St Bega's Ultra - Saturday 30th August 2014

As a change from all my recent exploits, on this occasion, I am pleased to report a small degree of success!

This 36 mile trail race (advertised as 35 miles but generally reckoned to be anything up to 37) starts from near the lower osprey view point overlooking Bassenthwaite, through Portinscale, down the west side of Derwent Water to the first checkpoint in Rosthwaite Institute.

Then it's up to Honnister Quarry via the old drovers' road, and then up to cross the Brandreth Fence and down Loft Beck into Ennerdale and past Black Sail Hut to the second checkpoint at Low Gillerthwaite Field Centre.

Thence the route continues to Ennerdale Bridge, picks up the footpath alongside the Cold Fell road before striking right along the lovely Uldale to climb Dent Fell and down to ckeckpoint three at Cleator Hall.

Then, mostly following cycle paths, a further four miles to the finish at St Bee's School.

My main concern, before the start, was my usual one of meeting the cut-offs. I was 25 minutes inside the CP1 cut-off, which lifted some of the pressure and also my spirits. 33 minutes inside at Low Gillerthwaite after the climb up Honnister and down into Ennerdale. I lost some of this advantage on leg three, but was still 22 minutes ahead at Cleator. I had been last up to this point, but caught up a small happy band (Liz, Jane, Darren and Richard) here and together we picked up the pace to finally finish 43 minutes inside the 12 hour limit, having passed a couple of other tail-enders a couple of miles out. My final position was 96th out of 100 finishers.

Verdict:- a fine, extremely well organised event, manned entirely by the small but very enthusiastic local St Bees Triers - a smashing group of people. Two drawback for me:- the very detailed route instructions (14 A5 sides of narrative supported by the same number of maps) meant that I 'ran' the full thing in my glasses and also I hadn't realised the extent of the provisions that were provided at the checkpoints, so was weighed down by 35 miles' worth of food and drink - when in doubt, read the instructions!

If anyone is interested, they can have a 'borrow' of the route book.

Thank you TM, for your good wishes, you might have made the difference!