Running - Trail long (Matt's Joss Naylor) 8:30:10 [5] 48.7 km (10:29 / km) +3273m 7:50 / km
shoes: S/LAB Ultra 3
Phew, tough day. Had been looking forward to supporting someone since I did my attempt last year. I didn't realise Matt was 55 and so only needed 15 hours, I thought 12 was his requirement rather than just his target...
Speed as expected through the campsite on the flat but then he picked up the pace up the hill so much that I could hardly keep up. Kept telling him to take it easy but it fell on deaf ears. He said we were behind schedule on Arthur's Pike but I'm not sure how. Anyway, we caught it back on Loadpot and Wether and then we were pretty much on-pace or gaining small amounts of time after that. Took the higher line after Wether for the first time which was defo better.
I didn't go to a few summits (but was within sight of them) in order to conserve some energy. All our lines were bang on on L1 and we stopped for more or less exactly the scheduled 3 minutes.
Nailed the lines on L2 too, including a nice grassy route down Fairfield, but I was seriously tiring by the end and the last few splits were slower than my time last year. Nonetheless he arrived at Dunmail on schedule again to meet Allen for L3. I took the descent very easy and so arrived after they'd set off.
I wanted to keep going but at a slower pace, so I thought I'd miss s couple of summits. First opportunity to do that isn't until Rossett & Bowfell so I skipped those. Prior to that I went up Calf Crag rather than cutting the terrain and just after tried a new shortcut (conclusion: probably not) then standard line up to the approach to Rossett. Rossett area very very boggy, much moreso than last July.
Went up to Ore Gap and I could see them behind me coming off Bowfell, so that worked well. Took it super easy to Great End so we arrived at the same time.
Matt didn't like my Great End route so we tried an amalgamation of both of ours - down a grassy reentrant at the start and then try and cut to the grassy shelf. Unfortunately the reentrant took us down too low and we ended up on the shelf lower than I wanted. Not only were there a few scree chutes to cross to get to it, but also it wasn't as nice a shelf anyway. So that wasn't great and we probably lost 10mins or so there.
Down from Skew Gill to Sty Head, looks best to get to path asap rather than staying and spur (even though spur is both shorter and more fun).
Stopped here to let them do L4 on their own and walked down to Wasdale with Matt's friend Robbo.
Matt finished in 12:22 overall which is well inside the 15 so he was pretty happy, although I think he knows that 12 isn't outside his reach.
Pretty disappointed with my performance today - I hope it's just because I put so much into the Inter-Counties yesterday, and also got quite sunburnt and was very dehydrated. Feeling much better now (Monday) after drinking about 7 litres throughout the day.
Forecast looking good for the weekend.