Dunnerdale Fell Race

[Llani Boy]

Love your alternative Fell Race route choice optimism Luke and enjoy trying to work them out on the map.

It seems to me that you come up with more bad uns than good uns and usually pick up a scratch, scrape or injury to remember them by.

Good on you for keeping trying and I'm sure one day you'll come up with a gem.

Oh, and Discord is still accepting new members

[mr brightside]

Love your alternative Fell Race route choice optimism Luke and enjoy trying to work them out on the map.

It seems to me that you come up with more bad uns than good uns and usually pick up a scratch, scrape or injury to remember them by.

Good on you for keeping trying and I'm sure one day you'll come up with a gem.

Oh, and Discord is still accepting new members

I doubt if anyone still looks for alternative lines any more, i think people just assume that after all this time the route is the route. These alternatives mainly get me clear of the traffic, which is the biggest problem at Dunnerdale these days. The route through the mines, which have some impressive stoped hushes, is quick and trouble free with no awful little trods clinging onto unstable hillsides, and no congested washed out footpaths. You could go flying quite badly on a couple of sections and get cut to ribbons by slate shards, but when you're in that nice flow state on a fast route and your mind is quiet everything just happens for you. I'll be most interested to see what happens after cp3; the new line there sees you hitting much higher top speeds than that nasty little path, but there is the drop down to the reeds first; if you get tripped by bracken there you'll be chewing rocks.

[bigfella]

Route choice is just one of the things that sets fell running apart from other races. As a mediocre runner at best I have to find terrain that suits me and maybe a sneaky shortcut into the bargain.

[anthonykay]

I doubt if anyone still looks for alternative lines any more, i think people just assume that after all this time the route is the route.

I often look for alternative lines. It always gives me an excuse for my poor performance: "I took a line that looked quicker but it led me into bracken/rocks/swamp/... ."

[mr brightside]

It might be a very dry year this year. The dry spell might last until saturday night.

I've got niggle issues that are cramping my style a bit anyway, so i'm going to have to start a bit slower and aim for a less strained level pace. I seem to be over 53m post-pandemic, having cracked the 50m barrier at one stage. I think given that, if i can run under 53m then my new routes are worth it.

[mr brightside]

Dreach, in a word. I've had 2 back spasms in the last 10 days, hams are very tight.

[mr brightside]

Let's not talk about the time. I got a terrible start, but having not trained for 2wks I knew there was no point. I didn't warm up properly as I didn't want to put more wear and tear on my back and knees, my last back spasm was 2 days ago. The shortcut round the rocky traverse didn't really gain anything, but it was nice to clear the traffic. If I had any level of fitness I could have used it a bit.

As I dropped off cp1 and beared right on the next misadventure, some grumpy old bugger from Pennine barked "flags!" at me. Obviously someone who doesn't approve of route choice and new lines, so I ignored him. I had no leg speed about me along the trod to the mines, it was a shame as its a quick section, and I went wrong slightly on a couple of the twists in the mines. The steep ramp up from the mine track killed me off and I was pooped as I approached the road. The mines route has 25m less climb, but as I crossed the road the old sod from Pennine was well ahead of me. It later turned out he was slow downhill, so I would have expected to be in front of him if I'd have gone the normal way.

Going the right way off stickle pike went fine and I overtook the grumpy old codger. Going over the bog saved me some time, so that short-cut works. On the way up to cp3 a woman from Ambleside told me to stop taking short cuts; don't know if she was having a crack or in bed with the old bugger from Pennine so I ignored her too.

Next short-cut was down to the wall via a soggy bog drain. The drop off the edge was a bit tricky and I jarred my back twice. My legs were shot and I was struggling to lift them clear of the bracken. As I descended the precipitous hillside I could hear yet more comments and queries coming from the ridge above, but I was too preoccupied to care. This line would've been a lot quicker if I hadn't gone face first into the soggy pig twice, but I was behind the same guy at the bottom so lost nothing.

My next shortcut over some downed walls in a small enclosure got me in front of the two Ambleside guys ahead of me.

So mixed results, but the new route off cp3 was the best, and I'm going back for another look at cp1 to the road, I'm not done with that one yet.

[Llani Boy]

Top man

[mr brightside]

My left hand was bleeding at the finish too.

[BillJ]

Excellent race report Luke, made me laugh. Thanks for posting that.