Two and a half weeks till the first challenge!

Two and half weeks to go until the first challenge. Had I not been doing the challenges for charity I'd have probably given up ages ago. Thankfully the extra motivation of raising money has spurred me on and ensured I carry out the challenges. Whether I complete the challenges successfully is yet to be seen but I don't foresee too many problems.

Certainly the Yorkshire three peaks should be the easiest challenge of the three timed challenges. Although I still haven't attempted to walk 25 miles I've walked 20 and feel I could quite easily have continued a few miles more. The main concern for this challenge is getting lost and losing time. Having walked the initial part of the route it looks as if it could be quite easy to come off the rough track and head off in the wrong direction. Getting lost isn't too much of a concern (unless it's misty) but I'm hoping to complete this challenge in 9 hours or under (although I get to sign the three peaks book if I manage it in less than 12).

In terms of training this next two weeks is going to have to be fairly tough as I've been slacking the last month or so. The plan for the next week is as follows:

• A 10k run on the flat but off road tonight
• A half marathon off road tomorrow
• A rest day on Wednesday in terms of running but some gym work will be
• needed.
• A Half marathon on Thursday and a 10k on Friday.
• Saturday should hopefully be a quiet day with a 16 - 20 mile walk
• planned around Snowdon on Sunday

In terms of diet I've been horrendously slack for the last couple of months. I've been missing breakfasts having chocolate bars and packets of crisps for lunch and having sandwiches or cereal for tea! It's too easy to put this down to a busy life (as I would normally do). The reality is that I'm just too lazy to make lunch and lack the willpower not to buy crisps and chocolate. Looking at it on paper, I have the diet of a 14 year old! So this week, no crisps, no chocolate and proper lunches and breakfasts. Breakfast will have to start from tomorrow as I was too lazy to get up
early enough this morning to have one!

Training Weekend - Scafell Pike

Last weekend was the first time I'd ventured up to the Lake District and although up there by myself it was a great weekend. Now that I've been there I can see why so many people get lost in the dark trying to find there way to the top.

I made it to the top twice on Saturday. The first time was early in the morning and I took the route up via Mickledore (shown in red on the above photograph - photo borrowed from the Striding Edge). Initially the route follows a stone / rock path which leads up to an area called Hollow Stones. From here Mickledore seemed to be the most direct route to the top. From Hollow Stones the route consists of scree and gravel and certainly isn't the safest of routes to follow, especially as there's a small amount of scrambling to do to get up through a small gorge to a flat area at the top. It took me about 2 hours to get to the summit which included time spent getting a touch lost on the top and slipping around on the ice covered rocks!

Coming down via Mickledore was certainly more of an experience than going up. After surprising myself with such a good time I decided that once through the gorge, I could jump and slide down the scree / gravel. An idea that turned out to be an idiotic one. On the second jump I lost my footing completely and fell on my arse. Not a problem on the flat but on the slope you can see in the picture a bit of a nightmare. I gave myself a dead leg as I slipped down part of the slope and came a cropper on piece of rock that didn't fancy sliding down with me. Luckily I managed to grab hold of pieces of solid rock next to me otherwise I'd have probably ended up with a couple of broken limbs at best. Suffice to say, I hobbled and walked fairly slowly down the rest of the gravel!

Following lunch I decided to make my way up for a second time. From Hollow Stones I followed a a snaking route round to the left in the photo. Although no-where near as steep as the earlier route this seemed to be much more difficult as it's such a long route up. The fact that I was shattered at this point probably made it feel a lot worse than it actually was. Once the main gravel path disappeared this route was a bugger to follow. I tried to use the cairns to follow the safest route but seemed always seemed to end up climbing up something and then having to climb back down to find another route. As I was by myself and there was no-one else heading up this late in the afternoon I decided it was definitely safer to backtrack and find a better route than try and plod on along a route that may result in a fall or twisted knee.

I finally made it to the summit about 5 minutes after a snow storm had started. Sensibly (I thought at the time) I found some shelter and had a bite to eat whilst the storm passed over. Unfortunately this one didn't pass over, it just stayed hovering over the top spewing out more snow than I've ever seen before! After about 10 minutes I decided to head off before conditions got even worse. It is no exaggeration to say this was the worst snow storm I've ever encountered. For the next 40 minutes I couldn't see more than 15 - 20 ft in front of me. Initially I just had a hat on and couldn't take more than a few steps without having to turn my face out of the snow. Luckily I came overly prepared and had a balaclava stashed in my bag. Without it it would have taken me a lot longer to get out of the storm. Although any traces of a path had disappeared the larger cairns were still visible (thankfully there are plenty of them and they're located fairly close together) so I didn't need to rely on my untested map and compass work. Having now seen the conditions I imagine had I been forced to use a map and compass, Mountain Rescue would probably have been called to find me before I could get myself off the top.

After what seemed an age I made it off the top and out of the storm. Surprisingly, it only took me 4 hours and 10 minutes to get up and down and that included 4 or 5 stops on the way up to chat to people, a 10 minute stop on the top and the 40 minutes of slowness during the snow storm.

A week later I'm now pretty confident that the 3 peaks in 24hrs isn't as impossible as I've recently been thinking. So long as I don't get injured and can get some sleep between peaks (and the traffic isn't too bad!) and go as far as to put some money on me completing the challenge within the time limit. (Watch me twist an ankle getting out the car at Ben Nevis now!)