Sunday 23 August 2009

Langdale tomfoolery

Just spent a fab weekend in the Lakes as part of Jane's birthday celebrations. First challenge of the weekend, charm my way onto the officially full campsite, second challenge, find "the pub." Success (eventually) on both counts so Friday night saw me sleeping soundly in my tent with a belly full of good food and beer.

Saturday saw me, Jane, Kate and Jon head out with the intention of running the route of the Langdale fell race, around 14 miles, and a big challenge for Jon's first ever bit of fell running. Too much walking, stopping to admire the stunning scenery, chat, hijinks, gurning competitions, photo stops and general tomfoolery meant we were making pretty slow progress. A bit of a re-think, and we ditched the race route not quite half way round and instead had the addition of a Birthday bonus prize peak (Esk Pike) and a descent down The Band. We arrived back at the campsite after about 6.5 hours with Jon unable to move his lower legs and me slightly bleeding as I had managed to fall over while stood still. Hot showers, a few beers, a good feed, a few sips of malt whisky and a definite plan made for getting up and off to run the Fairfield Horseshoe.

This morning arrived with a lot of rain and some slightly fuzzy heads. Jon decided his legs weren't up to another run so headed off soon after breakfast. The rest of us packed up in the rain and drove in the rain into Ambleside, the plan being to make a quick stop in Lakes Runner then hit the hills. The ever increasing rain and decreasing temperature somehow got the better of us and the plan changed to eating, shopping (prizes all round, with some shoe envy on my part) and eating.

A great weekend away with a "not too weird considering we all met via the internet" bunch of people. Looking forward to getting out and doing it again soon.

Oh, and because I forgot my camera, you'll have to check out photos by the others on flickr here and here.

10 comments:

kate said...

couldn't have put it better myself.
i'll let you look at my shoes again soon ;)

Red Bike said...

Thank you for showing me the Lakes.

Pedalling Polarcherry said...

I had managed to fall over while stood still
that just made me choke on my tea! genius.
Sounds like you all had a fab weekend. I love the Lakes.

jumbly said...

Polarcherry - yep, a proper comedy fall, I had stopped to look to see how far ahead the others were, and then had one of those I'm suddenly on the floor moments. A small graze to my hand that I tried to convince the others was a proper, gnarly injury, no sympathy given! I love The Lakes too, we dream of being able to move there.

Julbags said...

Sounds a great time. Is that route worth adding to the "to do" list?

I'm impressed you even contemplated running round Fairfield the next day(another on the to do list). My legs wouldn't have had it at all.

jumbly said...

Julbags - Yes, add it to the list, very spectacular up there. We probably only did half the race distance and to be honest there was more walking than running which is the only reason my legs were able to contemplate doing Fairfield. So both are still on my "to do" list, next time plans form to go up there I'll let you know, you'd be welcome to come along.

Red Bike said...

Less of the easy comments please Jumbly. I'm feeling bad enough about hardly being able to walk this morning as it is.

Didn't Teacake do well with the photos!

Jane said...

It was a good weekend, and nice to meet up again.

We do seem to have produced a disproportionate amount of wet tent and kit for just a weekend away!

jumbly said...

Red - it wasn't easy at all, if it'd been easy we'd have managed the whole race route. And, yes the photos are fab.

Jane - the wet kit situation isn't good here either.

Julbags said...

Keep me posted.

Red, running/riding in the Lakes is just really tough, you did very well.