Headed up to the Lakes yesterday to recce the Teenager With Altitude, picked up a sleep deprived Tim up at 6.30am and headed for Stair and the start point of the race. Plenty of snow on route that have way to clear skies at the bottom of Causey Pike, I hoped it'd stay that way and make the nav easier for the day.
We set off and took the higher path, not the plan but soon joined up with the race route and continued up Causey while the clear skies were quickly shut out by snow rolling over the tops. After the first climb it was an easy drop and short distance north it Outerside before coming down and picking up the path to head over to Grassmoor. The clag started to tell at that point, we dropped into the basin when we should've stayed higher and we ended up crawling across scree while the snow built up on it and us. A quick climb out of the basin to find Coledale Hause also went a little awry, setting off in the wrong direction to stay ahead of the voices behind us before relating and heading back to greet those voices, turned out to be some other runners we knew may but up there, including a group of lads from Ambleside AC, a difficult prospect to keep pace with but we set off with them intending to keep up for as long as we could. However, it was after about 200 yards of this that we came to Gasgale Gill and while everyone else made it easily across, my comfort choice of Roclites over Mudclaws (which skinned my right foot at Black Combe the week before) was my undoing and losing my footing, went head first into the gill and bounced off a few rocks. The freezing water did bring out the Raynauds and lead to a swap between soaked gloves and the mitts in my backpack, however the right one has turned red inside from the blood my hand dispensed. The main other injury was a dead leg but in the right quad which made running for the rest of the day a little surreal, having really force my stronger leg to move properly was tiring!
On from the Gill to keep moving and so warm, following the tracks of the others (we told them to keep moving while I was getting my breath back) and then we set out across more scree on Dove Crag, complete with rockslides and a few moments of genuine fear of them becoming bigger. Checking the trace against the maps shows we should've gone on the higher route to Grassmoor.
Once up and Grassmoor was done (and micro spikes on) the running was much better heading down to Whiteless Pike, there were even some moments of the sun threatening to break through the cloud. The ridge gave some striking views out over Crummock Water and the surrounding hills, the wind lifting snow and bail from the mountainsides and throwing it into the valley below, all observed while leaning backwards into the wind. One those moments where a picture wouldn't do it, and words can't come close, you'd need to capture the whole sensory experience and be able to pass it on to really give anyone else an idea of it.
The descent after that was massively painful with the quad and a few collapses occurred, the best I could do was try not to stab myself with spikes while falling. Once down and heading for CP 5 we called it quits, 4 hours 30 mins to reach a point with a 2 hr 30 cut off gives an idea how hard it was, without even touching Robinson and the peaks beyond. A run with twitching leg down the side if the road to spare the shoes and we got back to the car. The rest will need a recce before the race in about seven weeks, hoping for better weather and no mishaps on that one, tonight will be spent on the crosstrainer, looking to help the quad and start building the before more events next weekend, I really need to improve my climbing.
No pics given the conditions once we were up, just this one of Cat Bells before we set off on the route.
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