The Bob Graham Round 25/09/20 – 26/09/20

11pm on a Friday night, and again, I find myself standing below some arbitrary landmark, and hopefully I’ll be back here again in time for last orders tomorrow night

I imagine Keswick market square is normally busier on a Friday night, but not these days. Right now, we have two nervous boys, a few support runners and a handful of friends to see us off.

The plan for the coming adventure was relatively simple and comprises of two main parts.

1) Run a big circle over some hills in under 24 hours* 2) Try and enjoy myself

The second part of this was really important to me this year.

Last summer, I tackled the Denis Rankin Round, and although I got around it in one piece and under 24hrs for an official finish, I basically did not enjoy myself very much. A bad day on a bad day. So, when I look back at it, it was mostly bad with some small stages of good.

Lessons learned, and hopefully applied. Still, I knew it was likely I was going to feel horrific at some stage during the next 24h hours, and that’s a strange feeling. Sure, it’s not even a real race, but hopefully I’ll enjoy it this time.

Anyway, 11:01pm, and can we please start - I really need to pee. So, start the watch, hop down the steps and off to the hills.

Full kit from the off. Mike and Jack. Keswick Moot Hall

*The Bob Graham Round (the big circle over hills) is a challenge in the English . The Round takes in 42 Lakeland Fells by running over 66miles and climbing 27,500ft. Contenders aim to complete to loop in under 24hrs for an official finish. The Bob Graham, along with the Denis Rankin Round (N.Ireland), Charlie Ramsay’s Round (Scotland) and Paddy Buckley Round (Wales), make up the 4 classic British Fell Running 24hr challenges.

We set off on a schedule of 22hours and 10minutes, which felt realistic. Previously, I’d supported 3 legs of a 21:10 round, so had a good idea of the sort of pace that was needed. I’d managed to get a few more recce weekends since then, and so felt confident that, barring disaster, we could get around in roughly that, with an hour allowed for the longer nights of late September, poorer forecast and high winds.

I had only met Mike, who was joining me for the attempt, once before on a BG support last summer, although I definitely know him better now.

Two important foot notes about Mike are that 1) he has attempted the BG once before, and 2) due to some last-minute arrangements, he was wearing a pair of borrowed shoes. An important foot note about the shoes are, despite the fact their owner had only worn them once himself, they have now covered a little over 100 mile and 55,000ft of climb (Ramsay + BG). Not bad for two runs. Outdoor gear exchange anyone?

Leg 1 (11:00) Moot Hall to Support – Rob Davidson, Tom Callan, Harry Pulham

Setting off from Moot Hall brings with it a huge wave of relief. The few weeks leading up to the attempt are some of the worst. Although you are trying not to do too much running, that time is still filled; staring at forecasts, maps and stressing over getting people in and out of Wasdale.

However, as soon as you’re on the long climb up , that slips away, and I probably have the most straight forward job from here to the finish. Just keep eating, drinking and running the runnable bits.

The first bump in this straightforward road came pretty quickly though, with a huge cattle jam beneath Latrigg. The idea of jogging back down and starting again and midnight was floated, but we instead opted for the scarcely imaginable option of adding an extra 10metres of climbing to go up and around them. Recent Pentlands news at the fore of our minds.

The single biggest climb of the day, Skiddaw offers a good chance to settle into the rhythm of the round. I also realised, given the interruptions over the last 6 months, this was the first time I’d catch up with a lot of friends who had volunteered their weekends to support. An abundance of chit chat certainly puts away some of the tougher sections.

I allowed myself one single check of the watch all day – at the top of Skiddaw. Just to ensure we hadn’t got overly excited out of the gate, so the only other splits I had were for road crossings. I didn’t want the stress of a few minutes here or there at every summit.

Down, up, down and up again, leg one is a lot of work for not many fells ticked off, but the top of gives a great view over to leg 2 where they come much easier.

First choice date for the attempt was actually the weekend previous, and as I sat in the flat on the most perfect September weekend imaginable, I thought that surely could only mean rain and clag for the following. What’s the chances the weather is good two weekends in a row at this time of year? Luckily, we had our answer, and the view across to the Hellvellyn ridge, despite being in complete darkness, was also basically clear. No rain, no cloud, no clag. Sure, the wind was strong and freezing cold, but we could deal with that. We might actually have gotten away with this.

In descending off Blencathra to end Leg 1, there are four viable options which Peter McDonald discusses in A Tribute to the Round. Our route, the parachute route, is saved for the fastest of attempts, as it requires “downhill mastery”. Killian Jornet took Halls Fell ridge. So I’ll leave that there.

Leg 2 (02:31) Threlkeld – Dunmail Support – Tom Callan One new lesson learned from the BG experience: Stop planning rounds for a few weeks after Harry attempts one of his own. Last summer, he recovered quickly enough to do the full Rankin with me. This time, he was burst after 3 hours. With a Ramsay still in his legs, he bowed out apologetically, having only planned to support the first 2 legs anyway. Still, I was now going to have to carry my own stuff, and apologies don’t shave weight.

Our party of 5 was now a party of 3, which gave things a much more serious feel with 4 hours of darkness still ahead. Two contenders, and our heavily packed mule Tom Callan, we set off across the road and fumbled our way to the top of .

Can I turn my torch off to save battery?

From Clough head, the Dodds come and go pretty quickly, with only a little faff at the top to pick out the true summit in the dark. Moving swiftly onwards, the Ridge really offers some of the best actual running along the entire route, the only disheartening fact being how much warmer it had been when I’d last ran this as a night leg. Nonetheless, it was smooth sailing really as far as Dollywaggon. With a tricky line off to find in the dark, we then shed all non–essential weight and wondered why Bob Graham couldn’t have just settled at 41 fells. Up and down, out and back – Fairfield is a bitch. Even the first breaking of light doesn’t allow us to enjoy it, but it does mean its nearly brew time, and finally dropping down into was a beautiful scene.

Sun rising behind us, 3 support vans marking the road cross point. With a full day ahead and just over a marathon on the watch, we were well and truly in this now. Oh, and Happy New Marathon.

Leg 3 (06:49) Dunmail Raise – Wasdale Support: Barney Nikolich, Oisin Brennan, Fraser Mackenzie, Ruaraidh Mackenzie, Ross Coles

So, I used to live in hipster Finnieston, and am therefore above instant coffee now. However, if you ever need an instant black coffee to taste like a £4.50 West End flat white, coming out of 7 and a half hours of freezing cold night running for your first coffee in three weeks is a pretty good start.

Still feeling chirpy, and being able to ditch my pack again, the steep climb out of Dunmail went pretty easy. Rolling out with a big group also certainly helped, even if everyone was still wiping sleep out of their eyes. They were at least kind enough to move out of earshot of Tom before complaining about their early rise. Two Scots in Shorts Ross, Mike, Oisin, Jack, Fraser, Ruairaidh, Barney

Fraser and Ruaraidh’s first time in the lakes meant there was a lot of pointing at things and naming them. I politely refrained from giving my input. Not least as my Lakes knowledge consists entirely of

various BG lines and not picking out hills from a distance, but at some stage, my general chirpiness definitely began to fade away anyway. Despite the body still feeling fresh enough, talking did begin to seem like a waste of energy, and so for a while, all I bothered with was “Any Squashies Oisin?”.

A brief 20-minute window on the protected climb up meant the only time all day where I managed to ditch the jacket, but as soon as we popped out on top, it was right back on. When you’ve been on the go hours for circa 10 hours at this stage, it’s easy to forget its still relatively early morning.

Langdales navigated, the massif was the section I was most worried about. It has two things in abundance. Two things which I hate, and two things that really aren’t as prevalent anywhere else; rocks and people.

Rocky ground is a hazard of the job, but how do explain that you would have been faster if it wasn’t for people on the fells? Having already been held up by the cows, I couldn’t deal with another traffic jam. We’ve all seen videos from the summit of Snowdon over lockdown, so scheduling to arrive at the most popular peak in the Lakes at midday on a sunny Saturday was cause for a tiny bit of concern.

Dancing across some rocks

Thankfully, Lakes local Ross knows a guy, so we passed through fairly quickly. Some cramping on Lords Rake made Scafell worse than it needed to be, but soon our next stop was Wasdale.

The descent into Wasdale is a thing of beauty. What starts as a fairly rocky drop becomes clean grassy branks which then becomes the most perfect scree drop. Unfortunately, between a bit more cramping, and Mikes old man knees, it wasn’t the fun we’d hoped for or enjoyed-on days gone by. Hobble on down – there would be no segment chasing here.

Leg 4 (13:15) Wasdale – Honister Pass Support: Oisin Brennan, Barney Nikolich, Matt Poulton It’s often said that rounds are won or lost in Wasdale. If you arrive in decent shape with time on your side, you could be on to a winner. On the other hand, I’m sure Wasdale has resembled a Field Hospital on more than one occasion. It took 21 minutes sorting ourselves before we fancied moving on. Rice pudding with salt, half a pot noodle, anything that would go down and dip it in electrolytes - it was our longest stop of the day, but much needed.

The reason you need to arrive into Wasdale in decent shape is because, as the only other old saying I know goes – there’s no easy way out of Wasdale. Even organising the drive out for support is a pain. I’d been up once before, and looking at my Strava description from that day, I was not particularly keen to ever do it again, but here we are. Third biggest climb of the round, famously the worst, it actually went OK. Don’t know what all the fuss is about. On we go.

Once you’re up, you’ve really broken the back of the round and are well on your way. From here, its just about moving steady and not making any mistakes to chuck it.

Steady progress… , , , Ow!

It seems it was only just immediately after Yewbarrow that the wheels fell off. Well, it was only one wheel, and it didn’t fall off, but for the next 4 and a half hours, I wondered if it would be less sore if it did.

Cresting the summit of after a relatively sketchy scramble up on a slightly wrong line, the top of my right foot was suddenly very painful. A retie of the laces did nothing, it wasn’t too much pressure, so no quick fix.

“Barney, I’m not having fun anymore”, “Closest painkillers are in Honister mate.” Coming off Kirkfell was pretty rough. A steep rocky line; every step on the right foot was worse than the last. I wonder can you tell as much about your hydration levels from the colour of tears as you can from your pee? A quick run through in my head and there really wasn’t that many big descents left, so it was just time to suck it up. I guess this must be that horrific feeling id signed up for.

Dropping into Honister. Not having fun.

Another 250m climb for told me I was still going up fine and the legs felt ok, it was just the extra weight of going down that was causing issues, and not least that Mike was putting chunks of time into me on every descent now. The little climb up told me I was probably climbing a little better than Mike now, as I was making up ground lost on the descents.

From here though, it’s just a long descent into Honister, and by now, I can’t really run flats either, so by the time I arrived in, Mike was already sipping on his cuppa. Shout out to Lloyd who appeared here. Support plans scuppered by injury; it was nice of him to tog out for the moral support at least.

Leg 5 (18:09) Honister Pass – Keswick Moot Hall Support: Maddy Watson, Ross Coles, Barney Nikolich, Matt Poulton

Quick cup of coffee, and how many ibuprofens is dangerous again?

It’s easy to convince yourself you’re finished once you reach Honister, and although leg 5 is comparatively the ‘easiest’, I still wouldn’t want to arrive in tight on time.

Dale Head still poses a bit of a slog up, but after that, I was thankfully back to having fun again, despite the foot. Harry even made a miraculous appearance – no one had seen nor heard from him since the end of Leg 1, as he retreated into the van muttering something about how hard the Ramsay was again.

Back to enjoying myself, the last summit on was pretty special. A perfectly timed round for a beautiful sunset on fell 42/42, with time enough to walk it in if need be. We stopped for a minute to enjoy.

My right foot is in tatters, but here, if I just stand on my left one, I really enjoyed that.

What followed was probably the slowest descent off Robinson in history. Using a left foot, two arms and a bum, I couldn’t much think about the pain over the laughs of Harry and Maddy at the state of me. That was only when my foot was in the air. As soon as it touched something, I was reminded of it.

With no more climbs ahead, Mike had dropped me on the descent off Robinson. There was no sense in him waiting at the bottom standing still, so the group split, and he headed onwards.

Big ups to Ronhill. Their 7-year-old tights somehow survived all the bum sliding down, and eventually we made it to road. A quick change of shoes into some comfies, and off we headed. Mike probably passed through here about 20 minutes previous, showing just how slow I was on that descent.

About 10 steps into the road run, I uncovered a massive blister – probably the change in shoes. Something from Ross about being a closet road runner, and it didn’t hurt any less with a walk, so I decided I may as well give this a blast as best I could. The sooner I finish, the sooner I can take the shoes off.

Most contenders hate the road section, and for obvious reasons. A fantastic 60 miles in the hills, spoiled by 5 road miles on cactus legs to get you back to where you started. I’ve even hated it myself before, on fresh supporter legs.

For some reason though, I didn’t hate the road at all. Once I changed through the gears and found the road legs, its possibly the best I felt all day. Maybe due to how slow I’d been moving for 4 hours previous, but it’s certainly the closest I was going to get to Kilian on any Strava segment on the day. In fact, I was only about a minute behind his road split, and a good 90 seconds ahead of Beth Pascall on her incredible 14hr round. Strangely very pleased with that, if we ignore total round times.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about the run up to Moot Hall quite a bit over the last year of so, or maybe even since reading Feet In The Clouds however long ago. The applause in was a surreal experience, and although a cold pint is just about the last thing your body wants or needs, that first sip was still pretty sweet.

21:43 & 21:39 Two well earned cold ones. All things considered, it’s probably the best day in the hills I’ve ever had.

With a bit more thought and a few weeks removed, it definitely was.

Shit. 42 Fells, 66 miles and 27,000ft climbed. That was fantastic.

…..

2020 plans of course were put on hold for everyone, and although the original plan was for an attempt in the height of summer, I feel very grateful that things fell in to place and I managed a shot at it.

A huge part of that falling into place was the amazing support crew. Having skipped the previous weekend to free up more support, I’m happy knowing that was definitely the right call now. A little worse weather for a lot better support is a good trade. It’s only my face doesn’t thank me for it. 21 hours in the cold wind, with 12 of that in the sun – it was shredded to pieces.

Thanks to everyone who helped in any way over the weekend. Both as important as the other; the miles driven, and the miles ran are hugely appreciated. I wouldn’t change a thing for a future attempt, and I look forward to repaying when I can.

Thanks to Ella for the loan of the digs in Penrith, which made the entire weekend more enjoyable, and thanks everyone for the kind words afterwards.

I’d be surprised if I never try this again. It’s a great route and I have an idea of how fast I think I could go around it again. Right now, however, there’s a few other things now bumped to the top of the list, and Mikes borrowed Mutants have a bit of a trend to continue.

However, if the BG and DR have taught me anything, it’s that I can still climb OK late into an effort. So, when I read “People who do not enjoy rocks and can make friends with big climbs may favour anti-clockwise” in Peter McDonald’s A Tribute to the Round, I have to think.

If that’s not reason enough to go back, then I don’t know.

God knows I hate rocks.