Old County Tops

Never has the phrase 'been there, got the T shirt' come laden with so much meaning! Yesterday saw my first running of the Old County Tops fell race, 37 miles, over 10,000 feet of ascent and, for me and running partner Rae, 11 hours on the fells. The weather was none too kind to us either, with a sodden accumulation turning the entire run into a muddy sponge (except for the treacherously slippery rocks on the Scafell range, that is) and, for the first half, another few thousand gallons dropped on our heads. Oddly, I could already see myself tackling this brute again another day, even as we ran the last few miles back to soup, sarnies, a sit down and of course that hard won T shirt which only finishers are given.
The race links the highest peaks of the old counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, being Helvellyn, Scafell Pike and Coniston Old Man respectively. The route is an excellent one: from the start at the New Dungeon Gyll, up and over to Grasmere, Tongue Gill, Grisedale Tarn, Helvellyn, Wythburn Church, up Wythburn, round High Raise and over to Angle Tarn, on to Scafell Pike, down Rough Crag to Great Moss, over to Mosedale, and down to Cockley Beck, up Grey Friar and on and up to the Old Man, back to the Three Shires Stone on Wrynose Pass, down to Blea Tarn and back to Langdale. I was tired by the time I got to Grasmere!
Rae and I struck a good line most of the way round with only one or two route doubts but no howlers, which was lucky as the rain and clag were down for the whole morning, and parts of the afternoon were also obscured ... getting lost would have been easy. We linked up with my friend Simon for significant stages and he came with an expert guide who'd run this half a dozen times: the route off Scafell down Rough Crag would not have been the same without him for sure! With the conditions, our aim of 10 hours turned into 11 but I was not disappointed, I'm just chuffed we had such a big day out and didn't get timed out at the stingey cut off point at Cockley Beck. Certainly another good training run in the bank.