Old County Tops- 2022

 When you get up on the wrong side of 4am, you really hope it's going to be worth getting up for. 

Old County Tops is always worth it. A 38 mile monster with 3300m of ascent (and, indeed, descent) around some of the Lake District's most iconic areas. From Langdale valley, it heads over Silver Howe to Grasmere, up towards Dollywagon Pike, over to Helvellyn- the first of the 3 tops. Down to the road (not as simple as you might think), up Wythburn towards Greenup, around to Stakes pass, up to Angle Tarn, Esk Hause and Scafell Pike- the second top. A fun descent down the face (if you so desire), down Great Moss and over to Cockley Beck, before the monstrous climb up Grey Friars, a simple out and back to Old Man of Coniston- the third top, and then down to 3 shires stone, wrynose pass, blea tarn and a bimble back along the bottom of the Langdale valley back to the start. All this explanation, of course, doesn't *really* give you the full picture. This is a rough Lake District race. Bogs by the mile, tussocks, steep descents, steep ascents- all on bad ground, some of it barely runnable. This is a toughie- but a goodie.

All put on by the rather fab climbing club- Achille Ratti. 

This would be my 6th time running the race, and my training for it was somewhat curtailed. Let's just say that the last times I did this, in the 5 months of the year running up to it I'd put in somewhere in the region of 1000k on my feet, with 50 or 60 thousand metres of ascent. This year, I have so far hit a grand total of 500k running with 20 thousand metres of ascent. Somewhat less prepared in the way of running. 

I *had* done a fair amount more cycling, due to doing the Dirty Reiver back in April, which goes a little way to helping- but bike training really doesn't help all *that* much if you aren't doing the running. (and there is a little thing called an MSc which is taking up a fair amount of my time as well)

Excuses out of the way.... oh, no. Hang on, I've spent the last week with a crazy clunky and painful knee. No idea what I did to it, but I wasn't going to tell Chris I can't run the OCT with him just because of a clunky knee. That being said, he's already run a 2:43 marathon this year, so I might have my work cut out keeping up. We'll see. 

Anyway. We got to the Langdales, said hi to various people around- Digby was there, of course he was. Rick and Lance from GDH on their first attempt. Stefan from Pennine, and I'm sure I saw Alice Swift floating around at the start, though didn't get time to say hi til later. We passed through kit check, and then decided that as both of us are getting older, we'd (SHOCK! HORROR) go for a little warm up. So Chris and I headed off down the road for a few mins getting in some running and stuff before the start. 

Back to the start for the, uh, start, and we hung around for a couple of mins before the off at 8am. In comparison to how fast we started out recce a couple of weeks ago, it was relatively pedestrian- though we definitely went off too hard then... We were within the first group of about 8 teams heading down the Bridleway, and never really looked back. Up over Silver Howe and we somehow ended up in 3rd, which was quite a surprise, but this is really early days yet, and not something to be excited about. 

Down and through into Grasmere and along the road, and Ricky Lightfoot and Tom Owens showed why they are Salomon athletes and put a bit of space between themselves and the next team back (Josh Jardine and Simon) and us. Turn right up the hill and we're really on our way now. 

We expected to have a run/walk up the hill behind Josh and Simon, but they were going a bit slower than we thought, and we ended up butting into them, and a load of teams caught us from behind. Not a problem. Forging on up toward the tarn, and then Adam Perry comes *jogging* past... jeez Adam, could you TRY and make it look hard please? So we managed to catch on and stay with him up the hill and across to Dollywagon Pike- where there is the first significant hill of the day. 

There are a number of ways to get up Dollywagon. Some go direct, some cut left halfway up, some just cut up left from the bottom. I think that whoever is the faster runner will get to the top first, no matter which line they take. 

We opted for left halfway up. Adam and Tim Perry, and a pair from Achille Ratti went straight up. There was a difference of about 2 mins at the top- with us in deficit. Nevermind, it's a long way to go yet.- Now for the ridge(ish) line up to Helvellyn. Josh and Tom came past us again, and we run/walked our way to the top. I was feeling a bit odd in my stomach for some of this stretch- and it wasn't until I realised that it was probably my phone in the wrong pocket of my racing vest that was causing the problem. A change of location from the front to the back of the vest, and everything felt a little bit better. However, I can't say I was feeling a million dollars at this point, but I wasn't feeling awful. There are a couple of sayings from different, older members of Glossopdale Harriers about the OCT and Hellvelyn. 

One says: get to the top before 2 hours and you've definitely gone out too fast. 

The other: If you don't get to the top within 2 hours, you aren't really trying. 

We hit the top of Helvellyn in 1:42. 

Back off and down the slightly contoury line that we'd reccied 2 weeks ago. The line was perfect, and we nailed it just right. Down and into the woods on the path, my knee wasn't hurting overly much, neither of us has twisted an ankle, 1 top down, and now into the carpark, a checkpoint and water refresh from the marshals. We didn't stay there long, and took off up the path towards the road crossing which would take us to Wythburne. Land of a thousand marshes. Home of "the bog". 

Again, we'd reccied this pretty well, and were happy with the lines. The main thing was not to spike the heartrate too much, and just keep a steady pace going. Keep the food going in, and see what happens. On the way up, there was a little battle with Josh and Tom, but they fell behind us as we took a line along the side of the bog as opposed to much higher. The Perry's were on the other side of the bog on a line that we definitely weren't going to take, and we stuck to what we knew. Across at a particular point, and then onwards and upwards towards the col. I had to admit at this point I was "fairly knackered" and my legs were most certainly not feeling great. Not even halfway through.... not a good sign. 

More food, more water. And upwards, before the contouring around and down to Stakes Pass. A pair of Black Combe runners appeared out of nowhere here, and passed us at a rate of knots- they were going SO well (and eventually came 2nd). Absolute props to them). Again, the line we reccied came out trumps, and we took a beautiful line down and across to the pass, before starting the slog upwards and towards Angle Tarn. Rain started. Jackets went on, and this was the beginning of my descent into a somewhat darker time. 

The route to Angle Tarn from here is a bit longer than you ever anticipate. There is a lot of up, a fair amount of bog, some slippery rock and it never really gives you much of a break. Add into this intermittent rain, and some gusty wind and, well, fun isn't the top word that springs to mind. We got to Angle tarn, and this was just the start of my misery. 

In hindsight, this was about 28km and 1800m into the race. In all my training this year, I think I've hit 30km once, and haven't surpassed 1400m of climbing in a single session once. This *might* just have been the source for my state of mind and body in the next 20 or 30 mins. 

Chris went out up towards Esk Hause from Angle tarn at what can only be described as a pedestrian pace. I was feeling decidedly sub-pedestrian. Struggling to keep up, I downed some Haribo- the rain came in, it got cold. Chris suggested "how about a little trot to warm up?". This was NOT really what I wanted to hear. Right now, sub-pedestrian was the absolute top speed I could possibly manage. The legs weren't working, the head was barely there- (I was beginning to see double a bit), and there were thoughts about just saying, screw it- lets stop this idiocy. Ahead of us was more clag, the tops were shrouded in mist, the rain was coming in and it was generally not particularly pleasent. We slogged up to Esk Hause. Mercifully, Chris knows when I'm "not in a good place" and knows when to shut up. So he did. 

(This went on for much longer than I'm letting on here.  About 45 mins of "dark time" by the estimations of my watch. It was pretty low).

There were plenty of people about on the route to Scafell Pike, and every one of them could probably see my misery. Head down, rain coming in sideways, struggling to put on mitts and generally having an utterly crap time of it. However, the mantra of keeping on moving was always there. Up and up, through clag and across stones towards the summit. (at one point someone actually cheerily shouted "oh look, that's Tim Budd!". I have NO idea who that was. Sorry. 

We met the Adam and Tim Perry coming back down to take the Little Narrow Cove line off the Pike- too much clag for them to take a line off the face. Onward and upward, the rain eased slightly, I took on a mouthful of Tangfastics and struggled to get my compass out as we hit the top and the marshals there. A turn, and a (hopefully correct) compass bearing took us directly down off Scafell Pike. 

I'm not going to lie here, we took a decidedly Spicy line here. There was a bit of down climbing. Ok. A lot of down climbing, some cramp- hastily averted, a jump that might not have been totally well advised, and the not-entirely-optimal line was completed. Then along and down, and as we descended, the cloud lifted before us, leaving us with a magnificent view of Great Moss and Mosedale. I grabbed some water from a stream as Chris took off his waterproof and we descended as fast as we could. The plan was to run down Mosedale with as much intelligence as possible, and not blow ourselves to pieces before the climb out of Cockley Beck. 

Since beginning the descent I felt like a new person. No more up for the time being- (I'm *definitely* not a good climber), and Chris started conversation again, recognising that the Dark Times were probably over now. Down and across Great Moss, and some judicious line picking down Mosedale (with a very nearly catastrophic detour to Eskdale- which was picked up simultaneously by us both), and then the slog up and over the next bit, and a run down into Cockley Beck. I was wondering whether to have a gel on the way down, to give me some energy for the Grey Friars climb- but as I voiced the idea, my tummy basically felt a bit odd, so the decision not to- was made. 

Ah - Cockley Beck. THE place for Sandwiches.

Down to Cockley Beck where tea, butties, water etc. was waiting. We filled up the bottles, grabbed a cheese and pickle sandwich each (food of Champions), said hi to Alice (thanks for the adjacent photo), and were told that we were 4th. - hmmm. Not likely. We thought we were 5th, but whatever. Out of the support/checkpoint and up onto the Grey Friars climb. This climb is bad at the best of times- but when you've already done 39km, your legs REALLY don't want to go up it. The bonus was, I didn't feel as bad as at Esk Hause, and we just kept on plugging away at the climb. Initially we couldn't see anyone ahead of us, but as we climbed higher, we could see Adam and Tim, way ahead in the distance, but closer, and seemingly not having a great time, were the Achille Ratti runners. 

Don't go too fast, don't overcook it- just plod away. This climb takes about half a lifetime to do, and there is no way to rush it, you just don't have the energy. To the top, and a slightly better line than the Achille crew to get us onto the trod that takes you across to the Old Man. We slowly, slowly edged our way closer to them, saying hello to the teams that had already been to the Old Man and on their way back to the finish. It was a long effort, but we finally caught them at the summit of the Old Man of Coniston, the final Top, a checkpoint. We grabbed a couple of haribo and set straight off back the way we had come. 

By now, my knee was hurting- not only that, but on occasion my right adductor was cramping as well. I've had this before, and it really isn't pleasent. There are 2 options really... stop, scream and generally not go much further, or stoically bear it, run through it and hope like hell that the muscle gets the message to stop cramping and just go back to being a normal muscle again. 

I chose option 2. 

Back across the tops and down, and then to the line to the descent towards 3 shires stone. We'd only ever hit the right line once, on a recce, in about 2018. What were the chances? Well flipping heck if we didn't just nail straight onto the trod and motor our way down through the cairns and off to 3 shires stone. By now, it isn't far from home- but you probably haven't eaten in a while.... do you risk it and have something to eat? You might end up with gut cramp- don't eat, and you might not have the energy to get to the end, bonking on the way there. hmmmm. 

Off the hill, and onto the road for a horrible, horrible descent of Wrynose pass on the road. We took it easy, and hung a left onto the path to Blea tarn. Neither of us had looked back since overtaking the Achille Crew back at the Old Man, so had no idea where they were- so we just kept going at the fastest pace we could muster. Past Blea tarn (and a cuckoo), and then, with aching legs, down to the path into the Langdales. (we somehow missed the path, and ended up following a sheep trod for about 300m, before looking below us and going... ah.... it's down there). 

A jog along the valley, and back to the finishing field. 

7 hours and 41 mins. 4th place. 1st V80 team. AMAZING. 

And not only that, there is a trophy... and a mug- presented by none other than Yiannis. Awesome. (thanks Alice for the Pic.). 

So there we have it. A very text heavy blog -sorry, I wasn't in the mood, or indeed the state to take photos. A race I've been mildly apprehensive about due to the silly amount of training I *haven't* been doing. 

Very happy to have got through that really dark patch in the middle to come out at the end with this result. 

Definitely worth getting up for.