Hi Andrea

I think 20th July is fine - I did my BG last year on 30th July starting from Keswick at 2am on a clockwise round. It was light enough by the time we were coming off Skiddaw to not use head torches and we had to put back on head torches after leaving Honsiter at 9.45pm so did all the last leg in the dark, which was fine but I wouldld make sure you know the leg well in the dark. In cloud/ rain and dark you need to have your bearing sorted coming off Hindscarth to hit the short cut path that traverses towards Robinson, but we found it easily enough. I finished in 22hrs 55 mins, but took it really slowly once we hit the road at Newlands as knew it was in the bag so enjoyed the moment. Heat was a bit of an issue and I don't normally like running in the heat, so you will need to watch your liquid intake from really early in the day if it looks like a scorcher. Cups of tea at every road point plus a lollipop to get me up Yewbarrow worked for me.

Good luck - it will be fine.

Cheers


Quote Originally Posted by blencathrafrommykitchen View Post
I wouldn't describe 20th of July as late - it's only 4 weeks from the longest day.

The only factor I would consider if you were going to make it much later is hours of daylight: the closer you're going to be to 24 hours the more the time of year is important. If you start in the period late May to mid July at midnight on a 23 hour schedule you'll be down on the road at Newlands before it's dark, which takes away some of the stress towards the end. I know of one or two attempts that failed because of navigational problems in the dark on the last descent.