Hiya Dogbreath, it was nice to meet you at the start. I've got to admit that I agree with the other's comments about letting one of the group become 30minutes apart! I also ran with a Petzl Tikka headtorch and, whilst I am the first to admit its not as good as a lot of the great headtorches people had, it was perfectly adequate for the job and I ran easily with it as I always do when I'm doing a headtorch run. I suspect it was the person's confidence generally, tiredness, the cold and perhaps inexperience that meant he was lagging behind a lot? Our group got strung out on a number of occasions. Myself and another member of the party were weaker than the other two but we were never totally out of sight and if that was a likelihood, one person or another would shout out for the front runners to wait. It also meant that the two of us who were struggling looked out for each other and the stronger two kept us pushed on. I think that in conditions like that it was really important to crack on and keep moving as fast as possible but if one person falls behind, that person can easily get demoralised and drop off even more, so a sweeper and a bit of kindness might have prevented that and your 30minute wait.

I hadn't realised that I was running with Twinkletoes until now but would just like to say thank you for being a great team mate and for all the encouragement when I was suffering badly with the cold, feeling sick and mashed quads. Crag Rat was a brilliant navigator and I can't thank him enough for getting us all safely back and choosing some great routes.

Quote Originally Posted by Dog Breath View Post
Of the 18 Fellsmans I've now completed, that has to be by far the coldest. I've had some pretty rough ones over the years, but I don't think I have ever been so cold. I couldn't warm up at all. Even a determined walk up Great Whernside did not generate any heat. I can understand why people got hypothermia, and was probably not far off myself. I know grouping is for safety reasons, but everyone still has to take personal responsibilty and in conditions such as those experienced you get into survival mode. One guy with us had a Petzl Tikka for his torch, which may be OK round the camp site, but up there when you NEED to see where you were going, it was useless. Consequently, we had a lot of standing around in the freezing conditions waiting for him. There weren't too many groups behind as we got through Park Rash before it was abondonned. But the worst point was that 900 metres before Capplestone CP, we waited for him at the stile, and then continued to the CP. We were only walking and he should have been with us but wasn't, and we had to wait 30+ minutes in the freezing conditions before he materialised. We were all getting varying degrees of shudders while we were waiting. The CP staff just told him to get in their tent and sent us on our way. I eventually finished in 19:43 and was my slowest time for many years. I've just about thawed out, but blimey that was a cold one.