Grisedale Horseshoe

Glenridding, Saturday, September 4, 2010

AM / 10M / 5000'

Dougie Nisbet

It was a gorgeous morning in Glenridding as I queued at the ‘quiet’ Car Park ticket machine (thanks Geoff!) and decided how many hours I wanted to buy. Better safe than sorry. Five hours should cover it. It’s only 10 miles after all. Back to the car to find Will and Casper had arrived and it was time for the handover. Casper, meet Roberta, Roberta meet Casper. Will was hoping to have a good crack at this race and Casper was unlikely to attack the more technical sections of Swirral Edge with quite the same agility or enthusiasm as Will would. With leads and poop bags handed over, we were all, in our different ways, ready to go.

A Grisedale view

An amiable gathering around the village hall during which, at some point, I think the race was started, and away we headed into the fells. I’ve done this race before so was under no illusions about what awaited me. But it’s amazing how a year can soften one’s memory. As we hauled ourselves up Mires Beck it all started coming back to me. Ah yes, I remember now. This race is really really hard. I was swapping places occasionally with NFR’s David Coxon who had started the race mp3-cladded, but now seemed to have other things on his mind.

The weather was very different to last year with clear visibility in all directions, which meant navigation was no fun. Up Catstye Cam and along Swirral Edge, clear and sharp as a knife. I preferred it when it was cast in mist and you couldn’t see the climbs ahead. Hot on the heels of David and up onto Helvellyn Ridge, then … where the hell did he go? It was, admittedly, very busy. There were people out walking and eating sandwiches and drinking coffee and all sorts of nonsense. A very different scene to last year. I appeared to be all alone and I hot-footed it southwards in the hope I might find someone to chase. I bumped into a rather cheery runner walking back the way we’d come, and with a nonchalant wave and a satisfied smile he said “can you tell them that No. 96 has retired?”, and suddenly he was gone.

By the time I hit the Grisedale Tarn checkpoint I was convinced that David Coxon had fallen of a cliff and was lying in a pool of blood somewhere and passed on my concerns to the marshalls. After the checkpoint another runner waited for me and asked me if I had the faintest idea which way to go as he hadn’t a clue. I pointed up, rather pointedly, to St Sunday Crag, and he got the message. He was waiting for me again at the top, and this time I pointed down, towards the ford, and I messed around for a bit trying to find the famous bit of scree that some say leads to a portal that magically takes you down a fast way to the valley floor. No joy, so I just aimed for the gap in the trees and hoped for the best. Not a bad descent but, as I feared, when we hit the track it was detour time (taking the overall distance to over 12 miles), back up the valley to another checkpoint on a bridge before the run in to the final assault.

I was now finding the whole thing pretty grim. Last year it was just a long gruelling but ultimately satisfying test of endurance. This year, something was different. I was really miserable. Perhaps it was the heat, or more likely, I was tackling an event that I was not really fit enough to do justice. I shall treat the race with more respect next year. Across the bridge and a bit of paddle in the beck, and a long drink. I was taking huge handfuls of water to drink and I’m not usually one to get thirsty during races. The waddling had to stop and I stumbled on to the final climb. This went on, as I thought it might, for absolutely ever. At the top the marshalls, who must have been there for hours, offered me a sweet. After some chat it transpired that it wasn’t a jelly baby but actually a wine gum, so I declined. Jelly Babies had all gone.Damn the fast runners!

Now just the final descent and a lacklustre shuffle to the line and I was absolutely done. A glance at the results board showed David Coxon had been in for some time, clearly the results of some devellish site-to-site transport from the top of Helvellyn to Dollywagon Pike. I asked Roberta how she and Casper had bonded and she said “Absolutely fine, he walked beautifully on his lead as long as we went exactly where Casper wanted to go.” Will finished in 8th position overall and a fair bit faster than the year before. With the detour and extra checkpoint my time worked out pretty much the same as last year, but this year with a bit more sunburn and a lot more humility. Just a short drive now to a comfy hotel bar and bed and a few beers to get in the mood for the Derwentwater Trail Race the following day.

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