The Saunders Mountain Marathon is usually a laid back affair with lots of different courses for all abilities and beer at the midcamp. This year it wasn’t so laid back as I decided to do the hardest class, Scafell. It was a particularly special mountain marathon as I wasn’t running with Richard, but instead a lady called Elsie who we met previously at the Highlander. Despite not running together in that event, we thought we would be similar abilities and we were right.
The Scafell class was a really long way. 25 k with 1530 m of climb on the first day and 21.1 k and 1035 m of climb on the second day .. straight line distances … who knows how far we actually went! The event started at Coniston on Saturday morning. We marked up our maps and set off up the Copper mines valley to our first control in a mine. From there we headed in the Wetherlam direction, over the Wrynose pass to somewhere near the Pike of Blisco. The second really long leg then took us near to Crinkle Crags and then right over to Slight Side. We were trying to visualise where the control was whilst looking at the scenery and decided that it must be two-thirds up the side of a fatal-looking, exceedingly steep scree slope. Unfortunately we were right, but fortunately the slope was passable. We continued up from the control on an even steeper bit of the hill and then reached the top from which we galloped down to Great How and then into the Eskdale Valley. By this time I was seriously getting tired, so was Elsie I think. We knew we only had two controls left, but we still had a 200 m climb up to a Rocky Knoll on Crook Crag and then a pretty long run in. After doing half of the climb, we contoured for a short while before realising that this was never going to help us reach the top, so with a few more jelly babies we launched ourselves into it finishing with a shot climb up the knoll itself. All down hill from here …. except that the next 400 m was marsh – a nightmare to run over. Nevertheless we made it through and then into the lowland forests getting to the last control before the 1400 m run-in. That was tough. We reached the campsite to hear that Richard and Alex were in 1st place by a few minutes. We were in 10th place overall which we were pretty happy about. I devoured a can of orangina and a can of cola in about 2 minutes flat and then we settled down to cooking and resting – after the 30 min wait for the water tap.
Sunday morning came too soon and we were off again. This time we headed onto Harter Fell and then over the Wrynose Pass again, flying up Mossdale Beck before the ridiculously steep climb up Little Stand. This was a good warm-up however as the next leg took us back down to the Wrynose Pass and then straight up to Swirl How and onto Wetherlam. From here we went south past Levens Water to Low Water, up the Old Man and then down to some boulders near Goats Water. After another mine entrance we made our way to the finish. It was a big day out! We picked up a place and finished 9th overall. We were only 3rd in the womens teams, however this was not unexpected given that the first and second teams were made up of elite fell runners. It was great to have such competition. Richard and Alex won the class, so well done to them!
A really great event! Thanks to Elsie for a really great event. I’m sure there will be a repeat!
I’m going to leave it there as my map stinks and I need to remove it from near the computer.
See you all next weekend for a jog.
Do you really think we would dare to jog with you???
Ian says his main sport is now Cake-eating and he would like to issue you with a formal challenge to the speed-eating and stamina events. The latter, I am told, involves a dozen cakes.
I’ve been in serious training for years :yum: :yum: :yum:
what kind of cake do you compete in? :yum:
3rd place! Yeah! :star: And only “elite” (pros?) ahead of you – cool.
:star: And a win for Richard and Alex! Awesome! π
Anna is right though, there is no chance what-so-ever of us going for a “jog” with you guys! I would be a mile behind you about a mile from the start…
Fancy some rock climbing? π
Yeah – no jogging allowed!!!
In fact, we are already working out how we can handicap you and Richard to make us all look fitter.
Did I mention that there were only 3 womens teams? π
π
But, you still did a brilliant job – and actually, I thought you were pretty elite already. What on earth do you have to do to become elite?
Results are here :star: :
http://www.slmm.org.uk/2009/overall/scafell.html
Rachel is being too modest. They were 9th out of 25 or so, but this is in the top class for pairs. That’s 9th out of (probably) the 25 best pairs in the race.
Thanks Rachel- It was a truly epic and memorable weekend π
Elsie: Did Stuart manage to sort you out with the rolling pin? π
No I’ve just been doing some stretching and that seems to have done the trick! My feet have all swollen up though π – I’ve never had that before, but I assume it’s just some reaction to running for much longer than I’m used to.
Have you all recovered yet?
Almost, I managed 7.5 miles last night with running club and although my legs were pretty heavy, it was ok. I wore the Skins compression tights (that we got at the weekend) which really helped I think!