Sunday 23 December 2012

Tour de Helvellyn

Enjoying the very soggy conditions at CP3. Knee deep snow here last year! 
(Photo from Stu Smith of Adventures in Mind & Nav 4 Adventure)

Just in the process of drying out after an epic Tour de Helvellyn. Last year this 38 mile classic trail run featured knee deep snow over Sticks Pass, this year it was almost knee deep in water! Entries had more than doubled and there was a long crocodile of runners making their way up on to the fells from Askham in the early hours of the morning. This is probably the trickiest bit of the route in terms of navigation and it looks like plenty of folk had decided to extend their day to 40 miles plus. I managed to keep on track this year and was ticking along nicely until an old injury flared up while traversing above Thirlmere. A tight hip flexor and IT band meant that I was reduced to a hobble downhill but was fine on the flat and uphill. However I'd done enough early on and I managed to get back round to Askham in 8:41, over an hour quicker than last year. Big congratulations to Eden Runners Kim Collison who beat the 6 hour barrier by 7 seconds, lowering the course record in the process and to Joe, Stu and the rest of the Nav 4 team for another great day out.

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