Quote Originally Posted by wheezing donkey View Post
Jez, the inaugural record for the Dales Way was set in the early-mid 80's by Dennis Beresford, one of Clayton's hard men of that era; IIRC it was 13 hours and some. Someone else went faster, but I seem to recall that Dennis recaptured the record. I would need to go in the loft and dig out the old FRM's from that era ( yes, got them all neatly filed away, Feb '84 to the present ). Try googling the Clayton website, there might be some details. Look at the 2nd thread down on page 36 of this long distance challenges file. Ian.
Cheers for that Ian. Rob, a slight confession here. Me & a club mate attempted it this weekend. Kept it under the radar in case it went belly up. And guess what ?
Started off later than planned from Bowness on Saturday morning after 2 breakfasts, at 9.30 a.m. We had a plan to run the first day very steady to maximise our chances of feeling good on the 2nd day. The weather was quite windy with bouts of rain, but fine for running. The first few miles we found really slow going & fiddly, with great potential for going wrong & we did a number of times. But we stuck to our plan of walking whilst eating & anything that resembled a hill. It was only when we stopped for lunch along the River Lune, at around 20 miles, that we realised just how slow we had been going. We had a quick cheese sandwich in Dent, where the weather became truly awful (proper stair rods) & pressed on for The Station at Ribblehead where we were staying that night. Crawled in looking like drowned rats at 9 p.m, after a ridiculously slow 11.5 hours & 45 miles. We were pretty spent & having seen Sundays forecast decided to postpone our 2nd leg for a later date. Cue a few ales, a steak pie & chips. Eating breakfast the next day we realised we had made the right call as the weather was foul. Black skies, driving rain & wind. Besides, we were hobbling badly & very stiff. A shame, but we made the right call & had a good weekend. On a plus point, my new Ronhill Trail Tempest proved watertight all day unlike my clubmates Montane !