Big weekends/tough choice

A quick flick through the handbook doing some rough planning last night, it's interesting to see how some days/weekends have a surfeit of quality races on. A few standout examples:

6th April: Coledale Horseshoe, Howgills (English champs), Dungeon Ghyll, Pendle
27th April: 3 Peaks, Mourne Highline (Brit champs) - then on the Sunday - Kinder Downfall and London Marathon.
3rd August: Borrowdale, Creag Dubh (Brit Champs)
7th September: Grisedale Horseshoe (Eng champs), Ben Nevis, Braemar gathering (race for the Queen, and a fair wedge!)

Elsewhere, 3 shires clashes with the final English champs race again. The good thing is most of these races have enough of a following to survive on the same weekend as a big competitor, maybe spreading the field across a few races means everyone's happy and gets a run! And for your smaller more local races happening on the same day there's a chance of a newer face to get a good result (or get hoovered up by a gnarled pot hunter with a taste for cheap wine!)

I suspect that you have not turned down any cheap wine?

oh no. Red = spag bol; white = risotto. Freeze it in to ice blocks for future reference.

June is usually a congested month.... Welsh 1000, Duddon, Ennerdale, Buttermere, Great Lakes, and I'm sure a few others.

For myself this year I'm doing a couple of different ones in June.... Welsh 1000 (as usual), then Tenerife Bluetrail, then Lakes 5 Passes (which clashes with Great Lakes Champs race), then possibly Snowdon uphill (clash with Buttermere).

September also a good one every year.... Stretton Skyline, Ben Nevis, LDMT, Peris, Black Mountains, Grisedale, all vying for your entry....

What about the other way round?

Is there a weekend when finding a race is a challenge? Suppose this depends where you live.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jennings

What about the other way round?

Is there a weekend when finding a race is a challenge? Suppose this depends where you live.....

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August always seems to be a problem for me. Have spent the last few years holidaying in Scotland with options to stop off in the Lakes or north pennines on the way there or back. Not managed to fit any races in to the schedule yet.

Plenty going on in August usually...

In the lakes there's Borrowdale, and bank hol weekend is usually Burnsall/Grasmere, and i'm sure i remember a small race at Patterdale that weekend too (Arnison Crag?).

Wales has got Brecon Beacons and Arenig Fawr (which incidentally always seem to clash with Borrowdale weekend).

Not too far off the M6 is Teggs Nose, a runnable race near Macclesfield which is part of a country show. I did this once, in 2016, in scorching weather, and always mean to go back.

Also the fantastic Howgills weekend, Weasdale Horseshoe on the Saturday and Sedbergh Hills on the sunday. Both great races in their own right. Weasdale also part of a show.

September is shaping up well this year as it looks like Peris won't clash with the LDMT, so a potential for doing Stretton Skyline, LDMT, Black Mountains and Peris.

Its not so much the lack of races. Just the appropriate category in the right place i.e somewhere up the M6 and on to the North of Scotland. Have not done Borrowdale since 2015 and to be honest my lakes long classic years may well be behind me so tend to be limited to AMs these days.

Weasdale Horseshoe is within 15 mins of M6 J38. BM I think.

Turner Landscape? Although a bit of a trek from the M6.

They're a maybe. We'll have to see if the stars align this year. A lot will depend on the Cal-Mac ferry timetable!