An inspirational day

In contrast to the previous weeks weather this weeks was a welcome change with plenty of sunshine which made things a little bit warmer for running. It has been another good week of training for me with 3 xcountry runs and 2 fell runs. On Tuesday I met up with ex Bingley Harriers team mate Eddie Irving who now runs for Ilkley Harriers for a training run. We set off from my house and headed down to Burnsall following the Dales Way footpath, on reaching Burnsall we then joined the path to Thorpe which has some tough little undulating fields. From Thorpe we ran down the old back road towards Cracoe for 3/4 of a mile then climbed over the stile on the right hand side of the road to follow the path down to Linton village. Upon reaching Linton we then took the path to Threshfield after which we crossed the fields back to Grassington where we started, a nice little training run that has a good mixture of terrain in approx 60 minutes. On Saturday it was back up to Cumbria to meet up with Martin Spooner & Andy Kirkup for a training run over leg 3 of the Bob Graham Route. Once again we were very lucky with the weather it was an absolute fantastic day for running. When we set off from Dunmail raise there was a cold breeze in the bottom but as we climbed out over the top of Steel Fell there was little wind at all so making it quite warm. As we made our way across the tops conditions under foot were quite dry in places to which made running a lot easier, for those not familiar with this section of the route it can be very boggy at times making it a hard slog. With the conditions being so good we made excellent progress to Bow Fell, then it was onto Esk Pike, Great End, Ill Crag, Broad Crag, and Scafell Pike.

Myself on Great End with Great Gable in the back ground

 After fighting our way through the bus loads of people at the summit of Englands highest Mountain at 3,209ft we dropped off down towards Sca Fell and to the bottom of Broad Stand. Upon reaching Broad stand we came across Dave Sleath from Derbyshire who at 68 years of age was attempting to become the oldest person to complete the Bob Graham Challenge. Dave was doing an anti-clockwise round so when we saw him he was climbing down Broad Stand with the aid of ropes and made this look so easy. It was absolutely amazing to see a person of this age under taking the challenge of the Bob Graham, a truly inspirational individual. I am pleased to say that Dave did achieve the feat of going under 24hrs with a time of  23.59 top man. After watching Dave we headed back up to Scafell Pike where Martin & Andy headed of back to Esk Hause and down to Langdale where they had arranged to be picked up. I headed of down the Corridor route to Sty Head Tarn, then onto Seathwaite were my lift was waiting for me. Another fantastic day out on the fells.

Dave Sleath Climbing down Broad Stand