the lakes

a short trip to borrowdale started with fairly ok spring like sunny weather then, over the course of 5 days, descended into sub zero snow and hail storms. thats the lakes for you i guess

not wanting to hog the holiday i decided i would rise early (as usual) and get my running done early before the clan were up and ready for whatever each day's entertainments might bring. so each day i had a 3 hour running window starting from the break of daylight

day 1 - one of my favourite runs in the area, as its 100% runnable from latrig to blease fell, taking the cumbrian way round the back of skiddaw and back via lonscale fell..a lollipop route (as hayfella would refer to it) in the classic sense. not only do you get a great run but for quite little climbing effort you get some cracking views too back over to borrowdale




day 2 - a bit more of a climb today taking in catbells, maiden moor, high spy and back down into borrowdale. catbells on a busy day is to be avoided but first thing in the morning this is another favourite routing of mine, done this time from memory without a map. the weather was blustery high up to say the least and the clag constantly threatened to envelope the tops. the two shots were taken at the same time and show the stark difference between one side of the mountain and the other




day 3 - a chance to recce what will be the start of day 2 of the coast to coast...out of rosthwaite, with a continous and largely runnable climb up the valley towards grasmere common...



..with charlie boy sporting his new spring fashion wear



day 4 - the slow twisty drive in a pea souper over to ennerdale lake left little time for actual running when we arrived there. i'd originally planned on running through to black sail youth hostel and back but ended up simply running round the lake. still it was good to see this bit of the c2c in what represents the opening part of the lakeland section



day 5 - just like the weatherman had said it was blowing a freezing gale and the mountains were starting to whiteout



for our final run before heading home common sense got the better of me as i opted to simply run round derwentwater and avoid any high areas. im glad i did as it was blowing an icy cold gale even in the valley and it was easy to imagine the difficulty you could quite quickly get into high up

so what did i learn from these outings?
firstly, i need to put in much more hill work than i have been doing
secondly, i must ensure more longer back to backs as planned and will probably jettison the two 50+ mile races in scotland ive entered in favour of doing back to backs in the lakes
thirdly, my map reading aint too bad but i need some compass work in case the clag comes down on us heavily
fourthly, charlie was on top form with no problems at all
and finally, i like to make it up as i go along and not to have everything planned

oh and by the way, if you havent already done so..go and see Alice in Wonderland..absolutely fantastic...a great way to spend some post run recovery time