anyone planning a round this year then?
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anyone planning a round this year then?
Ooooh! You having a go, Chris?
Ace, a new ‘Class of ....’ thread. Good luck all planning a round
Yes but no but yes but no but ..... oh go on then, just this once mind. 5 weekends planned to refresh the memory then the big day in June probably. Count you in for sherpa duty if you're free?Quote:
Originally Posted by DinoF
Good luck knightrunner. I’m planning to recce a slightly alternative route for leg one as soon as conditions are passable. It involves coming straight off Great Calva nearly due south, past Skiddaw House to “the stake” ( as marked on os maps ). Up to Cloven stone and then swing round to join the normal route.
I just hate the fence line decent I find it too slow and this way you don’t have to wade through the Caldew.
If anyone fancies having a go or has any advice please let me know.
Cheers Phil
That route was talked about in the very long thread about route choices. The advantages are that you don't have to cross the Caldew which could be in spate and that it loses less height. I think it's slightly further. I've never liked the fence line, seemed too rough by the fence along with bits of the old fence lying around and another long bog crossing either side of the Caldew.
When I was recceing for my round in the early 2000s the best line was to drop about 200m along the south ridge of Great Calva then make a bee-line for the summit of Mungrisedale Common. The heather on the flank of GC had been burnt back so it was good running, there is (or was) a small path that you picked up about halfway down the flank that took you down to the track heading down the valley. You might still have to wade the Caldew though just upstream is where an old fence line crossed the river and was strong enough to use to keep out of the water Indiana Jones style!
I've never done the arc round by Skiddaw House but I do know that recceing in early Spring needs to bear in mind the height and strength of the heather at the time you'll do your Round. There are all sorts of great running lines round that way which are then just lost in a twiggy labyrinth a few months later!
I did the detour via Skiddaw House on my recce (between xmas and new year 2016, so bear in mind time of year). Obviously it's a fast descent off Great Calva. However once I left the main path at the turning near to 'The Stake' I made a right horlicks of it, was way too low, and ended up in and out of Roughten Gill, followed by a steep and demoralising climb up Blencathra.
However I would definitely try it again, taking the better route from The Stake.
I’m told Bob’s line described above is now much more heathery than it was in the early 2000’s or 2011 when I did my round. It is less steep than the fence-line and very direct. The one time I looked the Skiddaw House route it struck me as a long way round
Long way round maybe. Faster? Less tiring? Worth a look at I think.
It's certainly been looked at often enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by philblack40
https://www.strava.com/segments/15429359
https://www.strava.com/segments/15460417
It's definitely faster running as there's very little stumbling through tussocks and heather, you are on the Skiddaw House track for a Km or so. There's only a short section of boggy ground to negotiate where you cut over from the Lonscale Fell side to Mungrisedale Common.
The one time I did it, I think I may have been a minute or two either way of the direct line. That was without knowing the best lines to and from the Cloven Stone.
Both those Strava segments are too far NE. You need to head down the south ridge of Great Calva for about 200 metres from the summit before making a bee-line for Mungrisedale Common. The ground just SE of the south summit is pretty rough.
Following a little confusion last night, here's some tips about registering your attempt.
If you use Chrome as your browser turn off the auto-fill forms option. It's in settings->Advanced settings-Passwords and forms. If you've filled in a form somewhere on the web before and entered your phone number then this gets put in a hidden "spam trap" field and your registration goes straight to the bin! I don't think other browsers have this problem, at least it's not been reported.
A note on spam - the registration form gets six or seven registration attempts by spam bots for every genuine registration! As such there are quite a few traps, settings and checks to handle them. No system can be perfect, some spam gets through and sometimes genuine registrations get binned but I've done the best I can for now without being too intrusive such as using Captchas or "prove you are a human" questions. (The latter are in place ready to be deployed if needs be:o )
Sometimes the confirmation email gets put in your spam folder or even isn't delivered - make sure that you enter your email correctly otherwise you definitely aren't going to get anything. It might take ten minutes or so for it to arrive so be patient. When you click submit the contents of the email are displayed so worth checking those. That page also has a link to the contenders guidance document which should be read as it has information about potential problems and how to avoid them.
If you don't receive a confirmation email then please, please don't fill out the form and send it again! I might have received the original registration and entered it into the system. Once there's more than a few names it gets increasingly difficult to determine if a registration is a duplicate. Wait a short while and then send an email to me at [email protected] and I can check.
Allied to duplicate registrations are changes to the details of your attempt. Registration is house keeping on the club's part and lets us say there were X successes out of Y attempts. Altering the time of day from say 2200 to midnight or from Friday to Saturday because of weather isn't a problem. I only really need to know about major changes of a week or more then I'm not pestering you as to how you got on too soon. Remember that registrations are for 1st January to 31st December of any given year
Phew!
Very helpful Bob thanks
Addenda:rolleyes:
Sometime folk forget to register or set off as a support runner and actually finish the round. One of the anti-spam measures is that you can't register a date in the past so registering a successful round after the fact is best done by registering for some random date in the future. I've a "dummy" set of data that I can use but it's a bit confusing when I get a ratification form with no associated registration.
I'll post last year's summary of attempts and successes tonight.
I am reccying legs 1 and 2 on Sat 17 Feb, so far I think Paul Clarke from this forum is joining and anyone else is welcome. Pace will be steady, aiming just to learn / relearn the route and get back for supper that's all. I'll be staying in Keswick Fri night. Car logistics to be sorted once we know who's involved but it will basically consist of dropping a car at Dunmail then driving back to Keswick to start
Hiya ! You still up for doing legs 1&2 on Saturday ? Been away for a few weeks so not been on the forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Knightrunner
Yes, I sent you a private message, I'm still doing what I can of legs 1 & 2 in the snowQuote:
Originally Posted by Paul clarke
Can't find the private message, what time/location pal ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Knightrunner
Paul and I have now messaged but for anyone else who wants to join us we're meeting Moot Hall 8am Sat to go play on legs 1&2. We'll make it up as we go depending how much snow and how slow it means we are, but may for example skirt round Blancathra not up it, cut short at Threlkeld or Helvellyn, miss out Fairfield, etc
Rather than create a new thread, though I might do that so that it doesn't get lost, and since I've posted registration information here already this is a bit of a heads up.
I noted earlier about the level of spam vs genuine registrations. This morning I noticed that Google mail had marked two spam attempts as spam whereas previously they would come through as genuine registrations. These usually happen when an actual person fills out the form but the data is obviously fake - "Barneyxqijka" as a name for example. What might happen is that Google might start associating emails from the registration form as spam.
If that happens I'll probably have to make some changes to the registration process so that I don't lose genuine registrations. The probable solution will be a "front page" that filters between new registrations, update details and possibly one or two other options. The registration form itself would have a random BGR based question: "What's the second road crossing going anti-clockwise?", "Who holds the record for the fastest round?" or similar where you have to type in the answer rather than select from a list.
A merry band of, so far, 3 of us are meeting at Threlkeld 830am this Sat 3 March for a trot over leg 2. Pace is a modest run / walk / snowy trudge. If time, conditions and eagerness allow, we may also do an out and back of part of leg 3. All this is snow dependent for travelling up, as we are not local. Anyone who wants to join us is welcome but let us know you're coming or else be on time! I'll post any update to plans here
With the way the week has progressed and taking soundings from weather services and locals .... the leg 2 recce we were planning has been postponed to another day
..... the 'other day' being Sat 17 March hopefully. Keeping an eye on fell top reports and wil post update mid next week
Recce going ahead Sat, leaving Threlkeld around 830. Basically leg 2 but with choices along the way depending on weather and who's running. Looks like it'll be a cold and challenging day
So did you make it over leg 2 Saturday? I was supposed to be going to the Lakes Sunday (for Lakes 42 recce though) but it wasn't feasible to travel unfortunately! I love running in the snow but think I've lost a lot of speed this winter :-)
Part of leg 2. Wind was so strong (>50mph) on the tops it was hard to stand, so I went as far as Raise then cut back and down Sticks Pass and took a low level route back. Was also very cold: according to fell top assessors report -8C and with wind chill that made it -23C! Character building.
Combined it with a bit of a TdH reccie then, Chris?Quote:
Originally Posted by Knightrunner
Are you back up before the GL3D?
Reccies planned for 14 and 28 April
Prompted by Derby Tup’s post on another thread, I’ll add here that Dan Wilkinson and Ben Sheppard of Ilkley Harriers completed the round on 26 May in 20 hours 55.
We carried trackers and it is possible to see the rounds on the open tracking website page for BG 2018. (I didn’t turn my tracker off at Moot Hall at the end so it registered me as still moving a few minutes later when I left the steps to rejoin pacers and supporters and head to the pub. I’m not having Dan claim he was faster than me.)
With a 2am start and an ambitious 20 hour schedule we had no pacers on leg 1. Conditions on Skiddaw were bad. Visibility down to two metres in the dark and 50 mph wind. Struggled to find the summit and the correct line off. Once our of the clag and back on the right line things improved. Conditions underfoot were dry and the strong winds all day at least cooled us down a bit in the heat. We lost time on leg 1 and maybe a little on leg 2 but pretty much kept to 20 hour pace from there except maybe a slightly extended stop at Wasdale. Legs 3 4 and 5 went well, all with pacers, and we finished strong enough to race the clock for last orders (although the pub on the market square evidently had a late licence anyway.)
Dan’s write up is on the Ilkley Harriers website if you have a spare hour.
Cheers and thanks to pacers and support crew including GB’s Jack Wood on road support legs 4&5 (complete in his GB kit at my request).
Ben
Did a write up, some pics and a nice little graph that charts our journey to BG success, but failure against schedule here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=9f26b3b16c
Congratulations Benshep and djglover........
Well done Dan and Ben. Outstanding :-)
Great stuff lads
My Round is on Friday 17 August setting off at 21:00 clockwise on a 23 hr schedule. I have good support in place but would be grateful for one or two more runners. Any volunteers? Thanks in advance?