My Bob Graham Round
Saturday, 13th June 2009
By the end of 2008 there had been 1459 successful completions since the
round was first repeated in 1960.
I have been training for this attempt since September 2008, coming in with what was probably a reasonable base
fitness but since then, covering 1200 miles, as much as possible off road with
an estimated 245,000 feet of ascent. I was aiming in the later months to
average 50 miles and at least 10,000 ft of ascent / week.
About a month before I had
written to Brian Clovell the Bob Graham Round Club Secretary to register my attempt, starting at
0100hrs on Saturday 13th June
2009 going Clockwise, I received
my ratification form through the post a few days later; there was no backing
out now!
Friday
12th June 2009 was a day off work, the morning was spent packing sandwiches and
food into bags ready to be carried on each leg, clothes were prepared, choosing
was easy, and I took most of what I had.
New batteries went in both head torches, the one I intended to use on Leg 1 and Leg 5 and the spare torch just in case. The weather forecast was fair, a chance of
showers but warm.
I ate as much as I could
during the day, as I had done for the last couple of days, and I made sure I
drank at least 2 litres of water to make sure I was well hydrated. For the last 2 days I drank a litre of good
Tonic water each day, the quinine is supposed to help prevent cramp. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours in
the afternoon but then I just had to wait until it was time to set off. Wynne
Cliff rang to say she would be late arriving at Stair village hall, our base; she had been having a bad morning in Morrisons! I hoped she was OK. Wynne has done road crossing support
for so many Bob Graham rounds that she
knows just what is needed.
At 20:00hrs Stewart Forsyth collected me and drove
me to Stair in the
On the car park in Keswick we met Steve Cliff the navigator for Leg
1 and Mike Johnson who, with Derek, was going to pace me on the
first leg. Mike got me to sit down on the back of the car. “Rest
now” he said, this is the sort of experience of the Bowland team that is the reason so many
people get round. I felt hungry again,
how could that be? I had been eating all day, I was probably nerves!! Ian Roberts was there on the car park,
checking everything and encouraging us.
As expected there were a couple of other contenders getting ready to
start, Simon Pearce (?) and Toby Cushion who Stewart who
I knew from the FRA navigation
course at Elterwater a couple of
years before. They seemed to be planning
fairly light support as they both had rucksacks on and just a couple of
pacers. May and June are the
main months for a Bob Graham attempt
as the weather is usually the most settled and daylight hours are the longest,
so it is not unusual to meet other contenders.
We moved through the little alleyway to Keswick
main street and stood in front of Moot
Hall, suddenly my watch said 01:00, I touched the door and we all set off
at a run, Steve leading, me, Derek and Mike in pursuit. I remember hoping when I paced Leg 1 for Bill Williamson’s Bob Graham last September that this was not going to be the pace for the rest of
the Leg! Through little alleyways, across roads and the bridge onto
The night was warm and we
could see that there was a bit of cloud cover on the top of Skiddaw. We climbed in the
company of the other party, getting ahead of them before the car park on Gale Road by taking a direct line up
the slope and across the field. We
stayed together onto the top of Skiddaw
and all struggled to find the top in the clag.
The other group got a good
line off the summit and their torches seemed to be miles ahead of us as we
descended towards Hare Crag. I was
disappointed to feel a blister developing but managed to put it out of my mind,
however I decided to stop as we crossed the Skiddaw House track to put a plaster on. The rest of this leg was uneventful and after
crossing the river Caldew it was
nice to find we could switch off the head torches as we climbed over Mungrisedale Common where the birds were starting to sing as dawn broke.
We came off Blencathra the 3rd summit via the aptly named ‘parachute descent’ down Gate Gill. The descent took me 23
minutes to the road at Threlkeld
where at 0430am. Wynne had my
breakfast ready; lentil soup and a cup of tea; 4 more pacers were waiting for
me. After a change of shoes from Mudclaw
270’s to Adidas Kanadia’s and a
second skin plaster on my right heel, we set off.
Quentin
Harding was navigating on Leg 2
and I was paced by Andy Farmer, Ian
Cookson, and Mike Meadowcroft with
Bracken, the dog, and James, who is a friend of Duncan Elliot.
On the first climb up Clough Head, Quentin suggested that I
fell in behind him and just plodded up following his footsteps to preserve my
energy, wise words learnt from experience.
Leg 2 was uneventful,
the views were largely obscured by low cloud but we got the odd glimpse down
the Dodds and on towards Hellvelyn. I like Leg
2, there are 12 summits and you seem to pick them off quite quickly.
As we dropped off Dollywagon down the horrible slippery
descent to Grizedale Tarn we heard
the other group ahead, by the time we had done the out and back to
I met up with Alan Pitcher and Mark Proudlock from Wigton
Road Runners for the first time. They were friends of Barrie Henderson and, from the start; these two had volunteered to
help me out on Leg 3. Also there was
Chris Reade and Nick Hewitt. Nick was taking the opportunity to recce part of the Joss Naylor route. Pam
suggested that I might need a leg massage and instructed Ian Roberts to do it, much to everyone’s amusement.
I changed from long running
tights to three quarters for the day and off we went on the big climb up Steel Fell. I was an hour ahead of my 23.5hrs schedule by this stage, which
was a nice feeling. The downside of this speed was that Mike Mailer had planned
to run part of Leg 3 from Dunmail with me but, by the time he got
there, I had already left. This also
caused Pete Waywell an issue. He
changed his plan from meeting us on High
Raise to getting dropped off at Dunmail
and he also missed us so he cut across and met us on Martcragg Moor.
By the time we had climbed Steel Fell we had caught Toby et al who left Dunmail before us. Chris Reade said to me, “Don’t stop on the top, touch it, shout out
the time and run on through, we will catch up.” This proved to be a
great tactic, as we descended from the summit we had gained 200 yards on the
other team; it wasn’t a race but one minute on each top wasted will add up to
nearly 45 mins overall!
Leg 3 weather was a bit
mixed; the cloud kept skimming in and we got a couple of showers, nothing
serious, in fact quite pleasant.
Pete
Waywell joined us on Martcragg Moor
and kept chatting all the way to Wasdale!
Alan, who was
navigating, agreed with Chris Reade
that they should combine knowledge to ensure the best option was taken. Chris knows this leg like the back of
his hand.
On Rossett we met the remnants of the Achille Ratti club support, their contender had set off at midnight
and we were catching him.
The climb to Bowfell went fine and on the way we met
the anticlockwise contender, also called Richard,
who we had seen near the Swinside as
we drove to Keswick. I later heard that he did not get round,
dropping out at Threlkeld about 50
minutes down on his schedule after suffering from stomach cramps.
The rocks on Bowfell proved to be a bit slippery
which is very unpleasant; as we went up we met the Achille Ratti team coming off. I thought I was well supported but
there must have been more than a dozen of them.
We all carried on together as far as Great End where I got ahead again.
Nick
Hewitt left us at Great End.
He went off down to Sty Head but we
gained Mike Johnson again at Esk Hause. I must have been having a
bad patch as I can’t recall him joining us!
I did feel a bit alone on the climb to Great End despite being among the Achille Ratti crew as my support had spread out. I shouted to Pete who had gone ahead taking pictures
and he stayed with me after that.
Ill
Crag and Broad Crag passed
quickly; the rock was drying and visibility was good. There were quite a few
walkers about now, all making their way to
I battled my way past the
pilgrims to get to the top of
Alan and Mark had descended directly from the Pike to warn the support at Wasdale that we were still making time
up while Chris, Pete and I went to Scafell. The descent was one I had not been looking
forward to but it seemed to go quickly and was not a problem. We choose the right hand scree chute,
(southernmost), but it probably should have been the left one as the stone
looked smaller. The very steep grass slope just before the river turned into a
slide as we all came down on our bottoms.
It was nice to stand in the river briefly at the bottom and wash my
face.
It was a bit of a surprise to
see Alan and Mark again at this point. It seemed that Mark had been cramping up and that had slowed their descent.
We all trotted into the car
park at Wasdale in glorious sunshine
to find the ever dependable Ian Roberts
brewing up. Wynne had not quite
arrived and neither had Trevor Rayner
with the Leg 4 pacers! Not really surprising as I was 2 hours up on
my schedule by now. Luckily Andy Crook was there and so was Leigh Warburton the navigator who had
run through from Honister! Chris
and Mike had decided to carry on
through on Leg 4 as well.
Ian gave me a bowl of soup and a bread roll. The soup was great but I
couldn’t stomach the bread. I was retching at the thought of it so I had to
spit it out. When Wynne and Steve arrived
I got Wynne to change the second
skin on my right heel. It wasn’t too sore but it had started to rub a bit
again. I had quite a long break at Wasdale. It turned into 26 minutes instead of 20 for
some reason, probably because nobody had the clock on me.
Robert,
Nicola and Nick Collyer were
supposed to be watching me through Wasdale
but they were probably busy pitching their tent when I arrived and turned up
after I had gone, as did Trevor Rayner
who drove all the way round to Wasdale
with the Leg 4 pacers, Stewart Forsyth, Nigel Shepherd and Duncan Elliot. They met Pete
Waywell waiting for his lift he told them we were already at the top of Yewbarrow so they decided not try and
chase us and headed for Black Sail
to bask in the sun and pick us up as we came off Pillar.
Before we got there Leigh, Chris, Mike, Andy and I had a
tough section to complete, including two long climbs up Yewbarrow and Red Pike
but I made both of these in 10 minutes under schedule on each climb. I was
descending well and Leigh said he
was surprised how quick I was chasing him and he had to work hard to stay ahead
on the descents. I was a bit worried
about food on this leg as I could not face sandwiches. Mike Johnson had brought a rice pudding with him which I managed to
get down, together with a banana then I carried on with sweets and chocolate
around the rest of the leg.
There were no real problems on
this leg although descending the rockier parts of Pillar was tough; it was good to see Stewart, Nigel and Duncan
at Black Sail just before the ascent
of Kirkfell which we did via a
grassy ledge alongside Joss’ gully. Next came Great Gable, a big climb and a bit of a bad patch. I was starting
to stumble a bit and step backwards on the steepest parts of the climb and then
quite unexpectantly I was sick.
Having got that over I felt a
lot better and topped out Gable with
a mouth full of tangy sweets and in good spirits, we all moved on to Green Gable as cloud descended, but it
didn’t last long as the cloud soon cleared opening up tremendous views for the
rest of the day. Andy Crook was waiting for us on Green Gable. He had cut across and missed out Great Gable but he was sitting there holding out the promised
chocolate raisins which I enjoyed!
Between Green Gable and Brandreth,
Huw and Moo joined us for the
run down to Honister where quite a
crowd had gathered, including Bernie
Krawczyk and Elizabeth who had
ferried some runners up from Keswick. A short break of 10 minutes was all I needed
to get soup and a cup of tea down provided by the Wynne and Pam double
act. The team for Leg 5 were a bit nervous that they would not be able to keep up so
they had already set off up Dale Head.
For this leg I had company
from Stewart and
Trevor
Rayner was there having run out from Keswick.
With him on one side, Steve Littler
on the other and the rest of the pack tucked in behind we shot off down the
road at a good pace. George Flanagan
was waiting at Newlands Church also
having run out from Keswick. George
and Graham Ingham were supposed to
have met me at Honister for the last
leg but were caught out because I got ahead of schedule. We met Graham
coming towards us just before Stair
so he turned round and ran back with us.
There was a small group at Stair
village hall to watch us go past, they said I was flying, but it was downhill!
Various cars passed us on the
road before Portinscale trying to
get to Keswick before we did. The
windows were open and there was a bit of banter, everyone was in great
spirits. I slowed considerably on the
gravel path across the fields after Portinscale
but felt good again as we turned onto the road into Keswick. A couple of the
lads ran ahead and stopped the cars on the mini roundabout so I could shoot
straight across, that felt a bit cheeky!
Then one last big effort up
the main street and I was touching the Moot
Hall door again, it was 20:49, 19
hours 49 minutes after I set off and 3hrs
43mins my planned schedule.
There was quite a crowd of
people clapping me, even some bloke who came out of the pub, I heard him say as
he clapped, “What’s he done?” It did
not seem long before David Murray
from Ochil arrived and we shook
hands. Then, after a few pictures in front of Moot Hall, Wynne and Steve
suggested we went back to their house. I didn’t have to be asked twice!
After I had a hot bath a crowd
of us sat talking about the day, I could not stop smiling. Wynne soon provided another meal for everyone but I was feeling a
bit sickly and couldn’t face it. At 11 o’clock, after a couple of brews and a
glass of ginger beer which settled my stomach, I went to bed. An hour and a
half before I expected to finish running!
My Bob Graham Round was a fantastic day out. I could not have done it
without the support of my wife Elaine
and daughters Emma and Kelly who put up with all my training.
Then on the actual day with help from Bowland
Fell Runners,
Written
by: Richard Davies
Submitted:
19th June 2009
Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor