First things first Hazel Sturt has had to pull out of this coming weekend so we’ve changed the agenda to an Open MIC Night with the help & support of Alan Mannouch so all you musicians feel free to come along for a relaxed evening in Capel Curig on Saturday 23rd May, more details on our events page.
Now back to last weekend & the Keswick Mountain Festival which is clearly growing in stature year by year. After arriving at Midday Fraser & I set off in search of our first mountain, a Wainwright called something like Mulgraves Common stuck in the middle of Blencathra & Skiddaw. Half an hour in without having referred properly to a map (my excuse is it sits between two maps & I thought Fraser knew the way) we realised we were following the wrong path, good start!
Back track for 20 minutes, enough of this, that river has a ford, boots off wade across, back on track, two hours later with the ‘mountain’ (maybe Wainwtright’s lucky number was 214 & so he added this mound to the list) ticked off there were two more rivers to cross, the first a good leap, the second boots off & then the embarrassment of chucking one of them into the river rather than across to the far bank, anyone would think I’m new to this!!
Back in Keswick we went along to Leo Holdings presentation, it was simply great & included an Auction at the end to raise money for Nepal.
Over the next two days 6 more Wainwright’s done in a battering wind with the obligatory Gear Shopping, Wine & Beer that form part of our annual pilgrimage before I went along to Joss Naylor’s & Steve Birkinshaw’s fascinating talk covering their epic assaults on all 214 Wainwright’s in 7 days, simply mindblowing what they put both their bodies & their mind’s through.
An evening rendezvous with Kean & Sandra followed by Frazer & my retiring to a pub were then perfect preparation for the 25K Trail race I was running in on Sunday morning!! Kean take note!
We were due to start at 11:15 & whilst waiting for the off I was staggered as a woman (also staying in our B & B) who crossed the line to ‘finish’ the 50K Ultra in 3:30 some one & a half hours ahead of the actual winner, just why would you do that?
As for my race it was hard but I was pleased with the way I ran coming home in 2:30:19 finishing 22nd out of 197, it was great to be cheered home by Emlyn Roberts (also of Eryri) who’d come 20th in the Ultra as well as Fraser, Kean & Sandra, always good to see smiling friendly faces after a bit of seriously hard work. The organiser’s need praising for an improved course, markings & marshaling but since when is 27K a 25K, come on guys in these days of GPS please call the race what it is! Must have pushed hard as it took 2 days to recover, ideal workout with the Welsh 1,000 metre race now less than 3 weeks away.
So ended a great few days in & around Keswick, well we may have visited one more pub. Hope this coming weekend you have a great schedule for joining us in Snowdonia, weather looks pretty good early on so make the most of the sun just in case it becomes a little more shy as the weekend progresses.
