Bob Graham Round, leg 4 clockwise
Last year I ran leg 1 of a friend’s anticlockwise Bob Graham Round with him as a pacer. This was in the catatonic lee of the Fellsman, and I was letting my fitness drain away a little bit, and my Fellsman training had overindexed on distance rather than elevation, and I was also wearing the wrong pair of shoes: so on the descent down Dale Head I sort of fell behind by a couple of minutes and only barely arrived at Honister before my friend set off again up Grey Knotts.
Nearly a year has passed since then, and very little running in the Lakes in the meantime. I have, however, at least started to pay lip service to climbing in Castle Eden Dene and the North York Moors, so I was keen to see whether I could keep up on a group Striders run on a clockwise leg 4 recce over the bank holiday weekend.
Pleased to report that it went well: either due to company, or fine weather, or dry conditions, or judicious use of salt capsules, I finished the 17-mile run in good fettle, a little tuckered out but not unable to keep climbing if necessary. A Bob is not in my immediate future, but I’m glad to know that I can at least dispatch pacing duties without catastrophe.
