Over The Contours

The dreaded leg 3; the leg that I'd read so much about..."the climbing leg". Well, on Sunday it was my turn to see for myself. Leg 3 poses some logistical challenges for a recce; namely because the start (Dunmail Raise) and end (Wasdale) are a good hour and thirty minutes away from each other by car. Because of this, I'd arranged with Abigail (the BGR widow) to collect me from Seathwaite in Borrowdale. To that end, I'd run leg 3 and then walk from Wasdale Head via Sty Head to Seathwaite. After a short and slow walk from Grasmere, I reached the starting point at Dunmail Raise. It was 6.00am and there was a little collective of people parked in the lay-by. I didn't get close enough to say hello, but I have a pretty strong feeling that they were a support crew for a Bob Graham attempt. I crossed the stile and began the steep climb up to Steel Fell and Dead Pike. The weather was pretty good; no rain and relatively mild. Some patches of blue sky were appearin...

It was a sunny and mild April morning as we drove along the A66 towards Threlkeld. My legs were still a little beaten from the Manchester Marathon and from the Loughrigg Fell race the evening before, but nevertheless, I was keen to make the most of the weather and the time in the Lakes to do a recce of leg 2 of the Bob Graham round. When I plotted the route I’d come to consider leg 2 as one of the easier sections of the round; a long slog of a climb up to Clough Head from Threlkeld and then a long, but steady, ridge run over the Dodds, Helvellyn and down to the Grisedale Tarn. In a way this is exactly what leg 2 is, however, what I hadn’t accounted for was the amount of relative elevation loss and gain whilst on the ridge. Leg 2 “officially” begins in Threlkeld, heading south by the disused quarry and then onto Hausewell Brow. For convenience, Abigail dropped me off just south of Threlkeld so that I could begin the route along the Old Coach Road beneath the Threlkeld Knott...

So my Bob Graham preparations have begun in earnest. I've earmarked the summer of 2020 for my attempt and I'm doing all I can between now and then to make sure the attempt is a successful one. I've broadly broken the training down into two halves; being 'Bob Graham' fit - that is, being able to run 66 miles and 27,000ft in under twenty-four hours - and being familiar enough with each leg of the route so that navigation is as straightforward as it can possibly be on the attempt itself. The first is a little easier as I have enough hills and challenging terrain around me in Kent to get my fitness to where it needs to be. The second is a little harder as it's not as if I can nip up to the Lakes every weekend to recce each leg. What I can do however is aim to recce each of the five legs each time we visit the Lakes, which is typically four times a year. Mid-February; Abigail and I are up in the Lakes for a few days. I messaged my friend Steve to see if he would b...