Lake District Saturday 2nd June -Day 1

Hello!

So for what has been a busy time for myself since we have come back from the Lakes, it is about time I sat down and wrote about our tracks, trails, thoughts, mileage and adventures from the Jubilee weekend training.

The pictures above show the lads preparing for the first days training. As you can see, we were fortunate with the weather!! It was pretty much warm and sunny most of the time when we were there....well apart from a section during day 2 that shoved a good 60 mph wind at us!

Day One covered the following peaks, the route being known as the Langdale Horseshoe:

1. Campsite to Pike O'Blisco via Blake Rigg

2. Cold Pike

3. Great Knott

4. Crinkle Crags

5. Bowfell

6. Esk Hause

7. Pike O'Stickle

8. Harrison Stickle

9. Pavey Ark - and then down via Stickle Tarn and Stickle Gill to the campsite.

All in all it was around the 18 mile mark - out on our feet for 6 1/2 hours if memory serves. We also took in our now standard pot noodle break half way through! (actually done that all three days)

As the enthusiasm for all things blog related was at it's peak on day one, there are quite a few pics and video clips to put onto here so I had best start putting them on!!

Morning sports fans! 

 

As you can see straight away, the terrain certainly has a different look to the Snowdonia mountain range. The area is vast! Very open to the elements and I can only imagine what it's like when the weather comes in to add to the fun/drama!

Jk really does love those shorts. We are trying to locate them for all of us to use as some team colours but unfortunately....or fortunately they are only sold in New Zealand, which is where he bought them during the Rugby world cup.

If you read a previous post of mine you will know that I was the best man at a wedding recently. Prosho (as you will hear mentioned) has a song that I and a few mates like to remind him about..... R Kelly Track called Bump n Grind. I can't go into massive detail on this but suffice to say he may of serenaded his now wife to the opening lines to the song...as I will now sing in this next video (much against Dave's love of silence)

p.s Was Prosho's birthday as well this day so a perfect gift for him haha

   

My minds telling me no! but my bodyyyyyyy, my body's telling me yeaaaah..... smooth Prosho! 

So after those brief antics we carried on a short ways up to that peak where Dave's GPS system was having a tough time finding us....no joke, two seconds after I stopped filming this next video the altitude came up...typical! 2,400ft or something close to that.

JK the champion gurner  

The next slope we pulled ourselves up, turned out to be a body warmer!

 Good thing about meeting people on the slopes......group photo's!

The next picture and video explain in the easiest form what we're about when we go on our runs....oooooosh!

Either that or JK just likes to grab his crotch...... he does like a dance to some M.J every now again mind.

If you can't have a laugh, what's the point!

I do encourage a bit of team involvement on the videos, so I hand you over to another JK commentary, 

As you notice in this video, I get my back over a nice comfy rock. 

I was not enjoying myself at this point in time. My back had been hurting for a good hour, feelings of nerve impingement sending a horrible sensation into both calfs and generally thinking...are we done yet! The answer was no which sucked harder than a dyson vacuum.

I was going through what the group call my moaning (whining) phase...which to be fair is getting quieter and quieter. The lads tend to know when I'm struggling as I do quite abruptly shut up and just answer questions in as few words as possible........ I know Dave especially enjoys these moments of bliss.


I am finding that's it's in these times of hurting that you begin to understand and develop the skills and mindset to keep pushing yourself on. All runners will appreciate that there are times when you just want to stop but you can't.
So after getting up another two big climbs it came to our tea break where we thought it a good idea to try skimming stones on the lake...turns out I'm hopeless at it so instead I grabbed a heft rock and went for the biggest splash!

At this point we weren't far off from finishing the days training and to our joy there was a nice cold rock pool just sitting there with our names on it. After a long time on your legs there is something lovely about cold water.

That was day one done and dusted.