Saunders Mountain Marathon - Bowfell Day 1
RoutegadgetIn a team with Mark. Wasn't sure what my hill running / terrain fitness would be like after not focusing on it as much this season. Still I was confident I wouldn't be too much of a hindrance to Mark after our recce last weekend.
Thought we were going to be late for our start so power walked up to the start only to find that they had allowed for open starts due to the heat already at 9:00.
Happy enough for Mark to pick the routes and me just to watch and make sure we didn't do anything stupid.
Clean to 1 & 2. Mark wasn't a fan of my suggested route to 3 all the way round so we red lined it as we didn't see the in-between route which would have saved ~10 minutes as part of our route was up a 210m high wall of bracken. Fuelled on ActiveRoot, flapjacks, peanuts and melted chocolate bars we were moving alight and Mark picked good lines to 4, 5, 6, 7. There were actually more points to pick up water than we predicted.
Big long routechoice to 8; down to the valley to run along before a steep ascent or backtrack and stay on terrain on the top. We chose the valley which i thought no-one else would spot but it was actually quite popular. My descending was poor on the rocks as i had almost gone over on my ankle a couple of times. I was a huge fan of the long road section, less so of the final climb that awaited me but it was an easy find and soon enough it was back down and along the road to the mid way campsite.
3rd place, 40 mins behind the EUOC masterclass of Ali and Tam, 13 mins behind some fell runners, 4s head of Vokes bros and 7 mins head of Paul Murrin. All to play for.