Start times clockwise

[Hank]

I wouldn't worry too much about stats. Go for what suits you best.

It's certainly true that an 18-1900 start with bad weather gives a very unpleasant leg 2 in the dark. I recall one night it being impossible to even follow the path from Clough Head such was the wind and rain. No fun and very hard to stay on pace.

That said, were I to go round again I'd still go for that start time as, like Stolly says, 00-0100 is just too late for me to feel good at the start and in good weather leg 2's a doddle, there's nothing to slow you down.

Of course a normal morning start time going a/cw is an option, but that's a whole other discussion...

[Stolly]

There is a huge amount of hanging around on a midnight start. The time I tried it I absolutely hated the waiting around plus going out for a run out after the time I'm usually in bed. It really did not suit me. Eating on the day of a midnight start is a potential issue too, whereas a decent breakfast and a hearty (slightly late?) lunch plus grazing through the day seems very compatible with an early evening start

Totally agree DT. When I tried that time (twice) I was sleepy and yawning before I even started.

The point I was making about hill fog and bad weather on a night time leg 2 is that even with seamless navigation you just can't move as fast as you would like. I've been up there when I could barely see my feet! If the dark is instead consigned to legs 1 and 5, I guess the hill fog of that sort might have less of an impact. That said hill fog on the back of Blencathra isn't particularly much fun either

[Derby Tup]

I think the scheduled times many folk expect for leg 2 are too fast. Leg 2 on its own is the easiest of the main legs when recceing but leg 2 is tough after leg 1, as many folk who try them together as a first 'long training run' will agree. Five hours is fine on the day for leg 2 if you're not going to do a brisk (say sub 22.30) time. A four hour leg 4 seems often to be the key to a good run, not four hours on leg 2

[alwaysinjured]

I think the scheduled times many folk expect for leg 2 are too fast. Leg 2 on its own is the easiest of the main legs when recceing but leg 2 is tough after leg 1, as many folk who try them together as a first 'long training run' will agree. Five hours is fine on the day for leg 2 if you're not going to do a brisk (say sub 22.30) time. A four hour leg 4 seems often to be the key to a good run, not four hours on leg 2

Not sure I agree...
Wynnies BG machine has got squillions of people around on a schedule of roughly 4 leg 1, 4.15 leg 2, and they dont die on the way. But 4.3x is common on night leg 2, which is why I think it is 15-20 slower.

But Four hours on leg 4 is seriously fast DT - the preserve of 20 hour (sub 20) rounds. I have only done a few like that, and it requires a push of (say) 38 on yewbarrow , similar on red pike (from memory I may be wrong), which is not hanging about, for a contender already knackered.

Do you mean 4++ (eg 4.30-40 - which is common against schedule 5.10) or do you mean literally around 4?

[Derby Tup]

I was hinting at the people who arrive at Dunmail 45 or 50 minutes up and get round (if theyre lucky) with a few minutes to spare. And yes 4.20 to say 4.40 on leg 4, which is very good going by mortals' standards. I think what I was getting at is a brisk leg 4 is the mark of a strong runner getting round comfortably, whereas fast early legs can lead to burn out later on

Incidentally I found running much faster than say 23 hour BG pace difficult at any time. This might have been because I trained hard with plenty of climb so spent a fair bit of time on the hill on tired legs. Or it might be a sign of me being a fat knacker

[Tahr]

I worked out the time of my start so that I would be running the last 5 miles on the road in the dark (as I figured that I would be no slower here without light and have no nav' issues) on a clockwise round, this meant that I started in the dark, light broke half way round leg 2 and we were back in Keswick before the pub shut.

[alwaysinjured]

I was hinting at the people who arrive at Dunmail 45 or 50 minutes up and get round (if theyre lucky) with a few minutes to spare. And yes 4.20 to say 4.40 on leg 4, which is very good going by mortals' standards. I think what I was getting at is a brisk leg 4 is the mark of a strong runner getting round comfortably, whereas fast early legs can lead to burn out later on

Incidentally I found running much faster than say 23 hour BG pace difficult at any time. This might have been because I trained hard with plenty of climb so spent a fair bit of time on the hill on tired legs. Or it might be a sign of me being a fat knacker

Agree with the problem over cooking it.
But I reckon 3.40/3.45 is getting carried away on leg 1 - you see a lot of them doing that.
The ones way up at dunmail, have generally picked a lot of it there on leg1

[Stolly]

Out of curiosity stolly did you ever consider a 5 am start then? Aimed at body clock? Gable (maybe pillar) to the end in the dark? Ive done A/C leg2 (ie leg4) in dark/wet a couple of times got on OK, or better than we did leg3.

Dont think there are quite as many submerged rocks (and deep boggy holes) on the running on leg2. Done it a few times at night and rain, not really tripped up much (as we did leg 3), just not as fast running: you end up picking your feet up more, worrying about trips. Nethermost is probably the place it is easiest to trip on leg 2 dark.wet because of a few sticky up rocks. Came a cropper there once. But then I managed it in daylight too!

Dont remind me about leg 3 in dark and "stolly weather!" still have PTSD and nightmares because of it!

No I don't think I'd go for a 5am start c/w Mike. Psychologically it just doesn't sound appealing. That said on both of mine and Gav's a/c attempts, starting at breakfast time saturday, unsurprisingly the "Stolly" weather was unbelievably bad on the night time leg 4 (leg 2 c/w) - both times it was high winds, driving horizontal rain and thick hill fog. Our first effort was totally obliterated by the weather - we were a bit naive navigationally at that time and just spent too much time finding Fairfield (at least 15 minutes spent looking for a cairn that was perhaps no more than 50 meters away at any given time!), Dollywaggon and Nethermost and in the end retreated from Nethermost towards Thirlmere and Dunmail completely drowned and frozen rats. The second attempt was much the same weatherwise (Tahr and Adnan were with us that night) and although we navved it really well in the circumstances, we lost too much time and got to Threlkeld 90 minutes behind schedule and, yet again, drenched and frozen we bailed - we fast came to the conclusion that attempting to do Blencathra et al in that weather in sub 3:30 hrs was impossible

[Tahr]

The second attempt was much the same weatherwise (Tahr and Adnan were with us that night) and although we navved it really well in the circumstances, we lost too much time and got to Threlkeld 90 minutes behind schedule and, yet again, drenched and frozen we bailed - we fast came to the conclusion that attempting to do Blencathra et al in that weather in sub 3:30 hrs was impossible

I remember it well,

[Bob]

The club have done no analysis of start times/finish times/success ratios/etc beyond the annual report, examples of which may be found on the club's web site. I'm not sure what Brian (Covell) kept with regards to attempts rather than successes but since I took over his role three years ago it is something that I have thought of presenting. Such data would be highly anonymised and along the lines of: year: 2005; month: 5; start_time: 0000; direction: clockwise; leg 1: 233(mins); leg 2: 258; leg 3: 374; leg 4:315; leg 5: 192. (These are from my round) obviously if someone has done a fast time or is the only anticlockwise round of a year then they are going to be identifiable. It's on my "TODO list" so don't pester me for it

There are obviously certain caveats that need to be applied to any such data, namely there's little allowance for weather or ground conditions or how any individual reacts to those conditions, I suffer quite badly in conditions of high humidity for example but others might find that OK. Also just because someone registers an interest in starting at midnight doesn't mean that they do so: they may change it due to weather or support problems. This problem is most apparent in those who attempt the round but don't succeed since I can't update my data to show this, it's likely to be a minor problem though so the general relationships should hold.

My current thoughts are that you should aim to have the runnable and tricky underfoot sections in the daylight, this means (for a clockwise round) getting to the summit of Blencathra at first light if you are aiming to do Hall's Fell or the parachute descent then you've got the descent to Threlkeld and all of Leg 2 and Leg 3 as well as most if not all of Leg 4 in daylight. This leads to a midnight start, a 1am start if you wish to be sure of daylight on Hall's Fell, maybe 11pm if you are thinking of using Doddick Fell then you are likely to get sunrise somewhere between Clough Head and Great Dodd.

I've tried a 1900 start and had an awful time (at night) on the Helvellyn ridge struggling with both fog and rain in even locating the path, stumbling over protruding stones that were nearly impossible to pick out. I think that you need to know how much the darkness affects your running speed, the Skiddaw leg is generally slow enough that darkness doesn't make that much difference especially since the route is increasingly obvious on the ground.