Wasdale Horseshoe

Race: Wasdale Horseshoe fell race (36k/9022ft/AL)
Peaks: Illgill Head (609m), Whin Rigg (635m), Seatallan (692m), Scoat Fell (841m), Pillar (892m), Great Gable (899m), Scafell Pike (978m)
Time/Position: 6.08 (65th from 130)
This is often considered to be the hardest fell race in the UK. Having done most of the other contenders I am inclined to agree, although it is all relative, particularly as I am abjectly unsuited to long fell races and have rarely tried to properly race them: preferring instead to jog round and enjoy them in 'tourist' mode. Today was no exception. I have very little climbing mileage in my legs, and not much distance, so it was something of a relief to get a poor forecast which made it acceptable to go into survival plod mode. Perfect conditions would have been very frustrating! After an evening meal at the Inn, heavy rain during the night continued to hammer our tents through the morning and was obviously set in for the day. In these circumstances, I pack a lot of kit, and I had a fairly heavy sac as the race set off for Illgill Head along the path Vic and I took last year for our long Lingmell Dash warm-up. This is a relatively short climb, although quite steep, and our small team of Buckley Runners stuck together for it: felt like Tattenhall Tough Team for a bit! A nice relaxed run along the ridge, wind not too bad, to Whin Rigg in around 45 minutes. Took the steep descent very easily, and we even had a brief view of Wastwater as we descended to Woodhow at the far end of the lake. Running along the bottom of the valley through woods and fields to Greendale was delightful: it even stopped raining for a bit. Then the great Joss Naylor handed me a drink before the next climb up Greendale Gill. The rain began in earnest again on the steep sides of the gill: the river in semi-spate as we crossed to gain the unpleasant slog up featureless terrain to the top of Seatallan. One of the toughest climbs of the day: wet and cold with the knowledge that the race had hardly even started. From Seatallan, the trickiest navigation of the route starts. Initially a well defined spur leads to the Pots of Ashness. Then we took a contouring line towards Haycock. I kept Nether Beck as a handrail, map and compass out throughout, and we emerged eventually on the main ridge over to Scoat Fell. We were now much higher, and the weather got correspondingly worse. Indeed, the section over Wind Gap to Pillar, exposed (as its name suggests) to the prevailing south-westerlies was probably the worst part of the race weather-wise. I was getting cold, and glad of my cautious tactics: took five minutes at the Pillar summit cairn to put my extra coat and trousers on as the wind howled overhead. Felt much better afterwards, but was now well behind the group I had been running with and on my own for the next section along the ridge to Looking Stead and the Black Sail Pass. Fortunately, I knew the rest of the route slightly (although I always lack the local knowledge I have for North Wales). Below Kirkfell, I took the smaller contouring path above Ennerdale and was joined by several other runners. This was mercifully sheltered out of the wind, but boggy. From the col at Beck Head, a steep climb leads to the top of Great Gable: tough. I fell on the descent, bashing my knee. This was painful and took a while to run off. Ferocious gusts as we got close to Sty Head, then bonking slightly as the intricate and lengthy route to distant Esk Hause took longer than anticipated. I was running out of food, but promised myself a snack to start the final climb up the Pike. Completely alone again for this: wild weather. From the summit of Scafell Pike (only the third time I've ever been up here!) I had some concerns about finding the Lingmell col as the terrain here is very confusing with paths in all directions. I took a direct bearing but ended up following another runner down the main Brown Tongue path. This cuts back towards the Lingmell Col but we went too far north, ending up above Piers Gill. An old wall meant it was easy to work out where we were, but it all meant an extra climb back over the col to pick up the path down to Lingmell nose: I lost 10-20 places and 15-20 minutes as a result of this small error. I knew the final descent from last year's Lingmell Dash British Championship race. It is very steep in places, and things weren't helped by another violent squall which blew in at this point: very windy and wet, but the end at Brackenclose was in sight as we got below the cloud base (200m?) for the first time since Greendale! An embarrassingly slow plod, but it is always satisfying and enjoyable to complete a long race in these conditions (around 40 dropped out or missed the cut-offs). It reminded me of many similar outings in the past: Welsh 1000s and Foel Fras in 2009, OMM in 2008, Mynydd Troed 2012 and many, many more. On balance, it was less extreme than all these: just standard bad summer conditions.