Edited - you were right, my original reply was a big mistake!
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LOL your reply had me in stitches - I was expecting some sort of warning away!!
Eldest.. Wow, what can I say!!! Gorgeous!!
Youngest - I see she is getting her full on fell gurning training! Does she take after her Dad? Doing well at the running I hope??
Enjoying the thread too, and some great photographs (I meant of the fells and not just your eldest!! :D
11th February 2008 - Ingleborough and Whernside from Ingleton - 15.25 miles and 3500 ft of Climb
OS Explore Route
This week our best cat 'in the world' Sam was run over and killed, leaving me completely and utterly heartbroken. So come Saturday morning I really needed to good run to lift my soul and get back my cheery outlook on life. And this run on such a beautiful day really, really helped.
At 8:30 I parked outside the Wheatsheaf pub in Ingleton - a pub I once feinted from heat exhaustion in after a 'really educational' first run ever of the 3P on a boiling hot day, culminating in a wrong turn off Ingleborough and an infamous Ingleton finish - and was off up the lane towards Ingleborough. I soon branched off of what is the Hawes road out of Ingleton and was hacking up the main track. This is a good start to a run in that its straight away steep and it soon got me puffing and warmed up, on what was a chilly but sunny day. The view of Ingleborough before me:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7...boroughpo3.jpg
The ascent is all runnable right to the top, although I was running sort of on all fours as I crested onto the plateau after 45 minutes. Once up here though an absolutely stunning panorama opened up around me. To my right I could see Pen y Ghent and Plover Hill, backed and slightly silhouetted by a low sun, and then, panning round to my left over what seemed liked endless rolling hills disappearing into the horizon before me, my view passed over a tiny Ribblehead Viaduct in the distance, looking like a brilliant accessory to a giant's train set, and then Whernside with the big ridge behind that with trig points called Gragoreth (how Lord of the Rings is that?) and Great Coum.
After that it was down the other side of Ingleborough towards Whernside; the steep drop off was pretty impossible to run due to the jagged steps there but I was soon running quite fast over the slabbed path and the boggy ground beside it heading down to Chapel le Dale.
From there it all became up hill again with a great ascent all the way to the trig point and wind shelter on the top of Whernside, again all runnable...... just. Amazingly there was still some snow up here with the windshelter itself filled with a 3 foot deep, icey snow drift. I hit this second peak, now just over 8 miles into my run, after 1 hour and 54 minutes and could be forgiven for thinking the hard bit was over; I now just needed to follow the wall back to Ewes Top, zip down past Beezely Falls and that side of the Ingleton Waterfall Walk and Robert's your father's brother.
But this wall is the longest wall in Christendom and following it became a never ending, undulating bog fest and no matter how far I had travelled I could still see the wall continuing endlessly before me. After maybe 2 or 3 miles the wall was still going on (and on) but the grassy moor around me now had large glacier deposited (I guess) boulders parked here and there, almost like standing stones of some ancient religeous cult; on a claggy, mizzlely day they would have been downright spooky. After another mile or two, with the wall still going strong :rolleyes: the ground turned into a badly laid limestrone pavement (kind of similar to the one on the top of Malham Cove) which made running and hopping a bit more dicey. Looking back to Whernside:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/3...ernsidean8.jpg
Anyway I eventually hit Ewes Top after running parallel to 'that wall' for getting on for 4.5 miles and dropped down towards Beezely Falls. This is the Ingleton Waterfall Walk which, if you park in the official car park and pay the official £4.50, comes out of Ingleton following Kingsdale Beck, past on the right day some brilliant waterfalls including Thornton Force, cuts across the top to Beezely Falls following the River Doe and it's waterfalls back down. Very scenic but very touristofied, with concrete steps and (with kids in tow) much needed safety rails and whatnot.
I finally chugged, now quite wearily, into Ingleton and up to the Wheatsheaf for a finish, taking 3 hours and 2 minutes to get round. A completely awesome run though.
Good route descriptions and photos on this thread Stolly. But I can't believe you've indulged Alan T with photos of your daughter!! He's probably on the boat right now trying to seek her out!!
Don't give out her address for God's sake.
You need to read some of Alan T's previous post's re his exploits - you will note that David has never posted pictures of his nearest and dearest.
Actual Races!
In case you’re wondering whether I’m actually running any races at all this year, my somewhat picky race season kicks off with the Half Tour of Pendle in March. I went through my highlighted FRA calendar this morning and reckon on running:
March: Half tour of Pendle and Edale Skyline
April: Coniston 14 (road :eek: ) and 3 Peaks
May: Fairfield Horseshoe and maybe Helvellyn
June: Pen y Ghent (or Wharfedale offroad marathon) and Settle Hills
July: Skiddaw and Stirton
August: Borrowdale
September: Ben Nevis and Three Shires
October: Langdale Horseshoe
November: Full Tour of Pendle
December: Auld Lang Syne
July and August I’ll mainly have to play by ear because our holiday plans haven’t yet been sorted but, either way, I should be running 16 races or so.