The Bob Graham Round

I developed a love of the mountains from those very first visits to the Lakes and built up my strength as a hill walker. I can’t say I was naturally fit as a teen but I tried. As I left University and became gamefully employed, weekends were constantly taken up with climbing and peak bagging. I started running when I was 26, mainly as a mid-week activity to keep me fit for for my weekend jaunts to the hills but as I got older, I ran further distances on road, fell and in the mountains and quietly had an aspiration to complete the round.

This was to be my second attempt. Last year felt like a catalogue of disasters with navigational problems, poor visibility,  lack of confidence in my ability, fatigue, nausea, stomach cramps and runners trots to name but a few! This year I was more mentally prepared and physically stronger. My training had gone well, I had reviewed my diet, started to understand my own body better, specifically my hypothyroidism and the demands I placed on myself.

So here I was…on the start line, so to speak…again!

There was a gathering around the Moot Hall as friends had come to see myself and another contender, Rob, who had also opted for a 6pm start, set off. As we headed across Fitz Park it was sunny, warm and humid. We soon started sweating as we climbed up towards Lattrig and onwards up the path towards the summit of Skiddaw.

Feeling good, my support team of Julie and Dave were constantly giving me bites to eat or a swig of water.  The summit of Skiddaw was claggy, nothing unusual there for me! The boggy bits in between were…boggy and by the time we reached the summit of Great Calva I was 11 minutes up on my schedule.

Following a swift descent and a quick crossing of the River Caldew, it was then a long climb over Mungrisdale Common to the summit of Blencathra before dropping immediately down onto Halls Fell Ridge. The rock was greasy underfoot from the rain earlier in the day so it was a little tricky in places but that didn’t hinder progress much and by the time I arrived in Threlkeld I was still 7 minutes up on my schedule. By now the sun was setting and provided a stunning backdrop. I had a 5 minute break here where I changed my top, had a bite to eat before Ellie who’d set the timer shouted it was time to go!

The climb up Clough Head is a bit of a nemesis of mine so I took my trekking poles to help with the ascent. My nerves were eased as the navigation along the Helvellyn ridge was made easier by a clear night and we could see the head torches of Rob and his team snaking out in front.

Approaching Helvellyn, I started to feel dizzy and re-assured myself it was just a bad patch I was going through but it affected my pace. On the ascents I kept using my trekking poles and reflecting back maybe they slowed me down more, as I felt more fluid without them. Then just as we were about to climb Fairfield, my head torch failed. I’d inadvertently switched it onto the bright setting when I’d put it on earlier and this had drained the battery. At this point, I realised I’d made a school boy error as I’d forgotten to pack spare batteries. I swopped torches with Ode for the ascent but was angry with myself for this mistake. Fortunately, Aleks was carrying spare batteries so by the time I made it back to base of Seat Sandal my batteries had been changed and I swopped back to my own headtorch. At the summit of Seat Sandal, we lost the BGR trod from the second cairn, which hindered the descent a little but it didn’t take long before we saw the lights of the cars awaiting us at Dunmail Raise.

I was a little down on my schedule and was encouraged to take the full 10 minutes here before the long leg to Wasdale. I had a cup of tea and a sandwich before setting off on the steep climb up Steel Fell. As we traversed the boggy terrain across to Calf Crag it started to dawn and every now and again I’d get chilled by the cool wind.

I think it was slightly claggy on Bowfell as we pulled up to the summit. The climb seemed to last forever. It was a trot across to Esk Pike and in a blur I couldn’t remember which mountains were which until we reached the summit of Scafell Pike. Surprisingly there was only our party around so we had the top all to ourselves. The rocky path dropped down to Mickledore and we found probably the easiest of the scree shoots to take us across to Lords Rake and the West Wall Traverse again in the clag. We popped out onto the plateau and although only a stone-throw away, Mandy and Kirsty had to follow a compass baring to reach the summit of Scafell, which on a clear day is no trouble to spot.

On the summit of Gable, we were met by Martin who had come up to greet us then later on near Grey Knotts we were met by Clive where I put my order in for rice pudding and tea at the next stop, Honister.

I had a 5 minute stop here and I was handed the tea by Darren but eating the rice pudding was difficult as it wouldn’t go down but the tea was good. We set off on leg 5 and disappointingly I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the sub-24 hour mark now but there was no way I was going to stop, even feeling rotten I was going to make sure I finished.

The wretching continued throughout Leg 5 and Clive kept breaking off tiny pieces of malt loaf to give me. The only problem was I couldn’t swallow them without a gulp of water every time. However, ingesting it did seem to help with the nausea a bit.

We dropped down off Robinson, traversed around the crags and eventually gained the track which led to the road. A little while on, Darren and Ellie were waiting in the car and the original plan was to change into road shoes if I’d got the time. As I knew I wasn’t going to make sub-24 mark there was no reason to rush so I was encouraged to change my shoes. My feet were sore underneath not from any blisters but from the constant pounding on the rocks.  Larry and Clive kindly tackled one foot each (very brave of them!) taking off my wet smelly mudclaws and socks and putting nice dry socks on my feet.  It didn’t take long and we were soon heading off jogging again towards Keswick at a steady pace. Darren and Ellie later joined me at Portinscale for the run into Keswick.

I was very humbled to see people clapping and greeting me on my arrival at the Moot Hall (although some of it was supporters for the band that was playing!) I was pleased to have finished and it was meant a lot to see that so many people were happy for me but deep down I had an underlying feeling of disappointment that I’d let myself down. I know it’s a great achievement to get round and to finish but my self-critical internal voice kicked in!  I kept asking myself a lot of what ifs…to which I had no answers!