The Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon with Ken

This year was my 4th entering the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon. My brother got me into it, and I did my first couple with him, then last year with my brother-in-law. This year I was scheduled to do it with Peter (see Gritstone trail day 2), but he couldn't make it in the end, so Ken eagerly stepped in. Well, when I say eagerly perhaps it would e more accurate to say apprehensively! He had no need to be though. A Mountain Marathon sounds harder than it really is. It is a two day event and you compete in pairs. You start on Saturday morning, get given a map and a list of controls (grid reference and description such as 'cairn' or 'sheepfold' etc). You have to navigate yourselves to all of the controls in the order given. The final control on Saturday leads you to an overnight 'camp' (a field), where you pitch your tent for the night. Sunday, you get given a new list of controls which takes you back to the start, via different checkpoints. You have to carry all of your gear for the 2 days, i.e. food for 2 days, stove, sleeping bag, clothing, tent etc. Oh, and you try to run where you can!

This year we started from just outside Shap, near the Wet Sleddale reservoir. This area is probably best known for the location used in the cult film 'Withnail and I', although we were too preoccupied to be looking out for film locations! We had great weather on the Saturday, and awful weather on Sunday! I chose Branstree to be Ken's hill, or more accurately, Artle Crag, just to the North East of the summit. This was the hill where I think he was most relieved to have reached the summit! Branstree is one of the Far Eastern Fells (if we use Wainwright's categories) and from Artle Crag there are great views down to Haweswater and the fells beyond. It had been a tough climb up to the top, and will be a memorable hill for Ken!

We had a good, but hard day on the Saturday, only getting slightly lost a couple of times, and then not really lost, but just taking a while to find the controls! Our first error was a classic one - thought we knew where we were going, then started following people in front, only to find they were on a different course to us, leading us to the wrong control. The second error found us quite a bit upstream of the control, and added a fair amount of time following the stream along to find it. The overnight camp this year was at Longsleddale. Usually you get a field, some 'porta-loos', a tap for water, and they also sell milk, beer and soft-drinks. There was no treated water available this time, they just sold some bottled water, and pointed us towards the river! We used some bottled water, and also sterilised some of the river water - we survived! One of the best things about the Saunders is that you get the Saturday afternoon to sit around drinking tea (and beer which you can buy at the camp!) You get time to chat and chill out, while mentally preparing yourself for further exertions the next day! Day 2 we didn't get lost at all, and did considerably better than on the previous day. It was pouring with rain and felt like it was blowing a gale, but it was wonderful to be out running across the misty moorland, with compass in hand! You certainly felt alive!

When you finish you get a hot meal. Because of the weather we arrived back at the marque at the base camp totally soaked through. Because we'd been running we didn't feel cold, but after we'd sat down to eat our veggie chilli and drink our tea we did start to cool off. We'd left a tent of Ken's up over the weekend, planning to use it to get changed in, but there wasn't really enough room for us both to get in and get changed without getting all of our dry kit very wet. A number of the tents that had been left were now wrecked. The wind had collapsed some, and blown over others. I wouldn't be surprised if some had been blown away altogether! The large marque used as the event centre was being anchored down to a land-rover which was being lifted up by the wind! I got changed in the back of my car! We would usually hang around the centre for a while watching people come in, but the weather was so foul we just headed for home.

Ken is one of my oldest and best friends, and was our best man when Rachael and I married. It was great to do the Saunders with him. We pushed ourselves hard, and not only completed the course, but did so with a very respectable placing. I was really proud of our achievement, as was Ken (I believe). I had a great weekend, and hope he enjoyed it enough to join me again some time in the future! As I keep telling him, we have to go up a class now...