus back to Coniston, slept for a few hours, and felt completely fine the next morning (when the race was still going on), fit enough to have started again. So what was the problem?

Well, one or two friends have suggested that the race was too close to my run in the West Highland Way five weeks ago, but I don't really buy that. If you target one ultra as a life-changing event then you probably don't get really as fit as you need to be for it and it may take a long time to recover, but for those of us who participate fairly regularly (I've run over 40 ultras in the last seven years), then you get fit enough to compete at your chosen level, recover quickly and move on. I've never had the sensation described by some people as "still having the last race in the legs" three or four weeks later. I had no major muscular or joint problems. I was worried about a chronic knee problem going in to the race, but I strapped it up well and on the day it caused no more than a minor annoyance at times. I know how to look after my feet so I don't normally get blisters. I've practiced hydration and fuelling over a lot of events so I think I know what works for me. Conditions were not ideal (a bit warm to start with followed by rain) but certainly not the extremes you get in the Alps. So for a day or two I was puzzled, but I tried to remember my race in detail to see if I could work it out.

Successful world-class coaches such as Clive Woodward and Dave Brailsford talk about dramatically improved performance coming from the sum of a large number of small gains, and of course this works for everyone, not just elite athletes.  I think what I learned last weekend is that the reverse is also true; performance can be severely compromised by an accumulation of small errors of judgement. You get one or two things wrong and the process starts; if you then don't use your brain to recognise and correct them , you just get into a downward spiral to eventual failure.

Let's go back to the beginning. 6pm on a sunny Friday evening in Coniston and we were away. The "warm-up" legs over to Wasdale went easily and I reached Seathwaite in 1hr 39mins (plan 1,45), Eskdale in 3,23 (3,30) and Wasdale in 4,56 (5,00). The views were stunning, particularly looking back to Burnmoor Tarn with a stream of headlamps reflecting off the still water, and it felt a pleasure and a privilege to be on the course. I should mention two things here though. Firstly, I don't get thirsty, not running, not even in a normal day. If I go for a walk in the hills a litre will keep me going for 8 hours or so in normal conditions. So the received wisdom of "drinking to thirst" just doesn't work for me, and I've had to work out what I think I should take in. In ultras I normally drink about a litre every three hours in the early, more active parts of a race, going down to a litre every four hours after tiredness slows me down. I don't know how this water intake compares with other runners, I would be interested to know. As it was a warm evening at the start, I upped this a bit for the first leg or two, then cut back to a litre per three hours as it got cooler between Wasdale and Braithwaite. I found the climbs over the passes easy enough, kept jogging the downhills and flats, and had drunk 3,5 litres by the time I got to Braithwaite, which I reached in 9,41 (10,00 plan). 

The second issue I have is that I don't like the taste of water on its own, so I'm always playing around with different flavours. On Friday I was using SIS GO Hydro Tablets which I hadn't used much before but which had a pleasant lemon flavour. But because this is an electrolyte I was not taking Succeed (S-Caps), which I usually use when hydrating with "non-electrolyte" drinks. This may have been mistake No 1, playing with a non-familiar electrolyte. I'm not sure, because latest thinking seems to be that electrolyte supplements are over-rated anyway, but the wisdom of doing this certainly played on my mind a bit later in the race.

However, on checking back, my first clear mistake in this first 30-odd miles is that I ate too much in relation to the water I was drinking. It's easy to eat early on in a race, particularly if you choose to walk all the uphills, so with ginger cake, flapjack, soup (brilliant at both Wasdale and Buttermere!) supplemented by regular gels and shotbloks, I took in about 1500 calories before Braithwaite. Now I think the figure is that you can digest while active is around 200/300 calories per litre of water, which meant I needed nearer to 5-7 litres instead of the 3,5 litres I had drunk. So by Braithwaite, although I didn't know it, I was already either over-full or dehydrated.

Braithwaite is a sort of oasis in the Lakeland 100, the end of the really tough ground, the first place you can get inside for a bit of a break, the first place serving real food. I was pleased with my efforts so far so rewarded myself with two full bowls of pasta and sauce, and a couple of cups of tea. You can see where we're going here (although I couldn't at the time), the food to liquid balance, already bad, just got a lot worse. Walking out of the hall I suddenly didn't feel great, but just put it down to eating too quickly, I felt I just needed to digest the food so decided to walk along the road and up the hill to the Glenderaterra valley. Once past the Latrigg car park I started running all the flats and downhills again, feeling that I was going strongly, although I still felt queasy and the SIS drink was now a real turn off. I drank nothing during the leg but had a cup of tea at the Blencathra checkpoint.

Another error was coming up here. At this point, in my bit of the field it was mid-morning and starting to get hot. I read a report recently about the recent extra-hot Western States race this year where the RD at the briefing said something like "It's going to get hot. Forget about your pre-planned splits and slow down. Drink plenty and you'll survive".  What happens if you go too fast in hot weather and don't drink enough is that your body temperature rises and you feel nauseous. In the 18 miles from Blencathra to Dalemain I drank maybe 750ml of water in tiny sips, plus a cup of tea at Dockray. I had stopped putting the SIS tabs in but could not drink enough water in one go to use the S-Caps (you need a good slug of water when you take one or you tend to get immediately sick). So no electrolytes from here. On the walk up to the Old Coach Road I passed Nick Ham who was struggling. He said he felt he had overdosed electrolyte and might have to pull out (he didn't, he went on to finish in under 34 hours) but that didn't help my current frame of mind in trying to work out what was wrong with me. And instead of slowing down I speeded up. I had this idea sort of pre-programmed into my brain that this is the part of the course where you have to get a move on because it's so runnable, jam for nothing sort of thing. The result was that I did this 18 miles almost an hour faster than I had planned, arriving at Dalemain in 16hrs 52 min (against an 18 hour plan).

I had it in mind that having a good rest at Dalemain would put me right. I lay down for a quarter of an hour or so at the checkpoint, chatting briefly to Jon Steele who was there at the same time and just getting ready to leave. I then managed to drink two cups of Coke and two cups of tea slowly, and had a bowl of beef stew. After about 45 minutes I didn't really feel any better, but it was hot and there was no real shade either inside or outside the checkpoint marquee so I decided to push on. I walked steadily along to Pooley Bridge then up the hill onto Askham Fell, with a continuous stream of good wishes from Lakeland 50 starters coming past me. When the ground levelled out before the Cockpit everyone around me was running, so I started to run too (why, I ask in retrospect!!), and kept up a steady jog all the way to Howtown which I reached at around 1.40pm. I hadn't drunk anything since Dalemain so felt pretty rough when I arrived.  I was even more determined this time to get sorted out so I just lay down on the grass at the back of the checkpoint and sipped my way through another couple of cups of tea. I told the checkpoint staff I was going to be there a while. After an hour or so I still didn't feel any different but I reasoned that walking slowly wasn't going to be any worse than just sitting around doing nothing, so I set off again.

Now that the main rush of the Lakeland 50 had gone through, I was going no slower than the people around me as I made my way up Fusedale, overtaking some people on the way. But by the time I got to the point where the path starts its final right-left push for the top my energy level had pretty well reached rock bottom. Normally I never stop on climbs, but on this one I just had to sit down. I considered the situation. It seemed to me that I wasn't going to get through this bad patch, which had now been going on for something like 10 hours. I was no nearer to being able to drink any real volume of water than I was at Braithwaite more than 35 miles back. I might get over to Mardale but it was unlikely that I could get any further. Decision made, it was over for today. I turned round and went slowly back to Howtown, where I retired from the race at 4.25pm. As I sat around at the checkpoint waiting for the bus back to Coniston, L100 runners were still arriving at Howtown, well over 3 hours after I had first got there; some of these people finished the event through to Coniston.

Getting back to Coniston took a while, I was back at maybe 10pm. Getting off the bus, I went immediately to the food counter in the school to satisfy a craving for lemonade and crisps. After that I felt fine.

So what is the learning from this? Well, from the story so far you can see that I made a number of mistakes which led to dehydration, and I then carried on making mistakes which prevented me from resolving the situation, which I could otherwise have done at many points throughout the day. Even at Howtown, had I sat around for two or three hours instead of one it is very likely that I could have got going again and completed the race. So my biggest takeout from this failure is that dehydration affects your judgement  - once your brain stops working logically then you're in danger of getting out of control. I'm never going to let this happen again. Pulling out of an event is a rare occurrence for me, and it hurts!

Practically, I'll do what I should have done long ago, take weight measurements over plenty of long training runs to get a better idea of how much fluid I do actually lose over a range of conditions, so I know how much I should be drinking (It's a genuine problem, I went out rock climbing near Llanberis yesterday; we were away from the car for over 6 hours, I drank nothing and didn't feel thirsty). I'll pay more attention to the calorie to fluid balance in future. And I'll try and get it programmed into my brain that if things are getting bad, the only practical way out of the situation is to stop and sort it out!

And the Lakeland 100? Well, after success in 2011, I thought I had its measure. Now there's a ghost to be laid. I'll be back next year.

Pacing and the Lakeland 100

With the Lakeland 100 coming up in two weeks I thought I'd better re-familiarise myself with bits of the course that I haven't seen for a couple of years, particularly those done in the dark, so yesterday morning I got myself up early to be parking in Coniston at 6.30am ready for a long and probably hot day.

It's surprising how much the countryside changes, or is managed, over a period of two years. The old rocky defiles of the Walna Scar Road have been filled in to make it almost motorway-smooth and the deforestation around Grassguards Farm has changed its appearance completely  - and the new forestry road there has helped dry out the very boggy section to our advantage! Even the minor details change over time. The first time I reccied the route back in 2009, the final turn up to Sail Pass before Braithwaite was so obscure that I missed it and had to go back. Then it grew a cairn, now the cairn has got big enough to fall over and the "turn" is quite clearly the most-used path at the junction  -  the Lakeland 100 is creating its own trails, as the Bob Graham has done over the years. Well, the day was as hot as predicted, so I walked anything that smelled of uphill and jogged the rest at a very modest pace, and eventually arrived at Braithwaite after nine and a half hours on the go. Good enough. A quick ramble from Ambleside to Coniston next week to remember the fell after Tiberthwaite and I'll be good to go. I ran this in the Lakeland 50 last year but just made it to the finish in daylight, and things change in the dark.

So I started putting together some sort of plan for the race. Now the Lakeland 100 is quite a gnarly event, not to be taken lightly, and a certain amount of unpleasantness ensues if you get it wrong. By my own rule of thumb I should be able to get round in about 30 hours (3x Lakeland 50 time), but my ambition this year is for a completion in good shape, in whatever time it takes - I don't want a long recovery period afterwards with the UTMB coming up 5 weeks later. Allow a few hours spare for the wheels to come off occasionally and this means I'm targeting 35 hours. In any case my record in this event isn't great; in 2010 I stopped at Ambleside, by that stage going too slowly to complete in the 40 hours, and in 2011 I finished in 37:39 having had to stop for a longish sleep at Kentmere, so a 35 hour plan seems sensible. 35 hours is an average of 3 miles an hour start to finish, including stops. Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that the strategy for completing this race and enjoying most of it (we do this for fun remember) has two key elements:

1. Get to Braithwaite feeling good. By here, you've all the really tough stuff behind you but it's still only one third distance. If you're feeling bad by here, the rest is going to hurt quite a lot.

2. Don't waste energy early on running in places where you should walk. There is a lot of easy ground in the middle and later parts of the course, and having to walk this at three miles an hour or less is a great way to ruin your overall average.

So I put together an initial plan which sees me at Seathwaite in 1.45, Wasdale Head in 5 hours, and Braithwaite in 10 hours, and so on. Out of interest, I then checked this against Nick Smith's time split predictor based on the 2010 race actual finishes  -  http://climbers.net/race/Lakeland100-2010. What I found was a bit of a shock. Plugging a 35 hour target  into Nick's model told me I should be at Seathwaite in 1.21  and Braithwaite in 8.31 -  suicidally fast according to my thinking. But there are two linked factors at play here, both coming from the way that Nick has constructed the model (don't get me wrong, this is not a criticism, it's a great and fascinating tool, you just have to understand the way that it works).

The figures are based on the times that runners actually took in the 2010 event. I looked a bit closer at the sensitivity of the target time, and a very abbreviated spread is shown below:

You can see for example that if you target a 33 hour finish the model tells you to start much more conservatively than for 35 hours. What happened is that the 35 hour result was skewed by two competitors in particular who started out at the model's 30 hour pace then "blew up" and finished very slowly indeed. So if you use this model to have a go at planning your race, check the sensitivities on either side of your target before you go firm on a plan.

But the second and more important point is that the model reflects what runners actually did, and not perhaps what they ought to have done. My stake in the ground here is that I believe that the majority of runners, and especially middle to back of pack performers, start far too fast when competing in long distance events. It may appear that I'm diametrically opposed to Stuart Mills here (we've had some debates about it!) but I don't think I am. A couple of points to think about:

1. I've analysed the results of a lot of races over the past few years, and one very consistent trend that comes out is that over the course of a race, slower performers slow down significantly more than faster ones. The good guys keep running all the runnable bits, they just go slower. The weaker performers are walking everything way before the end. Now assuming that you are unlikely to walk at much faster than a 15 minute mile pace, whereas even a slow jog gets you 12 minute miles on level ground or downhill, being able to run the runnable stuff for as long into the event as possible pays huge dividends. To do this you need to conserve your energy early on, not run uphills at a marginally faster rate than you could walk them.

2. As everyone says, overall performance in ultras, and particularly how you fare when you have a few miles already done, is largely governed by your mental attitude. How do you stay feeling good, and therefore focussed on the task in hand. Some runners (most likely near the front) will get this from feeling competitively successful, beating their peers, having a chance to win and so on. I know people who feel good so long as they are ahead of their plan, beating their splits  - a danger here of course is that if you fall behind your plan the motivation takes a big knock. After well over 50 marathons and ultras in the past few years I know what keeps me going - I like to feel, until the finish is comfortably in sight, that I have "something in hand", I could go faster if I chose but I'm taking it easy. You only get this by starting conservatively. I've done races where it hurt from a quarter of the way in; I don't like it and I try to not let it happen these days - if things start to feel tough I slow down, have a rest, get it sorted now rather than hanging on hoping that things will improve. I've done marathons with both negative and positive splits; we could argue forever over which gets you the fastest time on the day, but I know which ones feel better, the ones where you're accelerating to the finish rather than desperately hanging on. Of course everyone slows down in an ultra, but it's the perceived effort that's the key. When you're 50 miles in, does it still feel fun? Remember, we're not talking here about winning the race or getting your absolute best time, we're talking about finishing the event successfully and in good shape.

So as we set out on the 26th July, I'm expecting to be one of the last to reach Seathwaite. But I'm also hoping to be able to run the newly-surfaced Garburn Road down to Troutbeck a few (!) hours later. If you're interested this is my plan:

But I have a number of ex-military friends who say that the only thing that you can guarantee about a plan is that it never survives the first contact with the enemy.

West Highland Way Race 2013

I love this race. No straightforward reason, I'm not Scottish and it doesn't really play to my strengths  -  too much running and not enough technical ground for my liking  -  but put to the ultimate Desert Island Discs test, if all but one of your selections were washed away, then yes, this is the one that I would save.

Maybe it's the simple logic of the course; you start somewhere and head for somewhere else, a real journey rather than a constructed circle of difficulty getting you back to where you started. Maybe it's the scenery, on a scale we don't get south of the border. Maybe the escalating wildness from the rural farmland of the lowlands to the empty loneliness of the Lairig Mor. Maybe the commitment required, for there are many sections where you don't see habitation for many miles and there is no option of ducking out, just a choice between going on or going back. Maybe all of these, but I'm sure the main thing that sees me and many others returning year after year is to share the experience again with all the folk who organise, marshal, support, and run this iconic event. The West Highland Way "family" is indeed real.

This year the weather gods were much kinder after two years of deluge, Race Director Ian Beattie and his team upped the professionalism a further notch with immaculate organisation including chip timing for the first time, and the runners responded with an avalanche of superb performances.

Paul Giblin arrived in Fort William just 15 hours and 7 minutes after leaving Milngavie, breaking what we all thought was an outstanding record already by a cool half hour plus. The figure that I personally find hard to get my head around is that Paul covered the 95 miles, with its 14700ft of ascent, rocky and bouldery trails, stream and road crossings, and countless gates and stiles, at an average pace of 9 minutes 33 seconds per mile - amazing. Marco Consani got second place with a time that would have won the race in every other year of its history except for the record-breaking runs of Jez Bragg, Terry Conway, and of course Paul. Richie Cunningham came third, recording his fourth sub 17-hour finish, a consistency no other runner can come near. And Gareth Bryan-Jones finished in just over 26 hours at the age of 70, beating nearly half the starters in the process. For the ladies, Rosie Bell retained her title with a substantial improvement on her personal best, which she needed because in the nine weeks since the Highland Fling Race, Lorna McMillan emerged as a rising star to push her all the way. This year, the Scots claimed their premier ultra as their own!

Against this background my own day out seems pretty pedestrian, but I'll tell the story anyway.

After managing to crack 24 hours back in 2010, I had rather lost my way with the race. For the past two years I'd come without a real plan which resulted in two mediocre performances. This year I thought it was time to give it my best shot again.  I did a bit more "WHW-specific" training and decided I was good enough to go for the Saturday finish, that is to complete the course in just under 23 hours. To give myself a bit of wiggle room I put together a schedule for 22 and a half hours.

The usual suspects were there in the station yard on Friday evening. We spent time meeting and catching up, wishing each other luck, complained that we hadn't done the training we should have done, then we listened to Ian's briefing and headed off into the night. I had decided to start more aggressively and set myself a target of 2:09 to Drymen, which I beat by 5 minutes and still ended up squarely in the second half of the field  -  it seems almost everyone starts this race fast! My strategy after this initial "sprint" was simple  -  walk everything uphill and jog the rest, hopefully to the finish.

As the darkness turned into mist, we had an inkling that the promised very wet forecast wasn't going to be right. In fact, the day turned into almost perfect running conditions, cool with almost no wind, just the occasional heavy shower. Garabhan and Conic were uneventful and I sidled in to the first checkpoint, Balmaha (19 miles), on 3:34 in 77th place. I'd told the crew (Jan and Julia at this stage) to get me out of checkpoints as quickly as possible  -  my schedule didn't allow for stops but I had 30 minutes overall to play with - so it was a quick milkshake, change the water bottle and off along Loch Lomond.

I'm always surprised at how quickly a field of nearly two hundred gets spaced out along this course, and apart from a short while with Ian Rae I was on my own for most of the way to Rowardennan (27 miles) which came up in 5:18, spot on schedule. Looking at John Kynston's post-race spreadsheet, I now know I was 54th fastest from Balmaha to Rowardennan, so speeding up relative to the field but it felt easy enough. I know that I have to be careful from Rowardennan to Beinglas because it's country that I enjoy and can cover fast, but if I overdo it I know that I will pay later, as I have on several previous races. So I carried on walking every hill and arrived at Inversnaid (34 miles) in 6:55. A very midgie place but a novel idea of a "midge-free tent" provided by the marshals here, so I snuck inside for a custard and my first sit-down since Milngavie.

I walked almost all the way from Inversnaid to Beinglas, most of it in company with Keith Ainslie who was running his first WHW and hoping to get under 24 hours (he did!).  Even at a gentle pace the miles seemed to pass quickly. We caught up with Tony Thistlethwaite after a couple of miles or so. Tony is a fellow "vintage" runner who I have shared many miles with along this course over the years. He kept saying that he wasn't bothered about the time, he just wanted to finish as this would be his tenth completion, but Tony is a class act and still went on to finish well under 23 hours. Beinglas came up in 8:38, just a couple of minutes ahead of plan. What a difference an hour or so makes. In this year's Fling I was here in 7:30 and knew I was going to have a bit of a battle to keep going - now I was absolutely fine and raring to continue. I was 45th fastest from Rowardennan to here, still speeding up but still conservative. It was good to see Jan and Julia again but this was another "splash and dash" stop so I was there only a couple of minutes.

I left Beinglas with Tony but he was jogging some of the uphills so he soon opened up a gap of a few hundred yards. I've had some tough times on this bit so I took it gently. The only thing of note was how clean and dry the track was in the area where the cows normally congregate. No cows today, nor the hundred yards or so of ankle-deep agricultural slop that goes with them - a real bonus. I caught Tony again at the big gate above Bogle Glen - the halfway point of the race in distance - and we continued more or less together to Auchtertyre (50 miles), which I reached in 10:49. I was 27th fastest from Beinglas which really surprised me as it didn't feel fast at all. I think I maybe know the ground so well now that I know where to run and where to save energy on this mainly uphill stretch.                                         

Topping up supplies at Auchtertyre

Auchteryre is lunchtime, especially if you've been up since 1.00am, but I've made the mistake in the past of eating too much too quickly here and then not being able to move at a more than a waddle for the next several miles, so now I grab the sausage rolls, Mars bars, ginger beer and so on and eat them at a more leisurely pace on the long uphill out of Tyndrum. This meant I was able to run quite a bit of the few miles from Auchtertyre to Tyndrum before this. As I walked up the hill munching away Jon Steele came down the track in the opposite direction. Jon and Shirley were not running today but supporting Garry Scott, who was always half an hour or so ahead of me -  and an hour and a quarter at the end!

From the top of the hill, I know it is really easy running all the way to Bridge of Orchy so I carried on at a steady pace all the way, breaking my rule of not running the uphills, because on this stretch they are so gentle. At Auchtertyre I had thought I'd seen Jan for the last time for the day, and Julia for the last time until Kinlochleven. John was unable to join the team at the start because he'd been to a friend's wedding on the Friday, and we'd speculated what time he would be able to arrive, but he'd contacted the ladies and they were meeting for lunch in the Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum after I was through Auchtertyre. The plan was for the ladies to go to Fort William, check in and have some sleep while John covered the Bridge of Orchy and Glencoe stops. So I was quite surprised to see them all at our usual meeting point in the station car park. Julia's greeting was "Slow down, you're going too fast!". I was into the station in 12:46, about 15 minutes ahead of plan, so maybe I should have taken it a bit easier but it felt good at the time. They had decided that Jan would stay in Fort William after this stop, but that John and Julia were happy to go through to the end.

I used a bit of my time cushion to have a cup of tea, then set out down the road to the Bridge of Orchy checkpoint (60 miles) which I reached in 12:56. Tim and Muriel Downie were marshalling here this year but only Muriel was in evidence as I checked in. She said Tim was back in their camper. I set off at a steady walk up the hill but before I'd gone a hundred yards or so I heard running footsteps behind me, and Tim came flying past. "Couldn't let a West Highland Way Race go by without overtaking you at some point!" We walked a few yards then he wished me well, and I carried on up to Murdo and the jelly babies. At least it wasn't raining continuously on Murdo this year. He told me that John Kynaston was half an hour or so ahead of me, but he also had the news that Paul Giblin was well through Kinlochleven and looked on for a new course record. We chatted a minute or two then I pressed on, enjoying the downhill to Victoria Bridge.

I had already decided that my "walk the uphills" strategy had to be compromised for Rannoch Moor, because it's very nearly all uphill and would take forever walking. In previous years I had adopted a run/walk strategy, walking for a few hundred yards every so often to get a breather. This time, apart from a couple of short sections on the first long hill, and the last steeper half mile to the final summit, I ran the lot. On this last steeper bit I passed Karl Zeiner, which surprised me as he is a much better runner than me but he was obviously going through a bad patch (he came through it OK and finally re-passed me shortly after Lundavra)

Approaching Glencoe checkpoint (photo Jonathan Bellarby)

I felt OK coming down the slope to the checkpoint, but for the first time that day I also felt that I'd already come a long way - not quite the spring in the step I'd had at Balmaha!

I reached Glencoe in 15:22 which was 27 minutes ahead of my plan. The leg from Bridge of Orchy to here was my best relative to the rest of the field, I was 22nd fastest.

But I'd gained a bit more "cushion" and I was still going relatively well and feeling very positive that this was going to be a good year for me. Soup and tea at the checkpoint, flat coke and gels to go and I was away down the road towards Kingshouse. I felt I was slow over the Devil's Staircase leg, but on reflection I walked the ups steadily, jogged the downs and flats and didn't stop at all, so it was still done in 2:45 compared with my 3:00 plan (again 27th fastest).

And so to Kinlochleven. Through the checkpoint door and there was John K. I was pleased to have finally caught him but I knew I wouldn't see him again  -  he looked fighting fit and ready for action, but I was now feeling very tired. I sat on the back of the car with John and Julia and took stock. John had already decided he would run with me over the last stretch. I had reached Kinlochleven in 18:07, in 32nd place overall.  I wasn't feeling great, but I was as good as I've ever been at this point in the race, and much quicker. I had almost 5 hours to get to the end and still break 23 hours, but 22 was tantalisingly close. On the other hand I didn't want to push too hard and blow up with the prize in sight. I wasted 10 minutes or so changing my shirt and drinking a couple of cups of tea. Ian Beattie wandered past, come on he said, three and a half hours from here, you'll be there before eleven o'clock.

No excuse for hanging around longer so John and I were away, leaving Julia to drive around to the finish. I was stronger up the hill to the jeep track than ever before, still overtaking the odd runner. The Lairig Mor, which holds a lot of memories for me of just wanting the whole thing to end, was OK. We walked the ups and ran the downs, although "running" was a very relative term by this stage, I doubt whether we made much more than 12 minute miling at best.

In the Lairig Mor, photo by Wilderness Response Team

But it was daylight, and dry, and the trees appeared much quicker than usual. Soon we could see the white gazebo of the Lundavra checkpoint, and a wisp of smoke from the bonfire. Then we heard strains of the "Rocky" theme drifting towards us. The Lundavra checkpoint was brilliant, with the fire, music and party atmosphere it was like something on the UTMB.

But we weren't stopping. I think I said something like "I'm totally knackered now, but I will finish today" to Caroline as I went past. My elapsed time was 20:25. An hour and a half from here to the end would have done it, plenty of people cover the ground in this time. But it wasn't going to happen for me today. I just got slower and slower up the hill to the forest, then quite unexpectedly a couple of coughs turned into 20 seconds of retching and I had to pause for a few minutes. I got going again OK but decided I better not blow it at this stage. I said to John that I would walk now until we were up the last climb.  A lot of runners passed me in the two miles between this point and the start of the final run down to Fort William. My 32nd place at Kinlochleven turned into 41st at the end. When we were in the forest it was tempting to run the downhills but I knew I was very tired and didn't want to fail on the last uphill. But it was great to cover this section in daylight for the first time, we only clicked on torches for a few yards in the depths of the trees, then they were off again to the finish. Eventually we started the last climb and it went steadily enough, with Donald Sandeman in his tartan shorts as ever passing me just before the top. Once the final uphill was done, we got into a steady jog all the way down the wide forest road to the Braveheart Car Park, and as we hit the road  John phoned the ladies to say we were near to the finish.

With maybe half a mile to go a figure appeared out of the gloom, running towards us. It was Tim Downie. "What kept you, I've been waiting for you?" he said. My rather ungracious reply was "I'm going to beat your time, Tim!" "And about   ****ing time too!" was the response. The three of us jogged on to the finish.

With Jan at the finish

After the congratulations and family hugs, I said "What I could really do with now is a beer !" A guy who I had never seen before in my life immediately produced one, had the cap off, and gave it to me. Everyone you meet involved with this race is special.

My time of 22:23:13 was a personal best by an hour and 11 minutes, on my seventh completion of the course. I would have settled for that at the start of the day.  Had I got home in, say, 22:50, I would have thought job done, no way you're going to beat that, relax and smell the flowers in future. But 23 minutes? It must be possible to find that from somewhere, we're learning all the time.........

The prizegiving next morning and session in the Nevis bar Sunday evening were as good as ever, great to catch up with people and hear their tales. It was particularly good to learn of runners who had been able to lay some ghosts after a disappointing year or two, producing times that truly reflect their abilities.

Someone once told me that the seventh finish is the dangerous one. Six goblets is a nice set, seven and you're probably in for the long haul. I'm afraid for me there was never any doubt. I shall keep turning up at that crazy hour in Mingavie station yard every year until someone says I can't.

Reunion with Wales

Just because my affair with the Lake District is still going strong, it doesn't mean that I haven't forgotten the dalliances of my formative years. They may not have the gentle charm and clear beauty of Cumbria but the Snowdonia hills have more of an in-your-face brashness, a "So you think you're hard enough then?" swagger which tempts, maybe even dares you to take them on.

Most years around this time, my climbing club organises a trip over the Welsh Three Thousanders. Having a hut on the steep little road that leads to the "tourist track" to Snowdon summit, it always makes sense for us take the journey North to South, starting from Abergwyngregan and finishing at our hut in Llanberis. In the 70's and 80's, maybe 20 or 30 of us would pile around to the start in the early hours of a Saturday morning, with the fittest getting back in 10 hours or less and the night shift in upwards of 20. There was a pecking order but this was by no means a race, for the majority of us did no running, we just assumed our normal activities on the hills would be preparation enough to see us round. It was more of an "outing", a bit of communally shared joy and pain, and also a yardstick to check how easy (or hard) you were likely to find the Alpine season ahead.

Over recent years its popularity has dwindled, but last Friday evening there were still half a dozen aspirants down at the hut discussing start times and tactics. Peter decided he would be slow so opted for a solo 3am start; this meant the remaining five of us would fit in one car, which we left at the tiny car park above Aber just in time for the more traditional 5am getaway and hopefully a "torchless" journey back to Llanberis. The forecast was pretty good but there was mist on the tops which we expected would disperse as the day warmed up. I hadn't done the trip for some years so was intrigued as to whether my ultra training would have any beneficial effect.

Over the first 3 or 4 miles it gradually became clear that Dave and Rupert were finding a mutually convenient pace, and likewise Kerry and Nev, so I was pretty much left to my own devices. I continued with the faster pair to the first top Foel Fras. We stopped briefly for something to eat, but the mist was still thick and the wind whipping across; I hadn't really brought enough clothes for stopping so I wished them well and jogged off into the gloom. I thought I knew these hills and I do, but I paid for a rather casual approach with two navigational errors. The first one came because I forgot to take the slight left turn from the second top Garnedd Ugain and ended up in territory that didn't feel right. Map and compass out, a quick bearing and maybe only 5 minutes lost. I was more careful in the poor visibility from there, taking bearings to find the correct direction off both Foel Grach and Carnedd Llewellyn. Returning to the col near Yr Elen after the short out and back to the summit I met Dave and Rupert coming in the opposite direction, now probably just 10 or 15 minutes behind me. From here I made my second and much bigger navigational error. Again rather arrogantly not bothering to look at the map, I remembered that a traverse of the hillside from the col should bring me out on the Llewellyn-Dafydd ridge. Easy in good visibility, in the mist I must have drifted far too low down; not reaching the ridge by the time I felt it should have arrived, I eventually worked out that I was in an area almost below the Black Ladders cliff on Dafydd, requiring a re-ascent of a few hundred feet to get back on track again.

From here the way is straightforward and I soon reached the 6th top, Carnedd Dafydd. A couple of guys on top were setting up some sort of checkpoint and seemed quite surprised to see me. I later found that they were marshals on the Welsh 1000 metre tops race which was held on Saturday. After Dafydd I finally came out of the mist and could see where I was heading. I celebrated by speeding up and almost immediately tripped on a rock, resulting in a two-inch gash on the palm of one hand. This was turning out a rather incompetent section for me! I carried on over Pen yr Oleu Wen then the long descent down to the A5 at Ogwen to meet the real heroine of the day, Tanya, who had volunteered to spend her day at the valley crossings, making tea for weary walkers and ferrying them back to the hut in the event that they decided not to continue.

But at Ogwen it was early days yet. I washed my hand in the lake and patched it up with an impressive looking length of surgical tape, then as it was quite pleasant weather down here I decided to hang around until I knew where everyone was. Dave and Rupert arrived before long, stayed half an hour then pushed on over the Glyders. A phone call revealed that Peter had missed Tanya but was now nearly up Tryfan, and after another hour or so Nev and Kerry turned up, had their teas and a little rest and were ready to go. I started with them but decided to have a bit of a blast over the next section as the weather was by now looking pretty good and clear, though there was still a chill wind. A very direct 2000ft of ascent brought Tryfan up quickly, then down over the boulders to the col and another steep pull up to Glyder Fach. From here, the Glyders relent a bit. I chatted briefly to the 1000m race marshal on Glyder Fawr, which has been not too long ago remeasured as a 1000m peak, making the race a lot tougher than it once was, then down the rather threadbare screes to the lake and on up Y Garn. Descending Y Garn I ran straight past Peter without recognising him as we both concentrated on the ground underfoot, then I enjoyed the long almost level path for a mile or so before the ascent of Elidir Fawr. Just before the top I caught Dave and Rupert again, we celebrated the last Glyder together, then I carried on down the 2500ft descent to Nant Peris, to find Tanya waiting in the car park, now in warm sunshine. I lay on the grass, drinking tea and soaking up the warmth. Dave, then Rupert soon appeared. They were tired but determined and left after a fairly brief stop. Sometime later Peter appeared and decided that he'd had enough for the day - back another time for the full monte he said. We had a text from Nev and Kerry on Y Garn and waited an hour or so. We reasoned that they were OK, just going slowly so by the time they reached us they would have run out of either steam or time so were unlikely to continue. I decided to set off after Dave and Rupert  who by now had almost an hour start on me over the last section. Twelve tops down, three to go.

I had said to Dave earlier that you are allowed to get pretty well knackered on the ascent of Crib Goch, because it's the last big one, and I decided to practice what I had been preaching so I jogged purposefully up the road to the CC hut at Ynys Ettws. From here, the way to Crib Goch summit is pretty unrelenting, up a steep grassy cwm, then scrambling up alongside the stream to the left of the Waterfall Cliff, more grass and scree, then the final ridge, pointy and exposed. No track to speak of the whole way, just get your head down and swallow the nearly 2500ft to the top. I caught the boys just as they reached the summit, and just as we all disappeared into the mist again.

From here we took things carefully. Tired people have paid for mistakes with their lives up here so the exposed ridge was taken at a steady plod, as was the scrambling up to Crib y Ddysggl, as false summit after false summit appeared out of the mist. It was safer to keep the party together, and the three of us arrived eventually at Snowdon summit, the 15th and final top, for congratulations all round. From here it is an easy and safe path back to the hut, so as I was getting cold again I pushed on and ran the final four miles down to a warm shower and dry clothes, arriving just after 9.30pm, sixteen and a half hours after leaving Aber.  I had spent just over 4 hours lazing around at Ogwen and Nant Peris, so my moving time for the trip was around twelve and a half hours, nine hours from first summit to last - for which the record, last time I looked, is somewhere around 4 hours! From Aber back to our hut is around 33 miles and just under 13,000ft of ascent.

But the figures are not so important. Those of us who set out all had a good day in the hills. Three of us made it round, and the others all got to Nant Peris, no mean feat in itself. Wales is still OK.

The Other Lakeland 100

Four weeks until the West Highland Way race; time for a solid back-to-back to check there are enough miles in the legs, then easing off a bit and trying to avoid pulling or catching things  before the annual gathering in Milngavie Station yard. But where to go? I'd done a lot on my local trails this year, no enthusiasm for more repeats. I thought about joining John Kynaston and friends on the Balmaha to Fort William trip but the logistics didn't work for me over the Bank Holiday weekend, plus it's always £100 plus in fuel up to Scotland, a lot for a couple of days training.

Then an interesting thought came up. I'd first heard about the Ultimate Trails 100k when Gaynor Prior talked me through the proposed route as we were chatting after the Fling; she assured me that it was destined to become a classic. It sounded good but coming just two weeks after the UTMB I wasn't sure what shape I was likely to be in when it came around. Since then I had forgotten about it, then remembered again, got on the website to find that places were running out fast and signed up anyway. After this a lot more places suddenly became available  - whether this was a fast response to an unexpectedly high interest or just a cute marketing move I'm not sure, but it looks like it will be a popular event. And it would clearly make a nice two day training outing. I copied the course from the website onto the map - it's all covered by Landranger 90 (Penrith and Keswick) so that's all you need. I booked accommodation for Friday night and was all set.

Now what follows is quite a lengthy ramble about my two days, but it might be of interest to anyone contemplating the 100k event and who is not yet familiar with the ground.

A 6am alarm saw me up the M6 via my normal breakfast stop (latte and chocolate twist at Burton-in-Kendal Services), parked up and jogging out of Ambleside by 8.30.  The route describes a rough circle to the north of Ambleside; start and finish on the actual event is at Brockhole, about a mile off the circular route just south of Ambleside but I wasn't really bothered about this bit and decided I would just do the circle. The forecast promised sunshine and showers with a fresh northerly breeze for Friday, and a nice day Saturday.

The first section is part of the Lakeland 100 course in reverse, over Skelgyll to Troutbeck, then the Garburn Pass to Kentmere. Nice going on good tracks to warm up. The only problem was the weather didn't know what to do, the showers were getting frequent, cold and quite heavy. In the end I got fed up with the on-off regime and left hat, gloves and waterproof top on for most of the day. Going up the Garburn Road was a bit of a surprise, someone had spread a few hundred tons of gravel and small stones up there to make the old rocky defile into quite a smooth surface - a lot of Lakeland 50/100 runners will be very grateful for this in July! Hopes that it might continue down the far side were in vain however, it's still as stony as ever down to Kentmere. The Institute, a mega checkpoint in the July events, looked rather lonely and deserted.

Kentmere Insitute with the Garburn Pass behind

From Kentmere, the route takes Nan Bield Pass over to Mardale head, a tougher but I think much finer way than  the rather scruffy jeep track used by the Lakeland 100 over Gatescarth. A runnable bridleway followed  by a steep, grassy climb finds a nice contouring path above Kentmere reservoir and into the upper valley. From here a steep but short final climb gets to the pass.

Heading for Nan Bield (centre skyline)

As I crested the pass I was hit by the full force of the wind head on, accompanied by a rather painful hailstorm, so losing height rapidly was in order. It's a rocky and fairly technical descent all the way down to Mardale head, passing the lonely Small Water en route.

Small Water on the descent from Nan Bield

I'd seen no-one since setting out from Ambleside but the car par at Mardale Head was a hive of activity with walkers setting out in all directions. The 100k course now follows a long gentle section with very  little climbing and mostly good ground underfoot for 15 miles or so - a chance to work on the average mins/mile battered by the past couple of miles maybe!  The track along the West shore of Haweswater seems endless in the Lakeland 100 when you're 70 miles or so in, but this early on in the 100k it's a delight.

Along Haweswater

A true singletrack in many places, where passing anyone in either direction requires co-operation of both parties, it winds its way along the margin of the lake with changing scenery and continual interest all the way.

The Lakeland 100 course is left at Measand Beck after 3 or 4 miles, and the 100k carries on along the lake on a track which gets much wider then leads to a surfaced road at the dam; this is followed along to Bampton, where I was able to top up supplies at the village store for the first time since leaving Ambleside.  The course follows the road for another mile or so past Beckfoot, then up a short hill to a junction where a bridleway is followed leftwards towards Askham Fell. After a gate, two tracks are visible on the grass ahead, the right hand one leads to another road crossing by a fingerpost and you carry straight on on a good and easily runnable bridleway, slightly rising onto the open fell.

Bridleway onto Askham Fell

Now as anyone who has done the Tour de Helvellyn (TdeH) race in December will tell you, what you see on the map may not actually help you in getting across Askham Fell (although to be fair, tackling it in the dark when it's covered in snow does make it a bit harder).  In the 100k, the bridleway you come in on is fairly easy to follow in good visibility, and in a mile or less gets you to a standing stone at a crossroads. A left turn takes you directly to the Cockpit along a path that is very boggy in places and not great to follow in mist, whereas overshooting by going straight on will get you to a better track which comes up from Pooley Bridge and is taken by the Lakeland 100, and turning left along it gets you to the Cockpit with the penalty of a couple of hundred yards at most. On Friday it was clear, easy running, with the added bonus that on turning left the headwind that I'd been battling for twenty miles or so then became a great tailwind for the rest of the day.  

I always enjoy the section from the Cockpit to Howtown. The track now becomes easy to follow and it's gently descending most of the way with a reasonable surface, great running. TdeH regulars normally drop down onto the road before Howtown and take the track cutting the road zigzags up to Martindale Church,

From Howtown towards Martindale Church

but the 100k map tells you to carry on along the track to its end at Mellguards. From there another track leads immediately onto the grass on the left, over the Fusedale road, then follows a really nice ascending track up to the back of the church, avoiding Howtown completely (unless there's a checkpoint there).

A short section of road leads from the church, down then slightly up and round into Boredale. The road carries on a mile or so up the valley, but there's only a farm and no parking up there so there's never any traffic and it's still pleasant running. I was pleased that I was still going easily and managed to put in a ten minute mile up here (that's good for me if you don't know me!). I didn't know it at the time, but Boredale is the last really easy running for a long way on the 100k course, so if you do the event, make the most of it!

Boredale   (Boredale Hause mid skyline)

Boredale Hause looks quite daunting in the distance, but as it gets closer you realise that the final steep bit which you can't run is very short, and the top comes quite quickly, then it's a steepish but cruisy run down into Patterdale. At this point the showers seemed to have stopped for good, the sun was out, and it was looking like we might get a nice evening.

My Garmin had clicked 32 miles (50k) coming over Boredale Hause, so Patterdale's not far off the halfway point of the trip. It was early enough to get a bus back to Ambleside from here but I thought it would be nice to have a bit more in the bag on day one, so I continued over the next section. This goes up Grisedale to the tarn then down to Dunmail Raise. This is another section taken in reverse on the TdeH so I knew the ground well. After a steep hundred yards or so of road, the first two thirds of Grisedale is a nice runnable road then track. I saw my first deer of the trip, running fast over the fellside to my left. A mile or so short of the tarn the track crosses to the right of the valley and climbs more steeply over rocky ground to the tarn outlet, tedious in descent but not so bad going up. Still a fierce cold wind from behind as I reached the tarn, and clouding over again making it a fairly gloomy place this evening.

A gloomy Grisedale Tarn

The TdeH links the Raise Beck track to the tarn outlet via the boggy ground to the North of the tarn, but the 100k course map takes you to the South up to Grisedale Hause, then back along the third side of the triangle to Raise Beck - twice as far and with more height gain, but it is the route.

Descent to Dunmail Raise

The descent track alongside Raise Beck down to Dunmail Raise is steep and rocky, difficult to take quickly unless you have some real skill and nerve (neither for me!) but it's not too long and I was soon down to the busy main road. A good enough shift for one day as was now 5,30pm, and I was lucky enough to catch the bus back to Ambleside within 10 minutes or so.

A shower, a chilli and a couple of beers and the evening passed nicely. Next morning, after a good sleep and a full English, I stepped out into a completely cloudless Lake District day, in time for the 9.30 bus back up to Dunmail.  An easy start, downhill on the track above the fell wall towards Thirlmere, over Birkside Gill footbridge then the easy, sweeping track down to the main road. Immediately opposite, the route follows the minor road round the West side of the lake for a mile to Dob Gill.

Start of the track by Dob Gill

Wainwright has nothing good at all to say about the track that goes up the hillside from here, but that was at least 50 years ago and it's not too bad now. It starts pretty steeply alongside the plantation then eases as it turns into where trees have now been felled. This area would be very boggy in bad weather, but there are decaying boardwalks over the deepest hollows,  and you soon reach the outflow of the badly overgrown Harrop Tarn.

Harrop Tarn

The track improves here and signposts to Watendlath at junctions avoid any map-reading as you wind up through the trees to the top of the plantation.

Once through the deer gate and out onto the open fell above however, the situation changes. All of this high ground between the Thirlmere and Borrowdale valleys is notorious for being not only a tricky place in mist, but also one of the boggiest areas in the whole of the Lake District.  If you do the 100k and have managed to keep your feet dry so far, this is where it will end!  In clear weather, the track up to the high point is reasonably easy to follow, and the gate in the summit fence confirms that you're in the right place.

Summit gate between Dob Gill and Watendlath

Straight on from here for a short distance and Blea Tarn comes into view. The route skirts the North-East side of the tarn and then heads for Watendlath. It's just about visible on the ground if you're sharp, but the key is to keep to the cusp of the high ground on the right of Bleatarn Gill, if you lose too much height to the left you're in trouble as the gill goes into quite a deep ravine lower down. It felt quite bizarre covering this ground on Saturday, squelching along with completely soaked feet under a cloudless blue sky in the hot sunshine. Eventually you reach a wall above Watendlath which defines the direction better, but ironically the path also becomes much easier to see on the ground from here.

Approaching Watendlath

Eventually the wall turns downhill and the track follows it, and after a few hundred yards of newly maintained path the hamlet is reached. The track out on the other side is uphill and looks arduous, but the up turns out to be very short and leads to an easy runnable track, level for a little way then descending all the way down to Rosthwaite. This is a busy path, especially on a Saturday because the short walk from Rosthwaite to Watlendath is a popular excursion; running to the side of the track to avoid traffic I managed a crowd-pleasing fall which resulted in a plastering of mud from shin to cheek; I stopped by the stream just before Rosthwaite to get off as much as I could.

Turning left just before Rosthwaite, the route follows the left side of the beck so you miss both Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite by a pleasant runnable bridleway, then you turn right up Langstrath. The route now follows the left side of Langstrath for several miles, along a track marked as the "Cumbria Way" on the map. It gains almost no height but it's very bouldery so you can't get into any sort of rhythm - it's slow going and hard work  -  frustrating as there is a much easier path on the other side of the beck used my most of the walkers I saw!

Langstrath

The two tracks meet at a footbridge below the final ascent up to Stake Pass. This goes up a steep but excellent newly rebuilt path, making the climb really easy, especially as you know that it's the last major climb on the round. Some nice level ground across the top, then a rocky but fairly easy descent leads down into Mickleden at the head of Langdale, from where a wonderfully runnable track takes you all the way to the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel. With the hot day I was tempted to have a break here, but decided to carry on to the New Hotel instead. I faffed around here trying to find the track marked on the 100k route map, eventually realising that you have to turn off up the fellside before going through the gate at the back of the ODG. Now to jog along the level road between the two hotels takes maybe 5 minutes, following the track takes maybe three times that as it gains and loses height along its boulder-strewn way. Makes you wonder whether Gaynor has deliberately searched out every rocky track in  the district to follow!

Stickle Barn at the NDG in the sunshine

A stop at the NDG was definitely needed after this. I had originally thought of a cold Coke, but when I saw the Cornish Doom Bar pump on the bar I couldn't resist it, with crisps and nuts to go with it. Perhaps not the best way to rehydrate but it was a lovely day and I was getting near the end of the trip now.

Across the road from the bar, the 100k now follows the Lakeland 100 route again down Langdale, rocky for a bit then smooth and easy to run as far as Elterwater. But here, where the Lakeland 100 comes along the flat path by the river, the 100k leaves it again to go in search of Loughrigg Tarn. 

Up the hill out of Elterwater

A minor road leads out of Elterwater, then as it reaches the main valley road a footpath is indicated straight ahead up the fellside. There are a lot of paths here, and it's probably best to follow the one nearest to the wall on the right, which eventually leads out onto a minor road again. The route turns right onto the road, then after a short distance dives off into the National Trust property High Close. A pleasant run down through the gardens leads to another minor road, and another few yards down this to a private road leading off left towards Loughrigg Tarn.

Road past Loughrigg Tarn

From here back to Ambleside is part of a walk that my wife and I do quite often. The road past the tarn is in a beautiful setting, and lovely to run along. At its end you pass through a gate and turn sharp left at the track crossroads. All that is left is to climb over the flank of Loughrigg Fell, now once again back on the Lakeland 100 track. A short up, a horizontal section alongside a wall, then the final climb comes into view. I know from many trips that it looks steep but isn't when you get there and the top comes soon enough. All that was left of my day was to jog down the easy slope on the far side and up through the park back to Ambleside.

It was a really enjoyable two days. I think the Ultimate Trails 100k is a beautiful route, very varied, offering a bit of everything that the Lake District has to offer. Balanced difficulty throughout, with the second half maybe a little tougher than the first. I think my strategy in September will be to not sweat too much over the climbs and technical ground, but take them at a comfortable pace. There is enough runnable stuff spaced out through the course to go a bit faster on that if you have the legs. For interest, my Garmin made the distance of the loop 63 miles (remember I didn't do the start/finish "leg"), and the total height gain just short of 11,000 ft. It took me fifteen and a half hours over the two days to complete the loop, and was an ideal choice for my back-to-back weekend. The Lake District rarely lets you down.

Last ascent over Loughrigg

Done