Tag Archive: Fell and trail running
It was supposed to end in champagne, not five minutes of dry retching by the side of a b-road. I wanted to tell you all how it felt to dash up to Moot Hall, surrounded by friends. Whether I’d managed a jog up the hallowed steps or had crawled on my knees. But instead, it’s time for a different tale. For the day before an attempt on a lifetime ambition, you’d think Friday would’ve been stressful but a strange calm had descended. I was neither scared nor excessively psyched, just very matter of fact. I would run 66 miles over 42 peaks because I’ve trained myself to do just that. I bought supplies, had a short nap, and chatted to my support team as they rolled in. By five to eleven I was stood at Moot Hall chatting to another round going the same time. A photo opportunity, an extra... View Article
Don’t set out to impress. It’s childish, for one thing. Bloody childish. And for another, it will get you into trouble. Because when you’re out of the slips at quicker than flat 5k pb pace running up a lakeland fell, you’ll realise you’ve once again went off too hard. I glance around. What am I doing in fifth? This is lunacy. I’m not even performing at a level where I always accept the sobriquet of ‘fell runner’ so sitting in fifth in a race in the Lakes? Absurd. Sort your life out, Jobes. But also. Also, what if all of the Bob Graham training has transformed me into being half decent at this? Only way to find out is to push harder. At the mile mark I’d lost a few places but was still top ten and, having mocked Prefontaine last blog, I decided to employ another of his maxims:... View Article
Legend has it Steve Prefontaine said, “the best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die”. That’s all well and good when you’re bombing around a track in Oregon, but Pre never looked up at Skiddaw in the clag knowing he had over twenty hours of running ahead of him. He never skidded through the bogs as you start the climb from Threlkeld up to Cleugh Head in the dark. Or had to bomb off the top of Sca Fall trying to figure what gully to take for the 3,000ft drop into Wasdale. And I’d be very surprised if he ever had to drag his tired body up the fence post scramble onto Kirk Fell in a 50mph head wind, fifty miles into a day on the fells. I know that in two weeks I should be climbing them to fulfil one of my... View Article
Blood. I knew there had to be a way to identify other marathoners in the crowds running up the beach towards the finish. All race distances had different coloured numbers, but from behind that was no help. Luckily, mud caked, bloody and scratched legs were a dead give away. But that was later. Of course. At the end. We’d started almost four hours earlier, wide eyed and shivery in the shadow of Alnwick Castle. It was a surprisingly cold start to the day – or perhaps I just have a poor grasp of how cold clear mornings in February are. The event was Endurance Life Northumberland, with four distances culminating in a finish at Bamburgh. A friend and I plumped for the marathon distance, though it was of course a mile and a half longer because in trail world no one cares how long you hurt for. I imagine this... View Article
January 11, 2022,
by Pete
I was just a couple of miles into my long run on Saturday morning when Goldfrapp randomly shuffled from a Spotify dance playlist. I’d kind of forgotten about Goldfrapp but within moments I realised that I too am having my life dictated by a Strict Machine. It’s called Bob. I didn’t particularly fancy a run on Saturday. It was cold. I’d been good at the eating part of training but the sleeping part went less well. There was ice on the ground. And I’m sure at the time there were some other excuses too, but I can’t remember exactly what they were. But here’s the kicker; I didn’t decide whether to run on Saturday morning. I decided whether to run when Georgia and I had a FaceTime and settled on a date for our Bob Graham round attempt. In that moment I made not just a decision on what to... View Article
December 22, 2021,
by Pete
The best adventures are almost always spontaneous. Going from the thought of an average few days ahead to adrenaline, dopamine and challenge in the blinking of an eye. No time to dwell, anticipate or expect, just go and get it. I’d planned to do a winter tea round last January, start as I meant to go on. Unfortunately it was illegal to travel alone to the hills, and I didn’t have enough cheese and wine to pass it off as a business meeting. The hills remained a dream until the end of March and the winter tea round was forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until I indulged my Thursday tradition of checking the mountain weather. Warm on the tops, it said, with a cloud inversion thrown in for good measure. The kind of forecast you’d happily take any time of year, let alone three days before the equinox. If ever there... View Article
November 26, 2021,
by Pete
If you’ve read many of my mountain race reports, you’ll know that nothing cheers me up like the sound of cow bell. So imagine the scene; I’m approaching the top of the longest climb of the day, the midday sun is filtering through the trees and I’m in desperate need of refreshment when I hear the sound of bells. My legs start to turn over that bit quicker, my head picks up, and my lips break into a smile. I glance around eagerly, tastebuds already sensing the coca-cola that the volunteers are somehow keeping ice cold, and realise I can’t see an aid station anywhere. I look to my right, my gaze following the sound of the bells up the slope. Goats. There’s always bloody goats. A whole herd of them, threading their way down through the trees, the largest of the group with a bell strapped to his neck.... View Article
October 10, 2021,
by Pete
I remember thinking, as I limped from my car to the Spar on Friday night, that maybe a sky race was not the best idea for the following day. Recovery had being going well. I was back to training as normal until a busy weekend and some misadventures in the north sea had plunged me back to limping, with occasional bags of frozen peas strapped to my knee as I drove. I’d come to worry it was Schrodinger’s knee – either recovering well and fine or the tendons were gradually peeling off the knee cap and I’d fall down with a ruptured quadricep. Unobserved, it was hard to decide which was true. But also, I was there. I didn’t get a ferry to Northern Ireland to watch other people compete. More than that, after a two month lay off my mind was clamouring for the clarity that only mountain racing... View Article
There’s a beautiful section at the start of the Scafell Pike Trail Marathon. You skirt the side of Derwentwater, past jetties glistening in the morning sun, clouds breaking over the hill tops around about. The route undulates along trails and paths, behind Castle Crag and through the ferns into picturesque Borrowdale. If you’re not careful, you could start to think you were in for a fast and pretty trail race. You breeze into Seathwaite, the first drinks station, and feel unstoppable. Smiles all around. Someone asks a marshal if there’s coke, and they’re cheerfully told that’s for the way back down. And so we continue on with the sound of cow bells ringing in our ears. Leaving Seathwaite there’s another mile of gentle undulation before the mask slips and Dr Jekyll transforms suddenly into the evil Mr Hyde. We start to climb steeply into the rocky corridor route and the... View Article
Totally sensible and not at all insane ultra marathons with strangers… It started, as all good stories should, on the side of a Munro. With three days of thunder storms expected to start at noon, the only sensible thing to do was to try and get a couple of summits under the belt before then. Having tagged Stob Coire Raineach, I started across the ridge to Stob Dubh only to find someone else had the same idea. We got chatting and our individual short runs became a six hour day of mountains and valleys. Every step seemed to give a new vista, a breathtaking highlights reel of what Scotland can offer. Camping in the same spot, we made plans to sit out the bad weather and do our normal day jobs in a pub the next day. Of course, laptops open, the occasional chat may* have happened about what to... View Article
