‘Only walking pace’ was meant as helpful advice, if tongue in cheek. It comes from a mate who BGRd in 1993, I think. I’m sure we’re all familiar with Naismith’s rule. I can’t help thinking a mix of awe and healthy disrespect are useful attitudes to go into with. It’s only about twice as far as I’ve ever run (and 5x the ascent!). Enjoy!

I did the Lakeland 50 last year, got to Ambleside with no blisters, (38 miles ish?) and finished in Coniston with eight. This was because my feet got creased when wet and blisters formed in the creases. New socks and foot powder would have sorted it. (To be fair they weren’t much of an issue when I was actually running, it was just the following week that was hard work!)

Greasing feet is a good idea; it does help in my experience, (not BG length, but longer courses on mountain marathons.) Rob would probably run on bleeding stumps though so just because he does it don’t expect it to alleviate all issues.

Cheers Kendal.
Your right about Rob. I dont know him personally but raced cyclocross and fell races that he has done many a time. Hopefully 1 day he will have a crack at a round.

1-2 days to go now? All the best!

Best of luck.

It’s on my list to to too maybe the next few years. A BG and UTMB are 2 of my big goals for the next few years

@SamBob yeah not that much wind this year too bar the start which was horrific for me (non sailor), mind you one of our sailors was ill that night too. my 3rd year too which boat was your dad on?

Im packed. Rested and ready as i ever will be!
The weather may just be ok to!

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Any news??? 😀

He’ll not be finished yet 🙂

I expect his crew woke us up as they passed our little tent at the Latrigg car park in the middle of the night. I’d been supporting a friend going anticlockwise and did the section from Sca Fell to Dunmail. We were all set with a rope for Broad Stand but it was totally slimey so we decided it was best avoided – could easily have spent a long time faffing there – so instead went down the traverse and down Lord’s Rake (having gone up it to recce on the way). That was fine.

Sadly, although my pal was going really well he packed up at Threlkeld and was sick. Shame. He’d been 1hr 35min up on his 23hr schedule when we handed him over at Dunmail. It meant we had a grand day out on the hills and I got to see the sunrise this morning. Feel a bit sleepy now.

Some pics will be on my flickr site soon if anyone is interested.

There seemed to be loads of people (relatively)out doing it and conditions were near perfect so hopefully most were successful.

What’s lords rake like now? Years since I’ve been in the area, and I heard it was a bit suspect now, but don’t know if the stories are overblown.

Suspect in what way? I stood still and watched a shoe box sized rock go tumbling past me but apart from that it was fine (in as much as any steep gully filled with loose scree is ‘fine’).
See the pics:

Bob Graham

I was thinking of reports like this, but it sounds like the problem might be overinflated.
http://www.wasdaleweb.co.uk/news.html

Excellent photos Paul, shame your mate didnt make it. On the plus side yu get to do it again 😀

Tired and emotional 🙁
My knees decided for me that it wasnt going to happen early on in leg 1 as we climbed the last part to Blencathra. We had lost 2 of our pacers as 1 looked after the other and they had all my kit after he insisted he would carry it. So after a lack of food there was mild cramp starting at threkeld and my knee pain hadnt improved after the long downhill run. Neurfens were first on the menu. I started leg 2 and up clough head it seemed to be coming together again, food eaten, electolytes gulped and the climb ended. When the running started so did the pain again, i condidered bailing at sticks pass, then again at Helvelyn. Instead i took more painkillers and ran on for another hour to Fairfield where i sat down. I couldnt do another 40 mile after doing 13 with painfull knees. It just wasnt going to happen. The other 3 carried on to the end and i joined support team following them around. A great day for them finishing in 22hr20min in perfect weather from beginning to the end. So pleased for them yet so gutted for myself. I didnt expect to get round, i just wanted to go further than i had before. Next time, on my own attempt and these guys have already said they will be there for me. I will do it. Gutted.

Bad luck nosemi and well done to your mates.

IanMunro – health and safety!

My pal probably won’t do it again. Everything was perfect and he was unsuccessful so he’s going to accept that his body and constitution isn’t designed for stuff like this. He is competitive or even a possible winner in ‘shorter’ fell races (up to 30 miles) but seems to suffer on longer endurance type events. That’s today’s story anyway 😉

Sorry to hear that nosemineb 🙁

@nosemineb

Good effort its a shame that you developed kneee pain so early on. I think in that situation its never going to ease given the hammering to come.
Look forward to your next attempt!

Surfer

Too bad, you must have had your doubts really early on, that must have been tough. Still, you had a nice day in the hills and all that, and still did something most people wouldn’t get close to.

Still, you had a nice day in the hills and all that,

Think it was mostly the night actually Steve. Pretty sure it was his crew that woke us up on the path up Skiddaw 🙂

good on you for having a go…respect 😉

Hi mate, sorry to hear your knees were playing up better luck next time! great news for the other guys. I was assisting with my mate’s attempt too who got round in a staggaring 19hr 22min 😯

Good effort alll the the same nosemineb, hopefully you’ve got some more knowledge about the route for your next BG attempt.

Paul, Sorry about waking you up! There were a couple of tents we passed early on up skiddaw around 12.30am.
Your all right though, it was another great experience, more lessons learnt. I got to see a lovely sunrise and see first hand a succesfull attempt. Great experiences.
Im trying to work out if i had done enough preperation or if it was just a bad day for me. My knees had never stopped me before so why today?! Not sure, they still hurt today and i felt pretty beaten up. Maybe the adrenalin pushed the pace too much.

Ha, no problem. We were barely asleep anyway. In a little Vaude right by the gate where the cars are parked. I couldn’t believe how busy it was round there at that time of night 🙂

The plan was that they would phone us from the top of Skiddaw and so give us 20mins to get packed up and run down with them to finish. When we got to bed we realised there was no phone reception so making calculations based on how quickly he’d been going we got up at 4am and sat in the car for a bit then wandered up the path. Phones buzzed when reception kicked in but the message was that he’d stopped at Threlkeld. Nothing else to do but go home – my wife was surprised when I took her a cup of tea in bed!

He’s too modest to say but Elliptic got round last week in 23.16 having run legs 2, 3 & 4 solo. A very good effort all in all.

Yep, no drama but a long hard day out. Looking forward to getting out on the bike more often now it’s done.

nice one, well done!

fantastic effort, well done you!
I am only just getting back to some running after my knee calmed down. Still unexplained but i had an mri yesterday which im awaiting results for [Doc told me to have it anyway even if pain had subsided].
Are you going to the Bgr dinner? Im going as +1 to one of my mates and doing Langdale horseshoe on the saturday to. May even squeeze a recce in on the sunday if were up for it.
I would love to hear how it went, so please feel free to Pm me.
Well done

VERY welldone!

Did you run it solo as in not recognised by the club? Was that on purpose?

No, I don’t qualify for the club. As you know you need pacers all the way to witness every top, and as Kendal said I did three out of the five legs solo. My brother-in-law and sister (who both run for Ambleside AC) also did a leg each with me.

It wasn’t a pre-meditated decision to do it that way, but I wanted to keep it low key and I really didn’t want to lock myself into a particular day and then get stuck with bad weather. I did originally target the 13th/14th weekend which (apart from the full moon) had no local fell races on, so there was a decent chance I could pick up some support at short notice via local contacts. But in the event the weather wasn’t that great and anyway I needed a few more days rest after my last big training run (the Welsh 3000s two weeks before).

The next weekend (the one just gone) had a Championship race on, so rather than push my attempt back indefinitely I took the first decent weather window (Thursday/Friday) and got on with it 🙂

It actually turned out very good conditions for doing the round, dry and cool weather but the ground was still quite wet, so knee-friendly over long distances.

Glad your knee is settling down, if it’s any consolation I’m living proof you can have a dodgy knee prone to random flare-ups and still get round the BGR! Will pm you some more details at some point, really hope you can get back on track & get yours done next year.

Oh, and the round itself went quite comfortably as far as Bowfell, after that I was ambling along the flats/descents well enough but digging very deep on the climbs to stay close to schedule.

The other memorable feature was the bizarre variety of food cravings at different stages… bacon rolls, bananas, pizza, tangfastics…

Brilliant! Well done 🙂

Well done Elliptic.

Top effort. I admire your nonchalance and low-key approach.

all sounds brilliant – started running this year at the age of 60 with Grizzly Cub run and Charmouth challenge [8miles] most southerly fell run!! really enjoyed but! admiration and respect to all those who not only do the round but all the training – even though you didnt complete – fantastic effort to get to the start line. Everyone needs to read ‘feet in the sky’ I dont know how they did it!as a mountain bike rider, fell walker and mountaineer I always struggle – trail running is a great alternative to MTBing.
Good luck to all those who train for it never mind attempt it