Fellsman - Finished

But not in the time we hoped for.  62 miles (plus –see below!) 11,00ft ascent

Conditions were pretty tough on the day.   We started off with only a mild drizzle which blew through before the summit of Ingleborough, but the biting strong wind was present throughout the day, with gusts on the tops taking your breath away -  and at the Checkpoint at Cray, literally the competitors tent!

Dropping down from Great Coum and Flinter Gill driving rain accompanied us to the 18 mile checkpoint at Dent, where a hot cheese pastie and beans were forced down to keep us going.  We lingered here not wishing to face the elements across Blea Moor, but with an easing of the rain we set out again.  Heartened at this stage by being well up on our schedule and with a sub-20hr time possible. 

We were grouped with three Midlanders at Fleet Moss at 37 miles in preparation for the night section but made it across Fleet Moss in daylight – a real bonus.  Our companions for the night were all novices and so Ian shouldered much of the responsibility for the navigation.  This he did splendidly with a slight detour around Middle Tongue.  But the pace completely fell away over atrocious bogs with Ian having to be extracted bodily on three or four occasions. 

At Cray one of our team decided to try to assist in navigation which proved to be a bit of a nightmare with us losing a goodly amount of time trying to locate the path off Buckden Pike.  But by far the biggest catastrophe was taking the wrong direction off the final summit of Great Whernside resulting in a huge detour back up to the trig point at Capplestone Gate, before the long awaited descent to Threshfield.

The last time we did the Fellsman we would have been happy with the time of 23.32, and indeed our companions were pleased, but we both felt a little dejected not to have achieved a better time.

Winner Jez Bragg 10.50 and first lady Sarah Rowell 13.45.  About a third of the field did not finish with folk apparently dropping out at the Hill Inn after 6 miles, makes you wonder what they expected.

Lesson learned – damage to the feet is much easier to conceal than that to the face!  Hoping that a week’s rest will allow me to join whoever’s out this Saturday UTUP (don’t wait).

Good luck Nic’O for Saturday – you’ve done the work so enjoy the day!

NLN