Sump To Summit

Today was the day I’d been training for: 12 weeks of running as much as possible led to my first English Championship race.

The race covered 35 km with 2,800 m of elevation gain.

I absolutely loved it! I aimed to finish in 5 hours 30 minutes, but Chris told me that was ambitious, so my goal shifted to completing it within 6 hours.

We set off at 11 a.m., starting with the climb up Illgill Head, with Whin Rigg as our first summit. The climb was tough, and I felt as though I was towards the back of the pack. The descent from Whin Rigg was incredible—I managed to overtake many runners.

Next was a plod across the bottom of the valley. This was challenging as I didn’t want to ‘peak too soon’; I slowed my pace to drop my heart rate and let my legs recover from the first climb. After the valley, it was time for the next ascent: Seatallan. This was mostly a boggy walk…

At the summit, Geoff from the Pennine Club was marshalling the first ‘cut-off.’ I asked how long I had until the cut-off time, and to my surprise, it was only 15 minutes—bugger!

I set off quickly over the bog towards Pillar. I didn’t do too badly, catching up with some people, but I wasn’t running at my best. We gained the ridge in the cloud, and the ground became much rockier and more technical, which did wonders for my morale—it was exciting!

I finally started overtaking people as we headed up Pillar. At the summit, I was told I was ahead of the cut-off time by 20 minutes. Excellent news—now to try and make up more time! The run from Pillar, around Kirk Fell, and to the bottom of Great Gable was superb. I felt I was gaining time, choosing good lines, and overtaking a few people.

The climb/scramble up Great Gable was tough! I made a few friends on the route, who were all surprised to hear it was my first proper fell race. We summited with 35 minutes to spare.

The descent to Styhead was incredible; however, the running leg up to Esk Hause wasn’t as fun. I chatted with some nice people en route, but it was a slow uphill plod with tired legs. After Esk Hause, I suffered really bad cramp in my left quad. The weather worsened enough for me to wear my waterproof.

With my head down, I followed the people in front of me—unfortunately, they’d taken a wrong turn, leaving us lost amongst boulders in the fog. (My fault! Don’t follow people and assume they know the way). Eventually, we found ourselves and rejoined the track. We were delighted to see other runners again but annoyed that it had cost us 10 minutes.

With a final slog, I summited Scafell Pike. Getting lost may have helped because moving slowly and refinding the path gave my legs time to recover.

I thoroughly enjoyed the technical descent from Scafell Pike—until a group of “helpful” lads pointed out a right-hand turn just as I was starting to look for one. After a few minutes, it became apparent that this was not the right path. I was still in fog, but every other path had been ‘mullered’ by 150 runners, and this one was in perfect condition. I realized the error and contoured around the mountain, eventually seeing all the runners I had now overtaken twice… Bugger!!!

The final descent from Lingmell to Wasdale was superb. I let myself go for it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Overtaking lots of people, I finally crossed the line in 172nd place with a time of 6 hours 18 minutes.

Next year, I intend to take an hour off this time—18 minutes of which can easily be saved by not getting lost…

Chris, who had finished around 2 hours before me, had booked pizzas for us at a local pub. We went and enjoyed those, then drove to Ulverston for a folk festival and some beer!

It had been an awesome, hard-graft day, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I can’t wait for the next race!

Nutrition Notes: – I took:

• A handful of boiled potatoes in parmesan, with some Halloumi.
• 6 spoons of carb powder
• 4 packs of Veloforte chews
• 3 Veloforte bars

This worked quite well, though I’m sure there could be improvements in the future…