Swimming Coniston (or some of it).

The idea of swimming Coniston was not my idea.

Coniston looking moody the night before

How many of these blogs start like this? Maybe I should start having my own ideas?
The good news is that this was not one of Chris Webb's delerious thoughts- but rather, someone elses.
Catherine Cleary. That's where the blame lies this time.
There is an organised swim the length of Coniston which costs somewhere in the region of "a lot of money" to do, and so rather than do that, it was decided that, hey, there are at least 2 of us who want to do this (note: I was not one of them)- and a competent safety kayaker (and dog), so let's get a couple more people to swim it, and it'll be grand.

Considering the furthest I've ever swum previously was 3k- which took about 1 hour 20 mins, the idea of swimming the length of Coniston Water- about 8k, was a bit of an ask. Still, not one to back down from a challenge, I said yep, I'm game for that. If necessary, there is a shore and a road, I can get out and run the rest of the way.

Catherine and Phil suiting up

To give you a bit of an idea of my swimming prowess, especially in comparison to those I was about to swim with, when we go swimming in a local lake I'm generally going at full beans while the others are smoothly cruising through the water at "easy" pace. It's like I'm literally fighting against myself as well as the water, thrashing around in a desperate attempt to go forward rather than stay any more stationary in the water.
A fish, I am not.

Even starting I was still very apprehensive of the task ahead of us. The route was to go from south to north, keeping as far to the east bank as possible, visiting Peel island (Wildcat Island, for those in the know) on the way. This was hugely appealing as that is something I'd been longing to do for a very long time. Off we set at about 8:50am on Saturday. Splash.

Within the first km it was clear that I was very much the slowest of the swimmers, with Tom making sure the others didn't let me fall too far behind. I was going as fast as I could, while the other 3 were, as ever, on cruise pace- perhaps even going a bit too slowly and getting cold. There were numerous stops to let me catch up, during which I could tell that I was fatiguing more and more as the others were quite happily mooching along.

By the time we reached Peel Island I was pretty knackered- and that is barely 1/3 into the distance. Still, I had managed to get that far, and was able to get out of the water and have a bit of a wander on the island of Swallows and Amazons fame.
Then, a quick hot drink, and back into the water- which felt even colder than before.

Leaving Fir Island

We (I) toiled on, at one point it seemed like the others had fatigued *just* enough to swim at my speed- even though it still felt like I was going as hard as possible- and we swam in a line for a while, which felt great. I was keeping up! Amazing!

And then my arms stopped working. Impending cramp in my lats and teres major, feeling a bit ill from working way beyond my limit, and I started falling behind again. Stops became more frequent as we made our way towards Fir island where I stumbled onto the shore and decided that was it.
Wetsuit off, running gear on and I attempted to run down the road, but was pretty soon reduced to a walk. Totally knackered.

The decision was made partially as I knew I was totally maxed out in terms of speed, while the others were tempering their speed in order to let me keep up- reducing their efficiency and reducing their ability to keep up body temperature. By being in the water I was reducing their chances of finishing the swim. I might have been able to finish, but it would not have been in any great time... I might have been in there for the rest of the afternoon. Not great.

So I got out, and was very thankful of that fact. I was beyond tired and suspect the effort that I was putting out was way more than I normally put out for any other exercise. As such my immune system must have been fairly compromised- I can say this mainly as I spent the rest of the night up and back from the tent to the toilet block (200m away) with diarrhea and vomiting. Not exactly a restful night- I was exhausted by morning- but the bonus was that I did get to see the stars shifting through the night!

Phil, Dmitri and Catherine- successful

Catherine, Phil and Dmitri finished the swim in just under 5 hours- an epic effort. I got out at about 5km- the most I've managed to swim in a single go. I don't imagine I'll be trying to swim further, but what I am doing, is looking at getting lessons to at least get me ever so slightly more efficient...

Thanks so much to Catherine for suggesting the idea and believing that I might be capable of doing such a thing (even if I wasn't) -- and let me make clear, that I'm not actually *blaming* her for anything... she is one of the loveliest and best swimmers I know, who convinced me that this would be a possibility. It is entirely my own fault for not being better trained and prepared for it and am entirely responsible for being utterly broken by physical endevour.  This definitely ranks among the hardest things I have ever attempted.

Skip the sailing dog and safety boater and Tom

Tadpole Round 2019

Wild Swimming. Not really something that I am totally comfortable with, so I've been working on gettting a little more happy with it recently. Having been invited to head up to the Lakes for an attempt at swimming the length of Coniston (which I accepted... more of that in a later blog), we realised that with a bit of work juggling, it would be possible to head up a couple of days earlier and have a go at the Tadpole round.

For the uninitiated, there is a Frog Graham- a version of the Bob Graham, but which involves swimming across 4 of the water courses in the Lakes as well as running a fair old distance. The Tadpole round is a significantly shorter and much more palatable introduction to run/swimming in the Lake district. It's billed as being ok for Kids, so Catherine and I thought it would probably suit us as an afternoon bimble.

The official route starts at the carpark on Crummock water, you swim across Crummock, run down the side to Buttermere water, swim across that, and then run back to the starting point. All good fun.

As we were staying in the campsite in Buttermere we decided to start the run from there and got all the ascent out of the way first. Up and around Low Bank and Rannerdale knots and down to the carpark at Hause point.
The wind was a fairly stiff north-westerly and was kicking up some quite considerable white horses on the lake. As we approached the Hause it was rather spectacularly crashing against the stones under the road and giving the impression of being the sea. The view across to Low Ling Crag was somewhat spectacular with a decent amount of swell on the water.

Having remembered the route from the website, we knew we needed to get in at Hause Point, which on the map is on the promontory into Crummock... so we went there, looked over the road where there was a semi-obvious entry point, down some fairly steep  earth and stone steppy bits with not a whole lot of space for changing. Thinking it would have been a lot easier to get in by the car park, we shrugged, and got on with the challenge of changing into wetsuits (well, I did- Catherine was in just a swim suit) and getting into some fairly exciting water.
(in hindsight we realise that yes, you are meant to get in at the carpark, not off the actual point, but hey, it gave a bit more of an adventurous flavour to the whole thing).

Everything packed into tow-float/bags and we slip-slid down into the water where we bobbed around for a short time getting used to the water before sighting on the crags and with the mantra "well, it's not the sea", cracked on.
With her in a swimsuit and me in a wetsuit we are about the same speed, so we swam side by side through what can only really be described as a bit of a washing machine for the 400m across Crummock water. I've Kayaked in worse, but certainly not swum! There were times when it felt like you were being lifted out of the water by the water, and times when breathing was optional through necessity, but we eventually got across and to Low ling crag.

Getting out onto the promontory it was really really windy and I had a minor scare when my kit nearly disappeared off into the water as I momentarily took a foot off the bag in order to put on some shorts.... A juducious use of speed work ensured that nothing ended up at the wrong end of the lake.
I decided that it really wasn't going to be pleasant to run in a wetsuit, so took the decision to change out of it for the second run, and then back into it for Buttermere. The wet wetsuit and float bag fitted nicely into my OMM rucksack and we bimbled off down the side of the lakes.

The run down Crummock was a little boggy with some slippy stoney bits - once down past Scale force and onto the path around Buttermere it turns into a flat and easy track that leads through the wood for a couple of kilometres or so before you briefly leave the wood and then enter a spinney at Horse Close.
I took a short time to put on the wetsuit again as we looked across the mere. Less wavy than the previous crossing, but certainly a long way from flat calm. A couple of haribo (tangfastics, what else?) A short wade in and then a splash across Buttermere, sighting towards the green field of Kirk Close. No where near the washing machine experience of Crummock, but still a lot more choppy than I've ever really swum in before.

A brief stop on the other side to change back into running gear, and a short jog back to Buttermere
campsite. 2 hours of great and social fun.
Thanks to Catherine for suggesting it, I can highly recommend it as a bit of an adventure. If you're going to stay at the campsite in Buttermere - be warned, the showers only take 50p coins!

Transcambrian- Reverse

After last weeks debacle of a bikepacking trip where Phil and I ended up pretty much broken, we were faced with the fact that we had already agreed to head off on a bikepacking trip with a couple of mates from Mountain Rescue. The general plan was to do either the Capital Trail near Edinburgh, or the Trans-Cambrian trail across Wales.
The main thing was that there needed to be a LOT more cycling and a LOT less walking than last week and we'd be happy.
When it was planned, we did not really count on the fact that there would be a yellow weather warning across the country for wind and/or rain for half the weekend. Different forecasts said different things, but the general consensus was that it was going to be a strong Southwesterly wind, gusting to potentially about 40-50mph and a fairly sizeable chunk of rain.

Considering that the Transcambrian is normally done East to west, and that is what most of the information online is about, we decided that it would be more intelligent to do it the otherway around and at least have a following wind, rather than a brutal headwind ALL the way. This was going to be a lightweight bikepacking affair with tents etc, rather than a hyperlightweight trip, staying in B&Bs and pubs, so we weren't going to be going hyperfast, but rather, at a fairly decent, steady pace.

As mentioned, the trail is normally ridden the opposite way around to the way we went, so we were travelling up everywhere that is designated as an amazing descent, but at the same time, we were going down all the ups, which was pretty good.
In terms of logistics, it is a non-circular trail (as you'd imagine), and we decided to put the logistics at the beginning of the trip rather than at the end. It means you travel in clean clothes with clean bikes to the beginning of the trail, rather than in manky clothes with crap covered bikes back to your car. We parked in Knighton and got a taxi service to take us and our bikes to Dovey Junction- £25 a head, which was pretty decent- where we were kicked out into a pretty decently heavy rain shower where we set about clipping all our luggage to our bikes and getting ready to set off, whereupon the sun came out for a moment.

The sun came out just after the shower.

We started out down the road and were quickly off the main road and up the first hill. The first few miles of anything like this are basically a bit of a shakedown in terms of what you have and haven't attached to your bike correctly. This was much the case as we worked our way up some fairly technical uphills (as mentioned, they are normally tackled as the last joyous downhills of this route). The main thing that sticks out about the route here was the fact that it rained on and off pretty much the whole way along, and the brisk tailwind proved to us that we had definitely made the best decision in terms of the direction of travel.
To be honest, Phil and I were just glad to be riding bikes as opposed to pushing them! The riding was actually pretty delightful, company was excellent and there was little enough to be told about anything bad happening. General plan was to get about 35k on the first day and camp somewhere near the river Severn, so I'll let some photos do the talking.

Tom on the first decent climb (after the first section of hiking)

Coming to the place that Phil has designated the campsite, the weather continued to be a bit on and off. (there aren't a lot of photos of the rain as when it rains, you don't tend to want to get the camera out). There was a toilet block and a carpark, and luckily the toilet block had a bit of a lean-to thing that we took advantage of and used the shelter to have a bit of a cook up of tea prior to putting up the tents.

Cooking up a storm

It got fairly chilly quite quickly, especially as we were pretty damp and the wind was still fairly brisk, so tents were put up and we bedded down for the night.
It rained. It was crazy windy.
Finding fresh water was a little bit of a problem, and if I was to do this again I'd probably take some steri-tabs. We were quite lucky last week as any water source we came across in the Lake District was clear and potable. This was certainly not the case here in mid-Wales.

Across the Severn.

Day 2 started with the first of the fords within about 2 minutes of leaving the campsite. Any ideas of keeping feet dry were swiftly kyboshed, and the scene was set for the next 80km.

Quite a lot of it looked like this

Wet, but very rideable tracks with some excellent down hill sections. 

I didn't get many photos of the downhill bits, simply because by the time I got to the bottom there wasn't enough time to get a camera out to catch the others.
After about 10k the rain started to get REALLY bad and we arrived in the hamlet of Llangurig. It was a couple of k out from the route, but we figured it would make a good stop off should the weather get really bad.
It did, so we stopped for a cup of coffee.
And a cake.
and it rained.
So we had a panini each.
And another hot chocolate.
and eventually carried on when it seemed like the worst of the weather had gone through.
The trails continued to be excellent, with a number of fords to be crossed. We rode for the vast majority of the time, but ended up pushing up some of the steeper sections. 
We stopped for a version of lunch in the middle of a forest where, had we been going in the other direction, there would have been some excellent downhill single track.

Lunch stop

As you can see from the photos, it was still pretty damp. The section after lunch was a bit into the headwind, and then a turn and a straight run west with the wind behind us down to, and then along some reservoirs.
It was at this point when we realised just how hard it would have been if we went the other way, and a lot of grinning was to be had as we battered along roads at 25kmph while feeling like we were being pushed along from behind.

This isn't a ford. It's a puddle.

Down and past the reservoirs we came upon a section of bridleway that was obviously used for offroaders as well. The surface was pretty torn up, and as we had been going through fords for most of the day, we just decided to blast through the puddles in the track as well. This was one of the parts of the route where we were very very glad of the decision to be on mountain bikes rather than gravel bikes. Yes, gravel bikes would have coped with it, to a point- but not with the amount of luggage that we were carrying.

We eventually came down the way towards our camp for the night- in Rhayder where we got a pitch on the Camping and Caravan association campsite, which meant a shower and toilets! The final section was a delight of bike tracks that we just tootled down with very little effort. Staying in the town also meant that we treated ourselves to a pub meal in the evening as well, which went down very well after 80km of offroad riding.
To be honest, there was a fair amount of backroad cycling going on as well, but I would much rather that than the option from last week which was struggling up "bridleways" that were no more suitable for bikes than they were for horses.


We woke up to day 3 feeling pretty refreshed, and although there was a bit of drizzle in the air, and the temperature was a little colder, we were very much up for the final 50km.
As we rode further East the trails became easier and less challenging than that which we encountered on the first day. There were still a couple more fords to cross, though, which didn't cause any problems at all.

Final ford of the weekend

 Our final stop for the day before getting back to Knighton was in Llanbadarn Fynydd where there is an excellent local community shop. Very welcoming staff who was perfectly happy for us to heat our own food up in the microwave (we didn't), and had an excellent stock of food and other stuff as well, which we took advantage of.
Then it was onward and upward to the final few hills back to Knighton.

This was an excellent trip out, and I can highly recommend it as a Mountain biking route. If you're going to do it on gravel bikes, make sure you have as thick a tyre on as you can and don't take much luggage- go fast, light and stay in B&B's etc rather than tent.
Waaay better than the Lakeland 200, which as we have been discussing, is probably meant as a challenge to see how hard you are, as opposed to having a decent weekend out on the bikes and enjoying yourself.
In all, I think we probably only hike-a-biked for less than 1% of the route. There was a fair amount of road in there, maybe a bit too much for some people, but it was a welcome relief from some of the other sections for us.
There was only really one big fall, no real mechanicals, and a lot of laughs.
Main navigation was done on a Wahoo Element Bolt with back up on Viewranger, I did it on a 26er while Tom was on a 650b+ (and certainly had the most fun), Phil was the only one on a full-sus (and on 650s) and Chris was on an old 26er with Panniers.

Had the weather been a bit better we might have considered doing it over 2 days, but I reckon we got the most out of it over 2 and a half. Great weekend out.