29th Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon, High Street, 7th July

Colin Blackburn

Several Striders took part in this year's Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon which took place between Ullswater and Haweswater. For Nigel, Graham and Tom it was their first time while Stewart, Charlotte and I had run it a few times before. Nigel and Graham decided to start with the shortest runners' course to test the water. Tom, on the other hand, was thrown in at the deep end with the second longest pair's course. Everyone survived a mixed weekend of rain and shine. The results are down below the articles from Tom and Graham. The course distances are straight lines between controls, we all ran, walked, and occasionally crawled, much further than that.

Graham Daglish

It started off, as most things do, as a good idea in the pub in February. With Nigel and I thinking July , with lots of daylight, warm and dry weather it would be a great opportunity to try our hand at a mountain marathon.

As the day of the event drew nearer the weather conditions became more monsoon like. We headed off to the Lakes in Nigel's campervan with a degree of trepidation. At the Friday night camp we dined at the world famous Wilfs mobile cafe and in the company of hundreds of other mountain marathoners felt like we were not that crazy after all.

Saturday dawned overcast but with patches of blue sky. We made our way to the start area and were given our co-ordinates with which we were able to mark up the control points on our map. Then it was off into the hills to find those elusive checkpoints.

Nigel and I had a good first day. We managed to find all of our check points and made it to the midpoint campsite by one o'clock. Pitched our tent and set about replenishing our energy levels with exotic meals such as couscous, dried seaweed and pickled Chinese vegetables. As we sat and cooked various meals and drinks we watched the campsite gradually fill with runners and tents. Beer went on sale at 2 o'clock and and milk and soft drinks at 3 o'clock. Wilfs caterers got their priorities right on that one.

The results sheets were taped to the back of a van and to our surprise we were 36th out of our class on the first day. This gave us a bit of incentive on the second day to try and improve on our position. We had (sensibly) decided as it was a first mountain marathon for both of us to enter the event on the runners level just above the walkers.

The sun shone all the rest of Saturday and we were able to dry out all of the clothing that was soaked during the days running. The sunshine also made the campsite into a sort of runners festival village. Everywhere you looked there were groups of people laid out on the grass and chatting.

Sunday called for an early start. No need to set our alarm because the noise from the banging doors on the portaloos woke us up at 5:45. After a leisurely breakfast the tent was packed away and we were ready to run with the rest of the mass start at 8:05.

The second day was a shorter (but steeper, both up and down) course but this time because of the good weather we were treated to some superb views. The check points came quickly and easily and we were soon heading down towards the finish line. After a change of clothes we were back at Wilf's enjoying bean stew, pita bread, cakes and tea. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Thanks to:
Colin Blackburn for all his advice and encouragement.
Dave and Val Atkinson for the loan of their tent.
Nigel for the dried seaweed.

Tom Reeves

Some of you may know that earlier this year I sent out an email asking if anyone would like to join me on the Saunders Mountain Marathon. As I had no takers I had given up on this plan and resigned myself to leaving this ambition for another year. Or so I thought. On Thursday two days before the SLMM I got in to work to find a message on the answer machine from Stewart Gardner an occasional runner with the club asking me if I fancied joining him on the SLMM. I thought about it for a couple of seconds rang him and said yes. Stewart gave me a list of items which I was required to carry, the usual stuff waterproofs, torch, whistle etc. He also gave me some advise which thankfully I took note of, in particular bringing a couple of plastic bags to keep your socks dry at the overnight camp and a couple of miniatures of my choice to warm the old cockles (in my case rum).

I headed across to the Lakes on the Saturday morning and on arriving at the starting point (Side Farm in Patterdale) at 7.45am the heavens opened, something which would be a regular occurrence throughout the Saturday. I bumped into Nigel and Graham who'd spent the Friday evening in Nigel's camper van and we discussed tactics i.e. read the map the right way round and don't get lost. Stewart and I were in the Bowfell class which meant a course of 24K. I'd spoken to Geoff and Susan Davis the previous night as I picked up the tent which they'd kindly loaned us (thanks). I told them I reckoned Stewart and myself could get round in between 3 and 4 hours alas this was rather optimistic. I'm sure I noticed a slight smirk on Geoff's face although I could be wrong! The SLMM is basically a fell race with a number of checkpoints which each team must visit in order the route each team takes to get to each checkpoint is entirely up to them. On day one we had 9 checkpoints, I'd assumed they would be relatively easy to spot alas I was sadly mistaken. Stewart did say they were pretty difficult to spot being basically a piece of canvas about 12" square. We found the first checkpoint pretty quickly unfortunately we overshot the second which I think was basically down to the distraction of a rather nice lycra clad bottom (a ladies). We lost a few minutes but I was still optimistic, then the heavens opened again and off we trotted across a bog. Getting to the third checkpoint was hell. We had to contend with bracken, mud, very steep hills and more rain indeed at one point we were walking up a stream. I recalled my prediction of 3 to 4 hours as we reached checkpoint 4 or maybe 5 when the 4 hour mark had come and gone. Stewart was still going strong but I'm afraid I was getting just a tad miserable, sorry Stewart. The back of my head was getting battered by my oversize rucksack every time we attempted to run, and on top of this I was rapidly developing trenchfoot and we were only half way!!!

Checkpoint 6 was described as a knoll which we duly missed and had to head back to we had a discussion about the finer points of what constituted a knoll as did a number of other pairs, we later found out. Anyway the plod to checkpoint 7 was my lowest point of the day, yet more bracken, more bog, more streams to wade through and more HILLS. I was knackered!! The final leg saw the sun come out for what seemed the first time all day and the ground although still a bog was at least flat enough to run or should I say shuffle on. We finally got into the overnight camp 8 hours and 20 minutes after we started. I was miserable to say the least however my misery deepened on the discovery that all the beer had been sold out arrr!

Nigel and Graham god bless them had bought extra cans of beer for us and even put our tent up what can I say? My tears of pain were replaced by tears of gratitude. I would have kissed them both but I was afraid they might enjoy that too much!. Thanks lads. Colin popped over for a gossip, he and his partner were doing very well in their class being placed 10th. Stewart had prepared and absolute feast which I gratefully devoured along with a can of Guinness. We finished off the evening with hot chocolate, mine was laced with rum, lovely.

Day two I was assured by everyone would be easier and wow! it was. The sun was out I had slept well even though the portaloo doors clanged along to the dawn chorus and I felt full of beans. I did wonder if Stewart had laced my pasta with steroids. Thankfully the course for the day allowed us to follow some footpaths which meant hallelujah we could actually run. There were 8 checkpoints several of which were on knolls (I am now an expert on knolls) and we only had minor problems finding a couple of the checkpoints. We got into a bit of a race for a few miles with another pair also in the Bowfell class but they managed to give us the slip at Angle Tarn. It was lovely to be able to run/shuffle and the sun was still out, I even managed to smile at one point. We ran into the finish on day two in 5hours and 52minutes which I think wasn't too bad given the rigours of the previous day. I immediately tucked into a bowl of mixed beans provided to all finishers, and Stewart had leg massage arranged by his other half Charlotte. As for whether I would do the SLMM again? At this moment with my sore blistered feet in a tub of warm water? You know what I probably will, mind you if I do I will (a) train for it and (b) enter the class below which is Kirkfell. I can say it was quite an experience dare I say a "character building experience" Certainly on the first day I have rarely felt so tired on a run, I think it was tougher than any other race I have taken part in. On the other hand day two was great. I can also say that Stewart was a pleasure to run through bogs, streams and bracken with, he was always very positive and encouraging even when I was being a bit grumpy. One bit of advice I would like to give Stewart, is to consider using the occasional foot path, I'm sure he was a crow in a former life! Now it's over I'm really glad I did it. So all you other striders come on do it next year and let's have a party at the overnight camp.

Results

Bowfell

Day 1: Distance 24.4km, Climb 1335m
Day 2: Distance 19.2km, Climb 915m

Pos Name Day One Day Two Overall
Time Pos Time Pos Time
1 ANDY CREBER
BRYAN STADDEN		 5:13:07 1 3:43:00 1 8:56:07
35 STEWART GARDNER
THOMAS REEVES 		8:31:37 38 5:52:41 33 14:24:18

46 starters
39 finishers

Kirkfell

Day 1: Distance 22.7km, Climb 1185m
Day 2: Distance 18.3km, Climb 900m

Pos Name Day One Day Two Overall
Time Pos Time Pos Time
1 MARTIN SELLENS
CHRIS SELLENS 		4:48:09 1 3:24:49 3 8:12:58
11 COLIN BLACKBURN
CHRIS DIBBEN 		5:32:03 10 3:37:59 14 9:10:02

101 starters
96 finishers

Harter Fell

Day 1: Distance 17.3km, Climb 810m
Day 2: Distance 13.3km, Climb 765m

Pos Name Day One Day Two Overall
Time Pos Time Pos Time
1 STEPHEN LUMB
MICHAEL LUMB 		3:21:28 1 2:40:37 1 6:02:05
94 CHARLOTTE ROBERTS
JANE SAUL 		5:59:36 101 4:42:52 84 10:42:28

121 starters
113 finishers

Wansfell

Day 1: Distance 14.3km, Climb 735m
Day 2: Distance 12.5km, Climb 720m

Pos Name Day One Day Two Overall
Time Pos Time Pos Time
1 KEVIN LOMAS
ANDREW LOMAS 		2:36:52 1 2:27:55 1 5:04:47
25 NIGEL HEPPELL
GRAHAM DAGLISH 		3:58:43 36 2:57:22 14 6:56:05

104 starters
103 finishers