Over The Contours

Red Burn On something of a whim, Abigail and I had decided to drive to the Highlands for three days in the October break. The weather forecast wasn't brilliant, but I was determined that if we'd driven all that way I would have a crack at running Britain's highest mountain. So, early on a dark and misty October morning, I left our hotel and took the short drive to Fort William. I parked at the Glen Nevis visitors centre. The car park was empty, except for one chap who I overtook just as I crossed the River Nevis. As the day started to break, I started to climb. At first the gradient was relatively tame, however, the path soon became steep and the steps deeper. I had originally planned to run a circular route over the Carn Mor Dearg arete, however, visibility was very poor and so I opted to run a simple out and back along the main tourist path. The CMD would have to wait until another day. The steepening path, and the worsening weather, made the ascent heavy going....

Chester is a special place and I have many fond memories of my 'home' city; countless visits with my mum and dad when I was a kid, trips with my mates as a teenager, driving there when I'd first passed my driving test and visits with my wife, Abigail. So, it was quite apt that on Sunday 7th October 2018 I was able to make another happy memory in the city. As the town crier sounded the race start klaxon, a few thousand runners made their way off the Roodee Racecourse. I was one of them. I'd managed to get fairly close to the front pen, just behind the 3 hour pacers. As we left the racecourse and headed onto the city's streets, I broke into a comfortable stride and pace. I started to move a little quicker than the 3 hour pacers; I wasn't too concerned about this as I'd probably slow down at some point and end up behind them. We passed under the Eastgate Clock; I smiled as I reminded myself how much training I'd put in for this. I was hoping to finish...

Heading up Whiteless Pike Sitting at my desk at some point in early summer I'd plotted a speculative fell running route from Buttermere via Whiteless Pike and Crag Hill, all the way over to Causey Pike and Barrow. If I'm perfectly honest, I saved it and then never looked at it again until we arrived in the Lakes on our next trip. The route was around 12 miles, not huge, but there was a hefty amount of ups and downs. I saw it as a greedy run in that the route deliberately did lots of out and backs and criss-crossing to pack in as my Wainwrights as possible. Regardless, I loaded the route onto my watch, plotted the route on my OS map and set off very early on a Sunday morning in late August. I parked next to the church in Buttermere. The sun had only really just risen and, looking up towards Whiteless Pike and beyond, most of my route appeared to be in the clouds. I ran down into Buttermere village, crossed the bridge opposite the Bridge Hotel and took a sharp right followi...