1st-2nd July 2017
Last weekend I did the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon with an old friend of mine, Nigel Coe, who has the good fortune to actually live in the Lake District. This year the competition used the little visited Loweswater Fells in the NW of the National Park. The background photo and photo below are from day 1 which was mainly sunny, albeit with a fair wind on the tops. The weather deteriorated during the day though, and we got distinctly damp as we approached the overnight campsite. That was followed by more rain in the evening and overnight, so it became difficult to cook a meal and hard not to transport wetness into the tent when we had to go in and out. We also survived an attack of the zombie slugs who just loved the conditions and who tried to invade our tiny home for the night.
Day 2 was a reversal of the weather pattern from the first day, starting wet, then gradually clearing up (picture below). My waterproof jacket stayed on all day however as there was still a stiff breeze.
On day 1 I felt pretty good, but day 2 was more of a struggle and we slipped back a few places. Overall we were 56th in the Harter Fell Class out of 98 starters and 80 finishers, and 6th out of 30 on veterans handicap. The dropout rate speaks to the fact that it was pretty tough. In the same Class were Ian Sayer and Tim Houlder of Wessex who outran us on both days for an impressive 3rd place veterans handicap result, and Becca Ellis with Rebecca Campbell who were slightly slower than us on day 1 but much faster on day 2 to finish 51st overall. At the finish it was great to see Keith Henderson, who had been helping the organisers on the day by doing kit checks on the leading runners in the various classes.
Above all it was another great Saunders and a privilege to run the mountains of such a beautiful landscape.
John Walmsley
