Stolly's adventures 2009

[Toffer]

Stolly, I prefer the nice pictures of hill and dale








PS Get better soon, if in doubt, run, it will only hurt

[Stevie]

Stolly I had an injury very similar to yours recently and was lucky enough to get physio on work health insurance - I was going to PM you some ideas for rehabilitation but your inbox is full. I'll stick it all on here in case it's any use, however I'm not an authority, just trying to help.

1. Do hot and cold treatment with e.g. frozen peas or sports ice pack if you have one, and small towel soaked in v.hot water. Maybe 5 mins each for an hour ish. Stop once the soft swelling has gone.

2. Don't bother with elevation, keep the ankle mobile instead - move it around while sitting and walk on it regularly. To promote blood circulation.

3. Try bandaging at night to reduce swelling - not tight though.

4. Strengthening (ligaments) - rise to tip-toes on both feet, go back down slowly on the bad foot. This may hurt, so not too many reps to start with.

5. Balance - receptors will be damaged so stand on the bad foot for 15mins per day split between several shorter sessions to re-train balance. e.g. 3mins while brushing teeth etc.

6. Dorsiflexion - the amount you can bend the foot up. Stand facing a door and with your knee against the door and foot flat on the floor (heel touching) as far out as it will go, measure from big toe to door. Maximum should be same as good ankle. Stretch the bad ankle by dipping on it slowly with flat foot and other leg bent (you may know this stretch already).

Only you will know how bad it is and whether it is ready for running. Two 8-10 mile runs at the w/e sounds tough. Try medium length walks first is my advice. I'm not a doctor and my injury may be slightly different to yours (think mine was similar but worse), so this advice may not all be useful, but 4,5,6 are important and need perseverence. If no physio you will not get the massage to reduce scar tissue but could try it yourself. Ideally get physio or sports massage.

Hope this helps in some way. Good luck with recovery.

Steve

[Derby Tup]

Any progress with ankle Stolly?

[Stolly]

Thanks for that Stevie (your ankle sounds miles worse) and for your touching concern DT . The ankle survived a 3 hour-er today so touch wood I'll be at the starting line for the fellsman.

[Stolly]

28. Whernside and Ingleborough out of Ingleton

Date: 2nd May2009 2009
Distance: 15.25 miles
Ascent/descent: 3,200ft
Route map
Time:2 hours 57

After strapping my ankle of doom with one of those adhesive bandages I felt okay and eager to crack off a run, following a week of mostly resting and molly coddling my ankle. With the fellsman next weekend, it wasn't just my ankle that was worrying me but also the tail off of late in my mileage, not that running a week before is going to have much of a positive effect either way.

This route, which I've done 3 or 4 times before, is lovely and, for a change, I decided to run it Whernside first, following the right hand side of the Ingleton waterfall walk up to and beyond Beezely Falls before climbing up onto the ridgeline for Whernside. Having gone through the farm up there and crossed over the road, rather than following the proper path up onto the ridge, which meanders about a bit, I just hacked a straight line up the side, crossing a wall or two and a shed load of ankle snapping limestone boulders in the process. Ingleborough as seen from the limestone paving:



After that initial scramble, I could now run all the way along the Whernside ridge, following the wall until I finally hit the trig point at least 4 miles to the north. Whernside and my wall line all the way to the top:



Eventually I reached the trig, turned about and descended in the direction of Ingleborough. Thus far my ankle had felt not too bad although I did feel a few twinges along the way. Anyway, it certainly didn't seem worth risking a full blown nutter descent so I ambled down in steady eddie fashion, protecting my ankle being my main concern.

Then it was up Ingleborough without too much trouble with fine views....

... looking back to Whernside:



... and, once past the wind shelter and trig point on the summit plateau, looking down towards Ingleton and my route back:



This path off of Ingleborough is a rubble and boulder field badly disguised as a path really and I definitely took this steady, very much on edge and planting the foot of my dodgy ankle with as much precision and care as I could. Fortunately I managed to trot all the way down and finish without any problems. Slightly worryingly though, given that the distance is a quarter of the fellsman route, I felt fairly shagged out at the end!

A marvelous run and hopefully my ankle will not fail again next week, leaving on some god forsaken and unknown hillside 10 miles from anywhere!

[Mountain Goatess]

Fantastic pics there yet again Stolly!
Hubby is wondering what camera you use....(or is it just the skill of the camerman)?
Hope the ankle holds out for you...take it easy!

[Stolly]

Hubby is wondering what camera you use....(or is it just the skill of the camerman)?

No skill on the cameraman front other than plonking myself on top of the hills, and even that isn't achieved that skillfully. My camera is the Olympus mju 1030 SW, seen here being held by one of my many groupies:

[Stolly]

29. The Fellsman

Date: 9th/10th May 2009
Distance: 62 miles as near as damn it
Ascent/descent: 11,250 ft
Route map
Time: 18 hours 10 minutes!

What a truly awesome, epic adventure! Easily the best route I have ever run and quite possibly one of the best things I've ever done in my life too. Absolutely fricking brilliant.

My build up to it though was a farce, culminating in knacking my ankle early into the 3 peaks fell race, itself a crucial bit of mileage lost in my build up to the fellsman, with too much rest time then semi imposed on me to get the ankle back into use. I can now run on it but it sure doesn't give me much confidence on rough ground.... and as I was soon to find out the fellsman has rough ground up to the gun 'oles.

The whole event is stunningly organised, including a rigorous kit check that failed me first time round (thanks donkarlo for the 'loan' of your survival bag) and something like 24 or 25 manned checkpoints all the way round, including 9 top notch food stops with brilliantly varied menus.

The start was nice and relaxed really, with all 382 of the starters more than realising the distance ahead, and the climb up Ingleborough out of Ingleton was nice and chilled as a result. I then pushed it a bit descending to Hill Inn and on the climb up Whernside, before fairly speedily scooting south along the ridge line to our drop off point into Kingsdale. At this point though the realisation of what might be ahead dawned on me as the descent was all over open tussocky fellside and I swiftly felt my ankle begin to twinge at the prospect.

All the same I got down in one piece and up Gragareth before enjoying the fairly smooth ridge run along to Great Coum. The descent though down into Dent was again over ankle killing terrain but, with a lot of care, again I survived, hitting Dent a bit before the 4 hour mark.

Out of Dent, heading towards Blea Moor, I teamed up with Mandy from Macclesfield Harriers who was great company and also knew what she was doing on the navigational front. (A good runner too, having succeeded on a BG at her first attempt). We then proceeded to get soaked and chilled to the bone together crossing Blea Moor in horizontal driven rain and hail such that, dropping downthrough the forested area before Dent Head Viaduct, I had to bid Mandy farewell, while I urgently put on extra layers and my (never ever used before) but desperately needed waterproof trousers.

The food station at Stonehouse with its delicious pasta was just in the nick of time but the conversation from alot of the competitors there was all about giving or trying not to give up, the weather had been so awful. (139 of the field were to drop out at one place or another throughout the day and night).The rain did stop though although it remained very windy and, from Stonehouse, I trudged up Great Knoutberry on my tod and then descended very badly, suffering from stomach cramps at this point! By now ML and Mrs C had over taken me and Stef F was running parallel to me with a chap called Steve, who was running his 12th consecutive Fellsman! From this point on navigation I knew would become more critical and, in any event, I was determined to try and stop Stef from overtaking me if I could. Inevitably Stef and Steve did overtake me of course dropping down to Redshaw but I sneakily started off from that checkpoint a couple of minutes before them to retake the lead!

We then gradually sort of run as a threesome, with me ingratiating myself for some much needed company and moral support. Unfortunately from this point on the ground became progressively more nightmarish and with one hand I tried to keep pace with Stef and Steve and with the other desperately watch each and every placing of my right foot on the ground to avoid damaging my ankle. Stef brilliantly set a fantastic pace which made things a bit dodgy for me, having to risk my ankle more just to keep up. Fortunately I just about got away with this tactic from there on in to the finish, although I did feel like a bit of a brake on our progress from time to time.

The crossing of Fleet Moss and Middle Tongue I mostly enjoyed in that it was totally unrunnable bog up to the eyeballs and therefore not a threat to my ankle although, as we neared Cray, things (annoyingly) became more runnable but at the same time bastard ground for my ankle and I slowed things down a bit I'm sure.

At Cray we had to wait 44 minutes to be made into a compulsory group of 4 and Hannah (soon to be doing the Moont Blanc 100 mile ultra!) joined us. In preparation for Mont Blanc she was carrying walking sticks and kindly lent them to me, which although I wouldn't normally admit to such a thing, helped protect my ankle enormously and helped me speed up somewhat. It was dark now, very muddy for the most part as we went up Buckden Pike and across down, round and up Great Whernside with low cloud coming into the equation up there. Then it was a very long and drawn out drop down towards Yarnbury but with just such a brilliant group of fellsman runners as company (Hannah from London, Steve from Essex, Stef from Southampton and me from Buckinghamshire but now a token northener!).

At Yarnbury we knew we were home and dry and we all enjoyed running all the way to the finish, reaching the school at Threshfied at 3:54 am, some 18 hours and 54 minutes after starting out. Steve, Stef and me though got the 44 minutes of hanging around waiting to be grouped at Cray added back in for a net 18:10.

I am so back next year to aim for 16 hours!

Some random pictures:

[Stolly]

And some more...

[Duff]

Stolly,
Just realised I met you at the Fellsman, both on the bus from Grassington to the start, and whilst waiting to be kit checked.
I was the fella in the inov8 cap and blue buff.
You ended up with a big bin bag thing instead of a survival bag and I failed to remeber to carry any cash to buy a cup of coffee during thre 2 hour wait for kick off.
Luckily Mr C stepped in and kept my caffine levels raised.