Part 2. Round Our Way. How to get Round from Keswick to Keswick without succumbing to being too soft.

After the training was done, all that was left to do was the formality of actually running around in a great big circle. But as you might have picked up if you read Part 1: Training - this was far from a formality for me. Wracked with doubt, praying for weather, and organising a team of ten to have the right things, in the right places, at the right times - once I was ‘tapering’, my mild OCD had logistics to freak out over instead of mileage. Sadly, freaking out over controllables is what I do best. One of my amazing support runners said to me: “I’ve helped on over a dozen Rounds now, and I’ve never seen one so meticulously organised”. In this essay I’ll start with logistics, and then get on to talking you through the day itself.

Disclaimer before we begin: the photographs probably aren’t as nice as they were in the Training essay. Basically, we didn’t have much time to stop. What’s contributed here is phone snaps from my gorgeous team.

Logistics:

When August started and the taper began in earnest I switched my focus to the organisation of food, fluids, equipment and people. I’d put out a Facebook status request asking for help, and whilst I’d hoped for a sort of Avengers Assemble of the very best of my running mates, I also had my fingers crossed that we’d have enough folk on board to be able to satisfy the Bob Graham Club’s ratification criteria, namely, at least one pacer to witness each summit. The BG club were amazing actually - it’s really easy to register an attempt, the criteria are straightforward, after the Round you send in your times/names on a list; and then they send you your certificate.

I started by laying out 10-11 carrier bags on my living room floor, selloptaping a piece of lined paper to them and then labelling them. “Leg 1: Jacob. Keswick - Threlkeld. 500ml Tailwind; 1 x Snickers; 1 x Dark Chocolate Tunnock; 1 x Clif Bar. Reminder to note down summit times”. During the first week of August I made several expensive trips to supermarkets and running shops, and bought a lot of fluids and powders, snack bars, some more substantial ‘normal’ food for the road crossings, and gradually filled these bags. “Threlkeld Road Crossing. George. Bacon. Brown sauce. White bread. 1L Lucozade. Dry socks. Dry shoes. Reminder to collect Jacobs summit times and note them down on ratification form. Reminder to give Tom Leg 2 food and drink bag and ratification summit times card. Reminder to start drying Leg 1 shoes. Reminder to plug my phone in for a few minutes charge while I eat. Reminder to return phone to me before I set off”. During these weeks my lodger would come home from work and before cooking his evening meal he would often pause to gawp at the transparency of obsessive fastidious mania laying in evidence on the living room floor. “Sorry mate, it’s only for a week. Helps me relax to see it all”, “‘Course it does, buddy. ‘Course it does.”

Once the food and drink was purchased and organised (I even laid out my changes of socks and shoes, extra base layers, warm layers for the night, headtorch etc); I started bothering the Group Chat with my concerns. I made - and by God it sounds awful to confess this now, but at the time it felt like such an obvious step - a comprehensive spreadsheet with everyones mobile contact details on; the schedule and timings; where everyone should be at various stages; how/when support runners would be collected, and returned to their cars or homes; Who to ring (not me); how best to check for progress; Grid refs for Sat Nav’s to let the road crossing crew and pacers know exactly which lay-by or car park to be at. This was a fairly weighty document and I did cringe a bit knowing that some of the team would receive the notification, open the message, roll their eyes and not even open the attachment never mind read it.

I had a meeting with my main man George at my house - to cook him curry and basically talk him through the entire thing stage by stage, hour by hour, making sure he dropped accurate labelled pins on his own Sat Nav for every road crossing. George and I have had a few successful adventures together at home and abroad - the man is a bonafide star, perfectly skill matched to a day like this; but this wasn’t a dress rehearsal, it needed to go right first time, and I would be relying on him to troubleshoot and coordinate proceedings while I was otherwise engaged. If a road crew/pacers got lost en route to Wasdale, or any road crossing really, that would be the end and a waste of 8 months of at times brutal emotion-invested training. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him to be his usual heroic self, it was more just a case of me unloading all the issues that were rattling around my mind, into his, so that I could relax and focus on the more immediate task of running.

George and I drove up to Keswick with a day spare to potter about and not have drive-weary legs on the big day. I think I probably drove him crazy talking about The Round for the entire 6 hours. It was hard to get away from something that had been a sole focus for 8 months, but at the same time, I think he knew it was important to me to offload these concerns and tasks onto him so that I had a stress free mind and could just relax and run.

We met Neil and his partner Maureen in the afternoon before, and went for a very gentle swim at Keswick leisure centre, and then had a slap up dinner. Over time I’d had a few good long runs the day after cheese burgers and chips and so that was my ‘pre-match meal’. Neil and I hugged and he returned to the campsite he and Maureen stayed at while George and I went back to his luxurious van (big enough for separate beds!). For 2 weeks prior to the Round I had (amongst everything else) obsessed over sleep. I’d been religiously getting up at 6am, going to bed at 9pm, and had zero caffeine. I wanted 6am to feel normal, and I wanted to know I’d been getting 9 solid hours a night, every night, and I’d cut caffeine to aid that, and also for it to have maximum effect when I had some on the Round. Obviously nerves kept me awake past 9pm, but I think I was asleep by around 10-10.15pm. I’d gone for the breakfast time start after trying a midnight start on my solo attempt several years previously. Unable to sleep in the afternoon and evening, I’d felt that sleep deprivation had seriously scuppered that attempt, having been awake for 32 hours when I quit.

I woke up excited at 6am. Ate some porridge, a banana, and poured in a full litre of water, and some orange juice. I had my kit layed out ready and was dressed quickly. My hands were trembling a little as I brushed my teeth. I had my soft flasks already in my race vest with the right powders in. George had the bag of items for Jacob to carry. We walked from the van to the Moot Hall. I needed a pee. And then, actually maybe a poo? Do I need a poo? Damn, everywhere is shut. Dashing down an alley to find a public toilet or an open hotel, I bumped into my Uncle - who’d driven across from the Dales as a surprise. So I walked back to the Moot Hall with him and never got that poo.

The Round.

Leg 1. Jacob Tonkin.

I’d met Jacob through Salomon. A year or so back I was lucky enough to be approached and asked to be an ‘Ambassador’. I’d made several protestations about not wanting to: I wasn’t quick, wasn’t particularly prolific on Social Media, I didn’t like races, and I climbed most of the time (which was irrelevant content for a running brand); but I was still offered free gear in exchange for hashtags and they felt like nice people to work with. Jacob was another Ambassador who lived in Keswick. A third generation fell runner from a family upbringing in Borrowdale. He’d supported a mutual friend (and another Salomon Ambassador) earlier in the year and I’d been able to watch on Instagram Stories and saw him do it with such good humour, positivity, and a relaxed mood, which was so ‘exactly what I want’ that I sent an out of the blue message, and was thrilled when he said he would help. He would run Leg 1 with me (and kindly carry some of Neil’s gear too. Remember, he’s never even met Neil and doesn’t owe him a favour at all, which means he’s sort of being doubly nice to me), then he would go to work during the day. But not only that, he would then get up at 2am the following day, to do Leg 5 in the early hours and hopefully see me home. And then go back to work again. Mind blowing. Think about that next time you ask a favour of a mate. That’s part of the spirit of Bob Graham Rounds though, and in the past I’d supported on 4 or 5 Rounds for other people as well. After we’d got back to Exeter and done a fairly lengthy post-mortem in the van, George said “Jacob was an absolute star for you there mate. Really was worth his weight in gold”.

So 7am came and we started our timers to record our run. George, my Uncle and Maureen clapped us off. And then we were jogging, after 8 months and over 1500 miles of training, it was finally happening. I tried to feel light and loose and jog really gently. Jacob lead us through the streets, then the park, then up onto the Bridleway towards Latrigg (and immediately schooled me on my pronunciation of a hill I’d been up a dozen times and pronounced wrong every single time). We jogged and walked and were all in good spirits. The weather was nice. Settled and dry (in the air), after some weeks of very heavy rain. A part of me didn’t want to know what our split times were, but equally, I was hoping for 23h pace (or better if we felt up to it) so as to have an hour in reserve if things went wrong later in the Round. I’d seen a YouTube film of someone run it in 23:59.58 and that was my idea of purgatory. Needing to really push hard after all those miles and fells and it be touch and go all the way into Keswick… shudder… I was desperately keen to avoid that. But Jacob was full of positivity. As soon as any hint of down talk let slip my lips he pounced on it in his perfectly judged way. “It’s all smiles now, I wonder how long they’ll last? At some stage it’s going to get real“. “No. It’s going to be one of the best days of your life. Just relax and enjoy it”.

The pull up Skiddaw is a bloody drag. A treadmill set on 7% incline. It goes on a bit, it’s probably nearly 10k to the top from the start, an hour give or take of uphill slog and it feels a tad demoralising. Sweating and puffing, for an hour, and you haven’t even bagged 1 fell yet… with 23h to go. But we crested the top with Jacob in full efficiency mode: noting the time, offering a glug of water and dashing ahead to find the line to the stile over the fence and the bouncy romp down towards Great Calva - without Neil and I having to stop at all. I could hear Neil cautioning me/us to save our legs and not get carried away freewheeling on the soft heather and springy turf. It was pretty hard to resist that though, early enthusiasm and your mind tells you to savour some easy miles in the bank. It felt so easy, how can this be taxing for later on? Expectedly it was pretty boggy at the bottom and we crossed onto the line up Great Calva with wet feet. After a couple of weeks of rain we knew the ground would be wringing wet. Neil and I had discussed this the night before over dinner. My strategy was to accept the wetness on Leg 1 (as we’d be rib deep in the swollen river crossing anyway), then dry my feet thoroughly at Threlkeld, then wear some Sealskinz to try and keep them dry for the less boggy second Leg, and as much of Leg 3 as I could. Neil favoured a more traditional approach. “I’ve never suffered from blisters in my life”. George gently challenged him “But have you ever had wet feet for 24h before?”.

Great Calva climb was over quite quickly and I think I snuck a Tunnock’s in on the top before the trickier-than-Skiddaw descent along the wall. After we crossed from the wall on the track to the river I got the sole of my shoe caught between rocks and totally stacked it. No harm done, but a proper spill. The river wasn’t as full as we’d expected but pants and socks were saturated as we trudged up the sodden sponge of Mungrisdale Common. As we approached Blencathra Jacob was telling funny stories which had both of us laughing, then he showed us a sneaky line that cut out some incline and allowed us to run all the way to one of the most beautiful summit views in the entire National Park. Again he noted the summit time, and we pressed on down Halls Fell ridge without pausing. Neil was not a fan of tottering on the rocky ground but to his credit, fared better than he had on our recce weekends. Towards the bottom Jacob said we were somewhere around 22h pace and I was ecstatic with that as we felt fresh and excited.

Threlkeld. Reunited with Saint George. As we jogged to his immaculate van by the ‘industrial estate’, George greeted me with a deck chair, 2 rounds of bacon sandwiches (white bread, brown sauce, butter), handed me new socks and shoes, and took my phone from me to charge it. I was buzzing. It was happening now. As I was changing socks and chewing, I again heard Jacob say to George that we were just under 22h pace and I was thrilled. It had felt easy and fun and been faster than our recce’s. Jacob was smiling as we left (I had to carry one bacon sarny to save time. I’d wanted to leave it but everyone said that front loading as many calories as possible was useful, so I chewed it as we jogged towards Clough Head). The sun was shining, and everything felt right in the world.

Leg 2. It’s only Tom Randall everyone.

I’d met Tom years before, through a mutual friend who’d volunteered my services as a local climber with some bouldering pads who might come and spot Tom while he attempted a Devon boulder problem. It was a ridiculously hard roof crack, above a pebble beach, and was actually quite hard to spot. The pebbles would move under my feet, and bending down to move our mats along as Tom made progress - while he was 10 feet above in the roof, was tricky and stressful. At one stage I remember thinking that my hands were right under his hips/lower back, perfect to guide him onto his feet if he f… He fell so hard and fast it was like the roof spat him out. He probably weighs about 10 stone wet through but he still went straight through my arms, pulling me to the mat with him, and crying out in pain as he landed with my upper arm underneath him. “I think I’ve broken a rib”. Fuck sake. You go climbing with rock royalty and you end up breaking them. Fortunately, nothing was actually broken. Tom soon returned to complete his project, but we didn’t cross paths again until both reccying BG stages earlier in the summer. Literally crossed paths as well. Tom had bigger, badder ultra goals in mind. But he wasn’t much of a navigator and so when we bumped into him he explained that he was exploring where he’d gone wrong the day before. We ran together for a few miles towards Great Gable, and I noticed Tom pay particular attention any time I looked at the map, craning his neck to see what I was looking at. He confessed to getting persistently lost and so I volunteered to show him some map skills later in the summer. He text me that night to say “Got lost again”. Which was mildly alarming as when we’d gone our separate ways he’d essentially only needed to retrace our steps, in good visibility. But his consolation prize to himself was that he’d stashed ingredients back at his car to drink a weird coca-cola & milk concoction that he called a Brown Cow.

We’d hooked up on our next recce weekend and we’d looked at some map basics in pea soup on Leg 4. “How do you know that’s a kilometre?” “Because the blue grid squares are a kilometre” “OHHHHH!! Good tip!”. I found him to be absolutely outrageously good at pushing hard. Before meeting us in Wasdale, he’d already run from Threlkeld, and after leaving us he finished in Keswick. So four out of five legs as a training run, and it had taken him just under 14 hours. On target for a 16.5-17h Round. He was nearly running a full BG as a training run, and a bloody quick one to boot! Not only that, but when he’d opened his bag to get hat and gloves out (not a modern race vest but a crappy hikers day sack that must have bounced around horribly), it contained a 2pt Tesco plastic milk bottle, and a child’s ‘Henry Caterpillar’ birthday cake - the whole thing, in the cellophane presentation box. Neil leant in to me to whisper, “Your mate, is he, y’know, is he alright upstairs?” He might be a maverick thinker, Tom, but man can he run.

To my astonishment Tom had answered my facebook call for help, and volunteered to do Legs 2 and 3 (this was crucial in the planning as well. Because Neil and I suspected we might start to struggle on Legs 3 and 4, we’d wanted to have 2 pacers on both of those legs, one pacer each, so as for neither of us to hold the other one up if/when we did start flagging). Again, running roughly 30 miles over the highest mountains in England, as a favour, was compounded by making a 200 mile round trip from Sheffield early in the morning, then returning in the dead of night, (I think he actually kipped in a service station because of the slow blink while driving home) and then going to work the next day. Plus carrying our spare food and gear like all the other pacers. And he did all this for someone who nearly broke his ribs once. To thank him, I moaned for most of Leg 2 and half of Leg 3.

As well as force-poking bacon and bread down my throat to the point of indigestion, after the grim-grim-grim pull up Clough bastard Head, my legs started to cramp ever so mildly. Little twinges. Nothing agonising, and no comedy seize ups, but cramp nonetheless. So I was running with a sort of tension and apprehensiveness, quite gingerly, and I kept burping. I was a bit annoyed, and a bit concerned. I remember trying to tell Tom that it was because of the super wet ground, and that Sir Alex Ferguson would always rest Giggsy if it had been raining to protect his hamstrings, and Tom just looking at me as if I was a pathetic weakling who should really just concentrate on forward motion.

Leg 2 is widely regarded as the section where you can do the most running. Once up Clough Head, the Helvellyn range is a sort of wide open plateau’d ridge that undulates gently for most of it’s length. After the effort of Skiddaw and the 3 summits of the whole first leg, suddenly you’re ticking off peaks every quarter of an hour or so. But I was cramping, bloated, and slightly tired. Neil said he was totally fine, and so I allowed him and Tom to chat while I focused on not getting morose and negative. We bumped into Bob Graham Club secretary Paul Wilson (he introduced himself) just before Helvellyn Low Man, and he joined us for a while before moving off at a faster pace than us. Dropping down from Dollywagon Pike to Grisedale Tarn, Tom started to point out the line he took up Fairfield. In a rare show of compassion he said, “This is going to be a bit of a bitch, but bite size chunk it: 100m to that path junction. 100m to that scree. 100m until it flattens out”. It was a bitch. But he kept cajoling and encouraging me and we had a Tunnock on Fairfield top and drank some fluid, and he allowed me to use his walking poles as a sort of foam roller on the backs of my legs (I think this worked you know!); before saying, “Right then. If you two pussies want to stay on 22h pace you’d better get off your lily-white arses hadn’t you?”, and getting up and running off. Neil and I exchanged open mouthed glances and then got up and followed him. I trusted him again coming off Seat Sandal when he shouted at us to follow his line (remember, the man has been lost longer than Maddy McCann), and suddenly we could see George’s van and Maureen’s car at Dunmail Raise.

George again (Maureen looked after Neil throughout) delivered the goods. This time rice pudding with jam, and flat Coca Cola. I think I also had a paracetamol and a ‘Vitamin i’ as a precautionary measure because I was expecting Leg 3 to be where things started to physically hurt. While I was eating and letting my feet breathe, George got the leg timings from Tom , charged my phone again with an additional few percentages of battery, and handed out the supplies to new supporter and official nicest-man-in-the-world Matt Hardy. The weather was still primo.

I was again excited at the road crossing. Partly it just is exciting. You’re reunited with your mates, you’ve just done a successful 16-17mile run through beautiful mountains (on a normal day an adventure in itself), nothing’s broken and you’re in the middle of your big day. The whirlwind of change-over gear/food/people while the clock is ticking (and everyone is behaving as if the clock is ticking) kind of keeps your spirits up by virtue of it being all-go. You get swept along in it all and are aware that everyone there - whether they’re carrying something, writing something down, passing you wet wipes, or collecting your dirty dishes - is there because they are helping you. That’s a very humbling feeling and so you play your part in those proceedings with relish.

Leg 3. Tom Randall & Matt Hardy; also starring Emma Crome and Guy Buckingham

Even before we’d climbed the stile to access Steel Fell, Matt Hardy had laid down his Good-Cop law: “Hi Mark, hi Neil. You’re both looking great! I’ve gone to the trouble of buying a few extra’s so we are well covered for all types of food and drinks. I’ve got some spare walking poles too if either of you feel the need for them, plus sun cream, buffs, and first aid.” I was a bit speechless. Like Tom, Emma and Guy, Matt has driven across from Sheffield to help. I had only met him once or twice at this stage, through work, and it’s just very, very touching that relative strangers (we’re not strangers, but we weren’t lifelong friends either) will give up their weekend. And not only the time, but he’s spent money on fuel, and extra food and drink, he’s carrying the heaviest pack of the day, and plus - this is the longest leg - it’s actually quite hard to run 20 miles over Englands highest tops. So there’s discomfort and hard bloody graft thrown in.

Tom carried on after the road stop so Neil and I had two pacers for the first time. We left George and Maureen and would see them in Wasdale all being well. A long drive for them, and they had to collect pacers on the way, as well as my dream dinner!

Like all the Leg’s, Leg 3 starts with a slap in the face. And to be honest I’d rather have taken a slap in the face. Steel Fell is a straight up hands on knees grovel. Count paces, set visual goals (get to that rock), tune in to Toe-Cap TV and wait for it to be over. Reaching the top is a blessed relief, but the view across to the Langdales and beyond is one of the more intimidating of the entire Round. Everything looks absolutely bloody miles away. And that’s because it is. And, if that’s not enough good news for you, guess what? You’re going to run there sonny Jim, so you’d best press on. We started trotting. Matt was chipper and psyched and was asking how it was all going and - get this - thanked us for letting him tag along.

I personally find the next few miles past Calf Crag to Sergeant Man to be the hardest navigation of the Round, as the paths are the faintest and the lumps and bumps are a bit complex. But Matt and Tom kept double checking each other and that made it easy to switch off and just follow along. I was pretty sluggish here, my cramp hadn’t yet subsided. This ground is still soft and boggy and whilst I wasn’t seriously concerned, I was in a medium funk that I wasn’t feeling better, because we weren’t even half way round yet. I told myself to keep trucking and hoped that I’d feel better on the rockier land ahead. The two pacers would occasionally stop to compare navigation notes, or let us catch up, or offer drinks or wine gums. I don’t think I was necessarily much slower than Neil here (Tom is a machine, and Matt was fresh) but my tiredness made me feel sluggish and like I was potentially holding everyone up, so rather than stop where they did, I just pushed straight through and started up the next incline, acutely aware that they’d probably catch me up soon enough. I’d spent time in training realising the completely bleeding obvious fact that - keeping moving, even slowly, is a helluva lot faster than being stopped.

Somewhere between Sergeant Man and Calf Crag we were treated to a surprise appearance by a huge and loud American jet doing an extravagant drifting manoeuvre right above us before it swiftly disappeared in an ear shattering roar. That briefly raised our spirits, then after some more uphill slogging I forced a proper consistent run from Sergeant Man to High Raise and then immediately seized on that momentum by tagging the Trig and running back towards the Langdales, chatting to Neil more happily as we made some swifter progress.

This was the first time I’d had to dig a bit deeper. Partly I was still annoyed at the twinges of cramp, and partly at the creeping malaise, and therefore growling out a couple of miles on flattish ground felt like a concerted effort to stop the rot. I think also Neil kindly gave me a caffeine gel. Looking back this was probably the worst I felt on the whole Round, with the exception of 5-10 minutes on Yewbarrow that also sticks out as a low point. Basically the first half of Leg 3 was tough. I felt tired, and my confidence was dented. I knew I’d be tired of course, at this stage we’ve done 30 miles of mountains, but while I felt emotionally like I was holding on to the other 3 guys just about, I certainly didn’t physically have any other gears, that’s for sure.

The caffeine gel got me to The Langdale Pikes in slightly better spirits, again you tick off Wainwrights like fish in a barrel, and then there is the view of the long arcing sweep around Martcrag Moor and Stakes Pass towards Rossett Pike that is boggy and a bit blank, but I told myself that this was the last of the heavy turf underfoot. Get to Bowfell and you’ll feel better. Some fun was had here as Neil went in up to his hips, and Matt Hardy showed further chivalrous behaviour by reacting to grab him, and then immediately offering to dry Neil’s phone, and checking he was alright. For my part, 30 metres ahead with Tom, I’d seen it coming and did the less honourable ‘film him on my phone and laugh’.

Just under Rossett Pike there was an unspoken pause, instigated by Tom, who Neil and I were now basically obeying like a great and commanding leader after he’d called us Pussy’s with such conviction. At the Dunmail road crossing, George had given me a folded piece of paper and told me to save it for a low moment. The low moment had past but the tea break seemed opportune. George - bless his socks - had written down all the ‘good luck’ messages that had been coming through via Instagram Story replies (I’d given him my log in details and asked him to post a few photo updates for my parents back in Exeter). There were a couple of dozen messages which were humorous and kind, and I read the well-wishes out to the group who laughed at them, before we got up and got on with Bowfell and the Scafell massif. Tom took a different line up Bowfell to the gully Neil and I had recce’d (and that I’d researched via online forums as the best way), but again he didn’t get us lost, and we were soon on top and turning back towards Esk Pike and Great End.

Rock. At last, still a bit sluggish but the cramp was almost immediately gone. Might have been placebo, might not. But I did start to feel more at home and more dainty. Not exactly light and loose but definitely more athletic. Between Great End and Scafell Pike it started to grey over, and on the descent to Mickledore I totally lost sight of Tom in thick clag, and I could hear Neil and Matt calling to me from behind. I knew the way and followed the track, calling back to them to follow my voice, and then we met two more of my Angel’s in the clouds: Guy Buckingham and Emma Crome.

Their gift to me was in some ways even more generous than the other Sheffield guys. Generous or foolish. They’d made the same journey, albeit with the additional 75minutes tour round into Wasdale Head, then hiked up Scafell with climbing gear laden loads; rigged a handrail rope down the infamous Broad Stand, then waited in the rain and wind for us to arrive, promptly romp up their knotted rope, thank them briskly and disappear higher into the cloud. They’d seen us for something like 2 minutes, then they unrigged the rope and anchors, hiked down, and drove back to Sheffield. It beggars belief. A whole day of time, money and effort to help me for 2 minutes. There were two alternate diversions to Broad Stand, and some opinions thought there to be not much in it in terms of time saved or lost. But Broad Stand is the most direct, with the least height lost (and therefore needing to be regained).

We were all - even world famous E9 climber Tom - grateful for the rope on a very wet Broad Stand. For those that don’t know, this is the only ‘climbing’ on the Round. It’s graded at Moderate, although it’s awkward and exposed. I’ve solo’d it before in good conditions without it being a worry, but in the wet, tired, in wet fell shoes rather than dry approach shoes, it’s far from ideal. We’d asked for the rope to be there mostly for Neil as well, who is too short to reach a really good hand hold and a non climber in any event - this added to the weight of the favour Emma and Guy gave. Primarily helping my friend, who they’ve never met. But since we had the offer of a rope, we took it.

After we’d hugged and thanked Emma (top of the ropes, Guy at the bottom), we set off for the top. But Neil was really slow and hesitant even on the easier ground after the sketchy bit. I’d twice stopped on ledges and stood and waited, starting to shiver in the cold. Tom would dash back to check Matt was okay spotting Neil up little rock steps, then whiz back up to me. I could see Neil was uncomfortable but could only really call encouragement back to him and allow Matt to look after him properly. Standing on the summit proper, Tom said, “We’d better go on ahead, we’re losing too much time”, so he went back to Matt and confirmed the plan that we’d split up, with Matt to run Neil off the hill. Tom and I set off for the Wasdale Head pizza party, and arrived just as the gloaming was in full effect. Neil and Matt arrived about 5 minutes or so later. I think I perhaps lost about 10-15 minutes while I stood waiting, so nothing terminal, and in all honesty, maybe if I hadn’t dragged arse around Calf Crag, Tom and Matt could have dragged Neil along a few minutes faster there? Either way, we ate together at Wasdale and prepared for the night to come.

As well as George and Maureen, we were now joined by Leg 4 pacers, Brennan and Kat. And my Hollywood Diva request for pizza (my favourite meal, for morale purposes) was indulged too. The faff George has gone through after leaving Dunmail: tidying away tables, chairs, dishes; drive to Keswick to collect Bren and Kat, collect pizzas; drive to Wasdale; reheat pizza’s on cue; lay out dry socks, warm gear, head torch, phone charger, etc… I think also that Maureen had got quite badly lost (for 3 hours), but my capacity to listen to tales of woe (when I knew full well that Neil had simply not given her thorough enough Sat Nav details) was pretty low, I just chewed and nodded and put dry layers on. I was tired. It was getting dark and spotting with rain.

Leg 4: Power couple Brennan Townshend and Kat Polyakova

Leg 4 escapes Wasdale via a direct line up the imposing Yewbarrow. Not the longest and maybe not the steepest either, but strategically placed physically and emotionally, Yewbarrow finishes many. Wasdale is known as the Bob Graham graveyard, because that’s where most quit. Yewbarrow comes physically hard on the heels of a 3000 foot descent from Scafell (and the 40+ miles of running you’ve done to get there). Emotionally it’s also another big, intimidating and steep slog that frankly, is like a punch to the solar plexus and the very last thing you need.

As we set off I was preoccupied thinking about my headtorch. My only real oversight in planning was relying on Bren to lend me a really bright torch. Mine was a bit old and not really very good. Bren had then ended up needing to give his spare to Kat - who didn’t have one, so I had to resort to my rubbish one, and could barely see my feet. So the bottom of Yewbarrow was a bit of a stumbling chuntering mess. Neil was tucked in behind Bren, Kat was bringing up the rear behind me, and as well as torch issues (Kat’s was so bright it was casting my shadow in front of me so I was constantly treading in the dark), Yewbarrow was really bloody tough. I kept stopping at every zig zag, and my legs were hurting. I started making verbal protestations. ‘It’s too hard’, ‘I’m too tired’, ‘I can’t do it’. Kat was positive and encouraging, but it sort of didn't help. She’d say something positive and lovely like, “You’re doing amazing Mark, keep going” and it would make me so cross I wanted to snap at her to shut up. I recognised that I was grouchy, and exhausted, and stopped myself being needlessly rude. But I carried on being grumpy. After 15 minutes or so of really horrible grinding, I said: “That’s it. I just can’t do it. I think I’d better go down and let you guys make faster progress without me” (in truth, Neil and Bren were only about 5metres ahead, but I just felt woeful). Neil and Bren didn’t even hear me but Kat said, “You can’t do that Mark!” “Oh really Kat, and why’s that exactly?” passive aggressive sarcasm, the last resort. “Because I’ve just seen George’s van disappear, they’re on their way to Honister and there’s no signal anyway”. Oh. Shit. Oh well.

The grind continued for what felt like a long time. Unable to see the top in the dark there was nothing to focus on but burning legs. When we hit the top and I stood next to Bren checking his map, I said, “is this the top?” “Yea.” “Thank fuck for that.” Bren didn’t move. The cloud was like milk. Initially I was grateful as we moved off very cautiously, with Bren juggling both GPS and map & compass to navigate accurately. It was slightly wet, not really raining, but the cloud and the dark felt quite intimidating. Nonetheless I took the chance to physically and metaphorically get my breath back as we jog-walked, carefully following paths and cairns. Bren was very quiet, focused on the map and Neil and I walked dutifully in his wake. Kat was amazing, constantly encouraging and chatty and offering food and drink. If I hadn’t just consumed a pizza and a bottle of Coke she’d have been right to do so. But I couldn’t eat, didn’t need to, and was fairly happy walking and knowing we were past Yewbarrow, I regrouped my composure.

Brennan was, at the time, the British Sky Running champion. The boy is a freak of nature who works so, so hard, and if you ever run with him - it’s like he’s motorised. The VO2 of a horse. We were pretty fortunate to have such a high calibre of runner pacing two middle aged punters; but then the conditions slowed our Ace Card to a walk. We walked to Red Pike, tagging the cairn with a relief. Then we walked to Steeple. We weren’t shivering but we weren’t warm either and we were moving too slowly. “This is too slow Bren”. “I know”. I started to be concerned. Then we walked to Pillar. The clag was way worse than was forecast and I hadn’t really anticipated that we might get stopped by fog. Focusing on my weariness was now replaced by a slowly rising panic about the time slipping away. Then we walked to Kirk Fell. “It’s slipping away Bren”, “I know”.

Brennan has made some elementary errors in high profile fell racers and has a bit of a reputation for not being great at navigation. It’s cost him a few wins, and a few podiums, but normally he’s got the raw speed to make up for it. But despite his errors in races, what he did throughout the night Leg was a calm, measured strategy that bordered on audacious. He will have felt under tremendous pressure. It’s one thing getting lost in a Saturday fell race and getting the cheque for second place instead of the winners prize. But he will not have wanted to let a friend down by getting lost 3/4’s of the way through their Bob Graham attempt. In spite of that pressure, he didn’t panic, and he didn’t rush, in fact the opposite: The British Sky Running champion walked nearly an entire leg from Wasdale to Great Gable, stoically taking bearings and counting paces as the clock ticked down, satisfying his worries with the knowledge that we were methodically hitting the summits, and still moving. It’s hard to put enough emphasis on that. Also remember that he and Kat have just done a full days work. Coming straight from there and eating pasta out of Tupperware in George’s van. Then done a mammoth micro-navigation exercise through the night under emotion-laden time pressure, and he’s cooly kept his head for something like 6 hours, focusing solely on the map (occasionally asking Kat if she was warm enough) and never making one error. Whoever heard of someone walking a whole leg to guarantee success? I thought it was outrageous, but all the while the group mood was sinking.

My thoroughbred friend did get to stretch his legs eventually. As we topped out Great Gable the clouds began to clear. Suddenly I could see Green Gable below us, and my spirit, from the edge of the cliff of giving up all hope, spiked sharply. “What time is it?!” “10 to 3”. “Right! NEIL!!” I called back for Neil to hurry. He’d again been dropping back on the scrambling up Kirk Fell (it was very wet to be fair) and then the scree and rock on the Great Gable climb. “NEIL!! HURRY!” I called a huddle. “Right, by my maths if we can get to Honister in half an hour or so, we’ll still have 3 and a bit hours to do Leg 5. We can still do this but we have to GO! Neil. Listen to me. Caution to the wind now. RUN. No more gingerness, no more hesitance. Just fucking RUN. Brandreth and Grey Knotts are not tricky, if you stack it, you stack it, take the fall, get back up and run some more. We have not got time for anymore walking. Ready?” Neil said something like “Aye chief, I’ll give it my best shot”, and we set off.

These 2 minor summits were run in an atmosphere nothing short of frantic. The panic that had been simmering to the boil for 4 or 5 hours was bubbling over now. There was still a chance to get round in time, and I was desperate to seize it. I ran as fast as I could and felt quite fresh (5 hours of walking had probably helped), but in the intermittent clag, Brennan ran absolutely heroically. It’s part of the Bob Graham Club ratification criteria that the successful runner must be witnessed on every summit, so he ran with me to Brandreth top, then he set off running back to find Kat - calling out in the cloud as she was leading Neil, but had no map, and wasn’t confident to follow the path in the gloom - he’d wait for her to hear his voice or see his torch, and call “this way Kat! Keep going!” Then Kat would encourage Neil on - who was slowest and dropping back - “Come on Neil you can do it, keep going!” What a star she was, just consistently smiling and positive and encouraging, in those conditions it’s easy to lose that generous spirit. Kat didn’t let the cloud and rain and wind get her down at all, and kept up her chipper cajoling all night when it had felt otherwise quite stark and bleak. She and Bren made a great double act in that way, I don’t think Bren spoke too many words throughout!

So we made a snake-line of lights in the pea-soup, each member only able to see the next in line. Then Bren would run back to catch me up, and witness me top out on Grey Knotts. Soon I could see George’s van and Honister Slate Mine below me and Brennan told me he would go and get Kat and Neil. I dashed and slid to the van, falling on my arse several times. George looked worried. “This is going to be tight isn’t it. Here’s your coffee and crumpets”. I explained about Brennan, Kat and Neil. Jacob was as cool as a cucumber. “Can we still do it, Jacob?” “Yeeaaaa we’ve got loads of time lad. Relax. It’ll be fine”. My elaborate plans to change shoes or layers went out the window. I emptied some wrappers from pockets, and checked my phone had enough charge and was still chewing the first crumpet as we started walking from the car park. With absolutely no saliva, peanut butter had been a silly choice, and I think I frisbee’d it once we started the Dale Head climb and maybe I didn’t eat at all from Wasdale to Keswick.

Brennan was always going to run Leg 5 with us anyway, so I knew Neil had a pacer to either catch Jacob and I up, or to run him in as a pair. It would be so nice for us to run into Keswick together, but if we ran in a few minutes apart that would still be a remarkable day that we’d cherish forever.

Leg 5. Jacob Tonkin.

Still frantically powered by panic, I talked Jacob’s ears off about our through the night epic, and power marched up Dale Head, attacking the last steep climb. I felt like we made quite good progress here and I was excited to be getting stuck into Leg 5 as well as the whole - ‘it’s up in the air’ feeling. When I did pause I turned round to look back at the slate mine and couldn’t work out why Brennan and Neil’s head torches weren’t following us up the hill. “Why aren’t they coming?” “Don’t know lad. But you can’t worry about them for now, just keep on trucking”. This happened twice and on the third time I knew something was wrong. Had Neil quit? Surely not at Honister, with only 12-13 miles to go, easy hills and then 7 of those miles on road (Neil’s strength). Had he hurt himself in a fall? Instantly I regretted rushing off. If he had quit I knew that I could have cajoled and bullied him out of that car park and up one more significant climb. I knew it. It even occurred to me to go back down and shout at him. But we didn’t stop, and I felt a huge pang of guilt rise up in my stomach. I had let him down. I hadn’t waited. Hadn’t been there when he needed me. I’d just been a grumpy moaning grouch to him online and then when he really needed his mate, I was selfishly too far ahead to help, too interested in my own success. I didn’t share those feelings with Jacob but I suspect he knew what was going on as we silently trudged higher up into the rain and wind and the cloud closed the door on the view of the head torches in the car park.

NB: Neil did quit. He said everyone tried to urge him on but he had nothing left to give. He had fallen once or twice on the panic dash. The dark, and wet rock had shaken him and he had lost lots of skin from the bottoms of his feet that had been wet all day.

…

Jacob and I hit Dale Head top and there was a minutes panic as Jacob missed the path dropping down and quickly retraced back to the massive cairn before finding the right one. I think he called himself “a wazzock”, before we resumed on the right track for Hindscarth. I can’t remember what it was about but I do remember it being quite engaging conversation from there to Robinson. I’d slipped once or twice on the wet ground (I was utterly saturated by now) and resolved to just take it relatively easy until we got to the farm track and the road. As the morning light grew stronger I could see the valley farmland pastures and said silently to myself, ‘get to those tracks, and then give everything. Get down there safely, no need to rush on this ground, wait until the easy stuff and then full beans and it’s surely in the bag’. Then I fell, slipped, on the scrambling section down off Robinson, and felt foolish in front of Jacob as I’d told him when we met I was ‘a climber really, not a runner’. But I was so tired now I was even scrambling badly. The fall drew blood and left a bruise on my thigh and hip, but it was a war wound I was more than prepared to take. We zig zagged down to the farm track and I breathed a sigh of relief as Jacob went to relieve himself. “You push on lad, I’ll catch you up”. The farm track is a grass road, maybe a mile? on a gently downhill slope. I ran at near full tilt. I even had the composure to think about cadence and form and looking back at my splits on Strava I ran a couple of sub 7 minute miles here back to back. I was enjoying sheep-dogging some sheep along the road when Jacob caught me up. He said “Now you’re just showing off”, but I was mostly driven by the fear of a 23:59,58 finish. I wanted to know I was going to make it in time so that I could relax. But also there was a slowly swelling pride that I was going to do it, and I used that pride to run well here, with vivid echoes of the hundreds of training miles replaying in my mind.

As we approached Newlands church George was there. Calling out “Nice work! Do you wanna change or it’s going to be tight isn’t it?” I didn’t change. Not because it would have wasted 5 minutes, but more through the feeling that I just could not be arsed to stop. I didn't need the extra cushioning of road shoes, or the comfort of a dry t-shirt and shorts. Fuck it. Finish it now.

We jogged well along the lanes towards Keswick with Jacob still chatting away brightly. I started to realise that bar getting hit by a meteor, I’d done it. There was a mild internal battle to not stop and walk once I realised that, and I stubbornly maintained a jog for the most part until the outskirts of town. I think I asked to walk as we passed through the rugby pitches and Jacob said “nah, come on lad, run it in in style, you’re there now”.

I was suddenly gripped by the urge to tell him I wasn't a tourist. This guy was born here, his Granddad ran fell races, and here he was helping a Southern softy achieve the holy grail of fell running. I told him how my brother had given me Feet in the Clouds (another cliche!), and how deeply I’d loved the Lakes and how many Wainwrights I’d done. He didn’t ask for my CV but I felt like I needed to earn his approval and respect. Even in the wider context of my climbing and mountaineering lifes ambitions, The Round meant a great deal to me, and reading the book well over a decade ago - of course I never imagined I’d be running up Main Street into Market Square with Jacob. I thanked him sincerely and felt a lump in my throat. I could see the Moot Hall. There was no one there, it was still and drizzling in an early morning ghost town. I didn’t need or want a fanfare, but I would miss sharing the moment with George, and Neil. Then I saw George’s van and stopped because I thought he’d gone into the only open shop it was parked next to. But he was sheltering from the rain in one of the ginnels and called out to me, revealing that he was also filming on his phone. Jacob stopped running and filmed too, speaking for the camera as I jogged to touch the Moot Hall alone: “23hours, 22 minutes! And he’s going all the way to the top!”

I touched the door and turned and slumped on the railing. I think the most profound thing I had to say was “fuck my old boots”. George and Jacob seemed amused, and I took a few deep sighs and then stopped my Strava clock. Then as I came down the steps, Neil and Maureen came around the corner. I felt a bit of tension, Neil said to George “I thought you’d said half 6, I wanted to be here?” and I interrupted the fact that I’d been faster than expected by asking him if he was okay, and then sharing a slightly stiff hug. He said well done, but was obviously upset. He will have been exhausted as well. Broken and demoralised. I felt awfully as though I’d let him down. We didn’t stay in the Market Square drizzle for long. Jacob had to get ready for work, the rest of us needed sleep. Neil and Maureen went back to their campsite with a promise to meet for lunch. George and I walked to his van, then drove to our park up. However, although he’d let me in the cab sat on a towel, he made me shower at the back of the van from a newfangled heated water bag hung outside the back doors (stood in my ridiculously expensive S-Lab pants, in the rain, in broad daylight up a Keswick side road) before he would allow me into the back of his sparkling new van and the luxury of a lay down on a mattress under a quilt. Not my finest hour and he chuckled away as I goose-bumped and shivered and soaped the mud off my legs and feet and the sweat off my hairy bits.

I was asleep within seconds, but then crazily woke up at 11am after only 3-4 hours sleep. Perhaps the caffeine. I went on my phone until George woke up at 12:30. After some replying to messages and looking at photos, George made coffee’s and then we walked into town to stretch my legs. The forecast was grim (we got the only ‘nice’ day all week) so rather than hang out in the Lakes for a couple of days, he preferred to head home to his girlfriend and who was I to argue. No way could I climb or run anyway, even if it was bluebird. We got a snack, then met Neil and Maureen at the Rhegged Centre services to say a final goodbye, swap some kit that we’d each ended up with, and then hit the road South. I honestly struggled to stay upright when walking. People were looking. My legs were in a shocking state. I dropped a 50p coin on the tarmac and had to leave it there.

…

In the days that followed, a friend who lives in Keswick called Rachel made a comment on my facebook page that has stayed with me ever since. She said: “I’m so thrilled you’ve done this. And I’m happier still that you’ve done it with support rather than as the solo attempt you made a few years ago. I think the Bob Graham Round is really about people, and if you do it on your own you kind of miss the point. x”.

There’s no doubt, that looking back at my Round the overpowering emotions of the day, were of the incredibly kind and generous people that made it happen. Friends who gave a day or more out of their lives to help facilitate my silly little ambition becoming a reality. All of the 1500+ miles of training would have counted for nought without the ten people that helped me achieve my goal. Some others during training who gave advice and tips as well, and the messages of support that came through via the texts and messages that George collected. As the days ticked by afterwards, and the extremes of fatigue melancholy faded, I sent little individual messages of thanks to my team that only solidified what I’d felt on the day and what Rachel explained so succinctly. The Bob Graham Round isn’t about miles, or height gain, a certificate or an internal battle with yourself to overcome adversity or fatigue, it’s about a love for the fells and sharing a grand day out with amazing selfless people who care similarly deeply. If you’re thinking of it, do it, it will be one of the best days of your life.