One man and his Bob

I wonder if that would have been a better title for this Blog?

Less than 4 weeks to go now - I'm getting nervous and really really excited about my big day.

Why have I not blogged on here since mid March? Because things went badly, thats why.

When I returned from Majorca it was the Easter hols and I was hoping for some long days in good conditions. But the weather was even worse than t had been in the winter months and I took another fall. Nothing serious, just sore for a couple of weeks while I grew new skin on my arse cheek.

Leg one and two strung together fell apart climbing Gt Dodd and I skulked off home (via some more minor tops and over 25 miles for the day). Then one night I was climbing Skiddaw on my own in the dark and rain and just stopped dead in my tracks and said to myself " this is shit, I'm not enjoying myself here, why am I here doing this". And then instead of carrying on up I returned to the van and  tortured myself to sleep with thoughts of packing in the whole stupid BGR idea.

I know I am a weak minded fool (Jabba the Hutt), and should have pressed on until/unless it was physically impossible to do so. If I'd completed 2 full legs that day I'd have grown in confidence, instead I let myself down.

But I also know that on the day these bad spells will soon pass and will seem less of a problem with folk around to chivvy me along and keep me moving. In the 4 x 3000's I remember feeling so bad running behind Ian Charters out of the Wythburn valley toward the A591 that I thought I may have to quit. But an hour or so later I was positively bounding up Hell'y like it was the first top of the day and then even running to the summit itself.

Since those poor runs Ive had a couple of really good ones too - a 28 miler over some BG ground and other tops that came in well above 4mph (BGR needs to be 3mph to succeed). More lately I was on leg 1 of an actual attempt (successful I'm pleased to say - well done Scott), and 3:37 in quite poor weather (constant rain and strong wind) felt like the one of the easiest fellruns I'd ever done in my life.

Last weekend I ran (not all the way but certainly most of it) from Seathwaite to Styhead to Scafell Pike summit then to Esk Hause then Styhead again and retrace to Seathwaite. This is the route for the Scafell Marathon on 19th May. It also tours Borrowdale from Portinscale - Grange - Castle Crag -Seatoller-Rosthwaite-Watendlath -Keswick. I reckon it will take me between 4.5 and 5.5 hours to complete, so should be a decent final training run before tapering down for Bob.

So, I'm looking forward to it now. I'm fit enough and have great support in place to give me the very best chance of completion. I Imagine it's gonna be the most excruciatingly painful fun I've ever had.