Challenge Stu

After a successful and beautiful early-morning 3 hour outing last weekend without much more than a little niggle of the adductor pain I've been struggling with for a month or so, I decided to up the ante this weekend. Ox Stones sunrise last weekend One of the many fantastic things about Dark Peak Fell Runners is the wealth of experience in the club, so when you fancy a hilly 30-ish mile route to make your Sunday more interesting, a quick visit to the DPFR facebook page or website will give you a few options. I decided on the "Kinder Killer", a route invented by K Jones and currently marketed by Ian Winterburn. The idea is similar to another classic route, the Kinder Dozen, involving a zig-zaggy loop of Kinder Scout, alternately visiting the plateau and the surrounding valleys. There are seven climbs as opposed to the (obvs) 12 of the Dozen, but the Killer route is different and I think slightly longer overall. Ian also suggested that it's a nicer route, so I too...

It's that strange time of year around Christmas and New Year, when every day feels like a Sunday and you wonder just how much more cheese you can eat. In short, a perfect time to write a blog. And at the turning of the year, 2016 seems the obvious subject, and it's been an interesting year! There's nothing new here though, so I'll keep it brief and try to include some good photos. Please also forgive me for being selfish; this blog is already too long without mention of the amazing achievements of others in 2016, including British Champion Rhys Findlay-Robinson, Nicky Spinks' double Bob Graham round, my brother's epic Frankfurt marathon experience, and all the great achievements of my team mates at events throughout the year. Well OK, only that much mention of them. Cheers for the inspiration. Here we go then... Sunny valleys in the early season Last January I was living and working near St Martin de Belleville in the French Alps. The snow conditions ...

After our winter in the Trois Vallees ski area, Lorna and I are now spending the summer in Chatel, in the Portes du Soleil area. It’s a great ski area, but more importantly at the moment a fantastic summer area. We’ve settled in to our little apartment (read bedsit), which for seasonnaire accommodation is actually pretty huge. As soon as we arrived I started to dream of running around the stunning mountains and ridges surrounding Chatel, and after about two weeks of living here I even found a race to enter! The first of many I hope, and even better it was supported by Scott, so it must be good! Here’s a quick blog about it… “Trail des cretes du Chablais” translates as “Trail of the ridges of the Chablais region”. There were three races on offer, an 18km (1200m ascent), 42km (2900m ascent), and the monster “Le Contrabandier” race, with 5600m ascent over 76km. I don’t think I’ve ever actually entered a race with more ascent. The route would take us from Chatel south toward...

After returning from the Alps in April, Lorna and I have spent the month of May in the UK. We had a fantastic weekend up in Scotland with my family to begin with, and since then we've been generously hosted by my Sister-in-law, her partner and our new baby neice, in Herefordshire. It's been a great month of chilling out, drinking beer with excellent people, barbeques, gardening and fence building, learning about babies, and a decent amount of running and bike riding. Tayvallich However, while in the UK I also had some serious business to attend to. In 1991 a man called Pete Simpson set out to run a route joining the Dark Peak 15 trigs (the 15 trig points included on the original KIMM map from 1985(I think)) with the 11 trigs from the subsequent White Peak map, into a continuous route similar, in theory, to the Bob Graham round. Though the 15 trigs is reasonably well known and is completed by a fair few people each year, Pete's 23:49 completion of the 26 remains the o...

Last weekend I was privelaged to support Nicky Spinks in her most recent of a long line of incredible achievements. It was a great day, and resulted in Nicky's lowering of her own ladies' Bob Graham Round record to 18:06. To put it into perspective, many people who try to get round the "BG" only scrape under the 24 hour time limit by a few minutes, after years of training and hard work. Last Sunday Nicky started at 4am, from Moot Hall. The first leg was supported by Konrad Rawlik, Jasmin Paris and Jon Gay (the "Scottish contingent") and was completed on time without too much drama, apart from a cut hand. This was apparently quite deep, but was wrapped up at Threlkeld and Nicky continued on schedule. Waiting for the start of Leg 3 By the time she reached my alotted starting point at the end of leg 2, Dunmail Raise, she was within a few minutes of the planned 17:15 (!) schedule and looking good. After a couple of minutes stop and a quick re-...

Yesterday I raced the inaugural Open Adventure "Lakes in a Day" ultra, my first race as part of the new Scott-Accelerate team, which I'm very proud to be part of. However some things, it seems, don't change... First of all, lets rewind to Thursday. I met coach Stu and Debs from Accelerate, Colin from APC, Pete from Scott and fellow runners Dot and Chris. It was great to finally meet Pete and thank Scott for their support at the Matterhorn race. We ate some food, talked about plans for the year ahead and officially became Team Accelerate-Scott. After so much support over the years from Accelerate it's great to continue this, and it's also very exciting to have the support of Scott. So, as a sort of sponsored runner, by Saturday it was time to do some running... Me, Dot, Pete, Colin, Debs, Chris (Stu taking photo) After a very busy Friday trying to write and submit a journal paper, I finally left Sheffield at about midnight, heading to Cartmel in the...