10 in 10 - event update

I did the 10 in 10 on saturday, on what became a blazing hot day in Borrowdale. What a great event!
It's 10 Cumbrian peaks in 10 hours, with the option of 5 peaks in 5 instead.

 
The 10 peaks are:

1. Castle Crag
2. High Spy
3. Dale Head
4. Grey Knotts
5. Brandreth
6. Green Gable
7. Seathwaite Fell
8. Allen Crags
9. Glaramara
10. Thornythwaite Fell

That's 16.2 miles and 6,841 feet of ascent (and descent, for that matter) according to the Garmin. I have to say the ascent felt harder - there are some steep 'ups' in there, including Honister pass up to Grey Knotts, and the un-pathed Seathwaite fell from Sty Head. Gruelling is the word....

Anyway, I headed off a bit after 6:30, and passed quite a few folks on the way up to Castle Crag, and then some more dithering about on the top. I headed straight on down to the Allerdale Ramble path, and found myself in front of a little group, with no-one else to follow. I and another lad headed up the gulley towards Rigghead Quarries, and I pulled out a lead, arriving on the High Spy- Dale Head ridge to see two ladies sitting by the path. They asked if I was doing the 10in10, and whe I said yes, they directed me towards High Spy - the 5in5ers were missing this peak out. I asked how many had come through, and the answer astonished me - "you're the first!".

Somehow I managed to hold the lead almost all the way to Honister, where the feed station (biscuits & tea...) hadn't even been set up yet.

I pressed on up the very steep climb to Grey Knotts, and between this summit and Brandreth a fellow in singlet and shorts breezed past me as though I was walking. He later turned out to be Stuart Booth, veteran fellrunner and champion of the Borrowdale fell race something like 10 years in a row.....

There was a right party going on on top of Green Gable, typical of the brilliantly-marshalled event. We (Alfie the Puggle and me) headed on to Seathwaite Fell, then towards Allen Crags, where my companion up the Rigghead gulley caught me up. We stayed together over the 4 false summits of Glaramara, then the drop down into Rosthwaite was a relative anti-climax. Lyn (Keswick AC) caught us on the descent, taking a far better line and with an elegance and pace that I just couldn't match.
So I breezed (ok, shuffled at pace) into Rosthwaite at 6hrs 11, in 5th place of a non-competitive event, if you don't count the dogs!

The best bit came the day after, when Liz swam in the Derwentwater open water swim; a friend saw someone else wearing a 10in10 t-shirt (very nice BTW, thanks Berghaus!) and asked about it. The guy was gobsmacked by my 6hrs finish, having taken 13hrs himself. It's the little things that make it all worthwhile...!!!!
(I have to say that 13 hours in that heat must have been heroic; far harder than what I did!)