The Path Less Travelled.....

going round in circles

this week, in preparation for Sunday, i've mostly been going round in circles with

 Please wear your

 with pride.
 

got the book

get the film

  better than a Hollywood blockbuster for Walsh wearers

go far now go further

www.gofar.org.uk is one of the best little resources for ultra distance running in the UK
the site has just been updated for Autumn 2009, with "a few gems still left to come before the end of the year"

a no-entry-fee smorgasbord of muddy delights for the coming months ....

Bala Challenge
Bob Graham Round
Bowland Dozen
Bowland 1500’s
Brecon Beacons Traverse
Cairngorm Munros
Carnary 3 Peaks
Charlie Ramsay Round
Cumbrian Traverse
Dragon’s Tongue
Dales 2000’s
Dark Peak 4 County Tops
Dark Peak 15 Trigs
Durham Hewitts Round
Gerry Charnley Way
Harvey Howgill Tops
John Fleetwood’s Welsh Round
Joss Naylor Lakeland Challenge
Knoydart 7
Lakes 24
Lakes 40
Leventon’s Line
Meirionnydd Round
Over the Hill Route
Paddy Buckley Round
Tan Hill Inn to Kirkstone Inn *
Yorkshire 2000’s
Yorkshire Round

you can request an update on future challenges by pinging an email to info@gofar.org.uk

if you are inclined towards the occasional long run in the Lake District, gofar also publish a grand little book called "Lakeland Trails", 88 pages of over 50 trails from the half day canter to the multi day suffer-fest. the gem costs £3.95

*the Tan Hill Inn to Kirkstone Inn is a classic 45 miler with the added incentive of the chance of catching last orders at the end - it is the smaller cousin of the fabled man test that is the Tan Hill Inn to Cat and Fiddle Inn, 120 miles of hurt. Unless you are a Cudahy of course.

Route Canal

I have just received my entry forms for the 2010 (Birmingham to London) Grand Union Canal Race.
I have an opinion that this race will be mentally very demanding because of the nature of the course (slapping down a canal bank for 145 miles in 45 hours).
Has anybody got any experience of the GUCR or the Thames Loop and can shed some light ???
Not much margin for error with the night time hallucinations if one doesn't want to start swimming with the shopping trolly shoals !

Sent from my Submerged Trolley Device
 

what if ....

the Autumn 09 copy

of Fellrunner has landed
i can almost hear two thirds of my audience (all two of them) nod off at this point. but wait.
i will keep it short.
ish

membership of the Fell Runners Association cost £12 per year
for that you get lots of everything and 3 copies of the magazine per year
although of a different genre, Alpinist magazine is very good and about £10 per copy, the FRA journal magaziney thing is better. my opinion.

but i do know at least one Cumbrian (oh and a Lancastrian) who are averse to the increasing amount of non-fellrunning in the fellrunning magazine. stuff like ultra running, mountain running, adventure racing.

if you run off-road, over any distance, and join the FRA and don't like the magazine i will... err...lick my Walshes clean.

just bloody buy the thing. please.

grough - route

i would be the first to promote buying paper maps, all of them, for everywhere, and enjoying planning adventures new over a cup of tea
i'd also be the first to promote not being wholly reliant on anything that runs off batteries for your single source of navigational knowledge

there are all sorts of types of paper maps currently available, both in terms of scale and intended user, and there are probably even more GPS based devices available for those that are inclined to either navigate with them or use them for confirmation or emergency purposes

horses for courses as it were

www.grough.co.uk "the inside view of the outdoor world" have launched Grough Route - subscription based access to maps of the UK. The varying subscriptions also entitle the user to a wide variety of add-ons such as aerial mapping, importing to GPS, printing route cards, and of course mapping routes.

Grough are in the process of creating traces for key events like the Fellsman, and are also keen to receive end user advice to develop the software.

The gold plated subscription is £57 per year for 1:25, 1:50 and 1:250 thousand mapping and the full gamut of options. That's about the cost of 6 paper maps.

Back to my first point, all of the UK in all three mapping scales would cost more than £57, so buy the ones with the strangest squiggliest lines and features on them, and subscribe to Grough Route for the rest.

Wild Trails to Far Horizons

There is many a running forum filled with lists of favourite books about fell and ultra running. In 1993 I received a copy of Wild Trails to Far Horizons by Mike Cudahy. It was probably the first book i read on ultra running.

Sixteen years later and the book remains within the top three of my favourite books on the topic. As well as featuring MIke on the cover with a Buffalo shirt on and his Ron Hills's tucked in to his white socks, the quality of the writing is exceptionally good. On a par with any other wordsmith in its descriptions of the mountain environment, the book also covers in detail the psychological state required to nail the records for running the longest trails.

"Two days, twenty-one hours, fifty-four minutes, thirty seconds. After only 30 years of steady training i had become the first person to run the Pennine Way in under three days"

Brilliant.

But things get better.

Our special correspndent in Cumbria, Mark Barnes has sniffed out the fact that on 1 Nov 09 this happens ....

 

a "revised and extended edition". Hayloft Publishing from Kirby Stephen are the same people that re-published Running High by Hugh Symonds. Well done them.

You can read the publishers synopsis of the book here

"The book contains guidance and advice for those who may aspire to emulate the achievements described. Above all, however, is Mike's observation that, 'the human condition is an amalgam of beauty, joy, sorrow and striving. Human frailty is not so important as how that frailty is embraced. Only endeavour which fails to enrich the spirit truly fails.' "

"An extra hour of life, for FREE"

top tip for tomorrow morning from the twitter account of adventurer / author / motivational speaker Alastair Humphreys 

"Don't put your clocks back tonight. Get up at normal time, run for an hour, and THEN put them back. An extra hour of life, for FREE!"

toe nail problems ?

This article appeared in The New York Times two days ago.
A consideration of the decision by some ultra runners to have all of their toe nails permanently surgically removed.

Three questions:

1 - Why ?
and
2 - Am i the only person that thought "Born to Run" was crap. 
and
3 - Why was the article in the "fashion and style" section ?

sane (non-surgical) advice here