Middle Pack

So what to do the day after a hard AL fell race? Well in our wisdom Andy and I sat in a pub in Sedbergh planning the next couple of days. We decided to have a go at a traverse of all 31 hills in the Howgills that are above 1500ft. This was first done by Alan Evans of Kendal and Hugh Symonds holds the record for this at 4 hours 49 minutes. We knew we would be no-where near that time and would just be happy to finish.

Sitting in the pub looking at the map made my thighs ache at the thought of some of

those steep descents. the up and down nature of the course screamed pain to me but hey, its only a day of running and if I am honest, I will be walking most of it.

On waking up the stark difference in the days was amazing. Sunday was wind, rain, cloud. Monday was blue skys, no wind, and great visability for miles around.

We had camped a couple of miles from the start of the route (top of Wandale) so on getting ready we slowly jogged our way there. It was already getting hot and the first hill felt laboriously long. I was hoping this wasn’t a sign of things to come as this was a small hill in comparison to some of the others.

A quick look round at some great views and we were off directly across the valley. 2 minutes later we were reduced to a slow walk up the other side of the valley. A deer looking at us quizzically before bounding off showing us how we should be running. On hitting this checkpoint we were soon plummiting down the other side and all too soon reduced to a sweating painful slog up the next hill.

This plummet off a hill, slog up a hill was getting all too familiar as we were approaching the middle section of the route. The first section was tough on tired legs but this middle section looked even harder with bigger descents and climbs between checkpoints. The start of this section was marked with a pause at checkpoint 4 of the race the previous day. Yesterday marshalls were cowering in tents. Today was glorious sunshine. We then made our way up the top of Hazelgill Knott. Then a bit of ridge running before a steep drop down to the valley floor. The valley was picture postcard. Fell ponies mingling with sheep and generally running around looking on at these two intrepid explorers invading the valley that time forgot. We crossed much of the race route in the next hour, except heading for the tops instead of the saddles, plus any other nearb tops.

After a few wobbles and issues with cramp we got through the middle section and turned finally south and started heading for the finish. Just a little case of getting a futher 11 tops on the way and we were there. One last long drop from Blease Fell down to the valley below Linghaw and then our last big climb of the day up onto the tops and heading towards the Calf. From here it was all pllain sailing. It was just ticking off the peaks as they came along.Before we knew it we were heading to Winder for the final summit of the day.

A long day on tired legs but a great outing. Good company and amazing to see how little the Howgills is explored beyond the main paths and summits.

Total for the run was 45km and 3500m which is roughly 28 miles and 11483ft (this includes getting to the start). Total for two days was 42 miles and a whopping 17483ft give or take a bit of race organisers discretionary race estimates.

Allt his made better by returning on the Monday night to find that the Rab mountain Marathon 2009 is being held in the Howgills so I am back there in a months time for more fun and adventure.

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