Lakes weekend

Motivated by the horrendous weather reports for Scotland on the weekend, James and I headed south on Saturday morning for warmer pastures. The plan was to recce the Borrowdale race route on Saturday and then do the Skiddaw race on Sunday. There was still a bit of drizzle round when we arrived in Rosthwaite, but it soon started to lift and there were fantastic views to be had by the time we were approaching Scafell Pike. Dodging the thousands of tourists we were soon pushing up Great Gable, though I must admit I was beginning to struggle a bit by then given my current shameful fitness levels. From there it’s a fun downhill run all the way to the road. Here we were faced with a dilemma – do we head on to Dale Head or head down to the pub for some much need rehydration? Clearly there was no real decision to make and we were soon at the bar feeling very good after a great day in the hills.

That night we hit Rosthwaite hard, going on an epic pub crawl and managing at least a couple of drinks at each of the estabilshments in the village – hardcore stuff!

On Sunday, after a lazy start, we headed back into Keswick for the Skiddaw hill race. I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to this, what with very sore legs and a slightly sore head. So I decided I’d just take it really easy and enjoy the run. Amazingly, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable races I’ve had in ages. It’s a very simple, straight-forward race – there’s a wide tourist path all the way to the top, which is not too steep for most of the way. Then you just turn around and fly all the way back down. Having started off really slow I was pleasantly surprised to find myself overtaking people the whole way round and the downhill was great fun.

A fantastic spread of cakes at the end finished off a great weekend.  

http://www.athletesinaction.co.uk/skids15-56