Lake District 3rd June - Day 2

Howdy!

 So day 2!! As I am terrible at knowing where it is we actually run, it is Dave that supplies me with the lists of our travels, so!

Day Two: Coniston Old Man and back
1. Campsite and then via Blea Tarn to Tilberthwaite
2. Tilberthaite Fell to Coniston Fell
3. Miners' Bridge to the Old Man of Coniston
4. Along the ridge to Great How Crag
5. Swirl How to Great Carrs and Little Carrs
6. Hell Gill Pike to Wrynose Pass
7. Wrynosr Bridge to Blea Tarn and back to the campsite

In the words of Dave Wax 'As the crow flies it is around the 18mile mark today chaps'.

When we woke up on the second day in Snowdonia all you heard from us was a chorus of aaaaaah...owwww...do we really have to run again?
This time how ever it was more the case of 'oh, not actually hurting'.......I know! confusing stuff.
Don't get me wrong, there was some gentle aches in the feet but all in all we were in pretty good nick.
Eye on the other hand ('eye' isn't a typo, just a clever pun) had a problem with my eye! I am unfortunate enough to have scars in the corneas of both eyes. This is a reason Jk came up with the new nickname of Popeye for me. Cheers mate.
So when the scars become irritated I am in big trouble to the point where I can't blink, tolerate sunlight, wind and just general movement of the eyeball..........it's the worst discomfort I have ever had and continue to have.
Just so happened that my right eye wasn't playing ball on day 2.
In this video you will notice I'm not my jolly self. Apart from the eye, my body felt really good!!

I was pretty quite for the first couple of hours. Again Dave loved that.

Although there wasn't as many peaks to go up and over on day 2 it was certainly a challenge in own right. The 'Old Man' is  a very long and steep pull that just seems to keep going. On our way up the weather began to change but as the side of the mountain we were on was shielded somewhat, it wasn't until we reached the ridge that it became a tad windy!!!

The wind was about a 35mph constant with at least 50-60mph gusts....epic fun....water eyes!

Just before this video I had the first of two good stacks to the ground. The lads will tell you that I don't do these things in half measures. Of all the rocks that we ran over you would've thought that the one that takes me down would be impressive....sadly this wasn't the case. This pebble albeit one that was firmly planted in the ground snuck up on me, attacked my big toe and send me into a full speed commando roll, leaving me on my back looking into the clouds. Jk's laughing did little to massage the ego - truth be told it was a very gracious decent into the floor.

The next set of pics show us at the top of the 'Old Man'.

As we plodded along Dave mentioned a event that occurred on these slopes during the Second World War. It quite a sombre tale of an American war plane that crashed into the mountain during bad visibility. Parts of the wreckage are still there as well as the memorial in the next pictures.

Lest we forget. x

The rest of the day went pretty much to plan for us all, covering good mileage, perfecting our down hill fell running and focussing on the job at hand.........then something happened. You guessed it! To me!

There are moments in your life that your friends would never let you forget and this is going to be one of those times.
Dave, JK and Staff have a little game they like to play called 'Lets Tell Nick run that way and we'll either hide or go somewhere else'..............knobs.

This particular time (yes, it's happened quite a bit - more fool me), as we were coming to the end of our day we happened to be in an area that had trees. I realised they were playing their 'game' when I could here them giggling like school girls in the woods.
'Right!' I thought, I'll show them this time!

I quickly shot off to see what I could come up with as they would catch up to me pretty quickly. There was a tree just off of the track that was perfect for hiding in. The plan was to wait until they were right next to it, jump out and make them jump......hahaha! I was laughing in my head before it had even happened...... oh how it back fired!

So picture me right in amongst this fern, being careful not to let my red pack show through. So up they come thinking that I have continued on my run up the track...right.....it's time!
JUMP!
As soon as I lept out I knew there was a problem....a branch that seemed to come out of nowhere just to spite me struck me across both of my shins. I am not kidding in saying that I put a lot of effort into my surprise jump attack on the boys and as such this momentum sent me into a superman dive a good five feet horizontally off of the floor, flying into the middle of the three of them, crashing face first onto the shingle path!


Now you can imagine what their reaction was! as I looked sheepishly up Staff was almost on the floor with laughter, tears in his eyes. As for the other two I didn't want to look but I'm sure the whole of the Lakes could hear the three of them.
I just uttered the words 'the shame of this'


It was hilarious but I just wanted to lie there for a little while to let the embarrassment wash over me.
Can safely say I didn't feel like this fella, 

What I did find out about Staff is this...If you jump out on him, flying through the air in a spot of bother he will go through the following steps.
1. look shocked and a little scared
2.realise that you're in a spot of bother
3. change his expression into one of laughter
4.side step himself out of the way
5.make a thinly veiled attempt to catch you and then realise it's better to push you to the floor quicker
6.laugh his head off

To be fair I would've done the same haha!

Day 2 pretty much ended there for me. Epic fail. :-)