The Fellsman - 61 miles

What a fantastic day! The sun was out, the checkpoints were amazing and all my fellow runners were great company!

I flew back from Norway on the Friday night and pushed some things into my bag, hoping to pass the kit check early on Saturday morning! A meal would have been good but I'd missed all the action so a chocolate bar sufficed! After the price of Norwegian food, I was quite peckish but I'd seen the Fellsman menu and knew I wouldn't be hungry for long once the race started!

Heading up Ingleborough, the icy wind blew which was a refreshing wake up! After a steep downhill, we were soon rewarded with the first feed station and a great cup of tea and the trend of frequent, amazing checkpoints continued. The food just kept getting better; cheese pasties, cups of beans, soups, pasta and sooo many biscuits! I barely noticed running the first 40 miles as the sun came out, cruising down the hills with my arms stretched out like aeroplane wings and chatting to many other runners. There was a slight panic at only 12 miles when my toe (suspected toenail infection) became the most painful thing in the world, but there was no way I was having a DNF on my first Fellsman! Tempted as I was to crawl back down the hill howling, I trudged through the bogs thinking it would be a great exercise in suffering. Here I met two awesome guys, Steve (married to Nicky Spinks!!) and Andy (signed up for the Spine 2014!) as well as a friend from the L100. We cruised down into Dent where Ian showed us an awesome little route to the checkpoint. Ian had broken his toe and it was gutting to not have him racing, but so good to see him supporting!

A brilliant classic Yorkshire route

Leaving Dent, I was reunited with some Calderdale Hike friends, Steve and Garry, who are great fun and always have loads of excellent ideas for more adventures! Apparently there was an enormous turkey at Stonehouse but somehow we missed that! Past half way and I was starting to feel stronger and stronger, so I pressed on, hoping to get a good team at nightfall. It was awesome to see Annie Garcia and catch up on the Pennine Way towards Hawes...I hadn't even recognised it until Annie pointed it out! There were some suffering runners up ahead who I didn't fancy teaming up with for the night so I legged it to Fleet Moss. From here on, we would be grouped and have to stick together. I was relieved to catch up the smiley Yorkshire-women that I knew would be great grouping friends as they'd maintained a consistent pace all day and looked healthy, along with having the local knowledge! There was just enough time to eat some delicious rice pudding before we grabbed three more healthy members and off we ventured into the bogs!

Team mugshots! Phil :-)

Phil from Southwell was a great navigator, Captain Nick had a GPS and Rachael was very handy with the map too, so we were set! Other team members Clare and Kevin were great and it felt like a fresh adventure as the sun began to set. We lept over bogs all through the night, keeping a good pace on the uphills and eating lots of biscuits. It was really cool to look back at all the headlights of the teams behind us and occasionally bump into Annie's team. I really enjoy running at night, although it was a little chilly! Clare was sick just before Great Whernside but made an impressive recovery! Rachael was amazingly strong and Phil rewarded us on Whernside by sharing his final sweets - perfect team-mate! :-) In the last 5 miles, I began to get exceptionally tired and passed the time fantasising about the John Lewis duvet department and being allowed to dive in despite my very muddy appearance. Phil managed to fall asleep mid-pee (!) but thankfully caught us up again. Once we hit the road, it felt fresh again. A very swift coffee at the last checkpoint and the race was on! We were de-grouped and the clock was ticking! Coming into Treshfield, it was 4 minutes until 20hrs so we put some effort into the last little flick up from the bridge and burst into the school with 2 minutes to spare! :-) Thanks for an awesome night, team!

Enthusiastic faces at Park Rash  :-)

Bumping into Annnniiee :-)

A quick nap on the seats in the foyer and then it was time for a delicious breakfast! Spaghetti hoops on toast and a great catch up with super-fast Karen, Ian, Mark Brooks, Jon Steele, Annie, etc. Excellent race and some RunFurther points bagged  :-)

Cross Country Skiing, Norway

Having enjoyed the snow on the Spine Race and wanting to be Killian Jornet, Rob and I decided an xc skiing holiday was in order. £10 flights to Oslo and we were off! We decided to hitchhike to Geilo which provided many comedy moments. Our particular favourite was the car full of singing Estonians who got a terrible song stuck in our heads for the rest of the week!

En route to Geilo



First stop: Hallingskied



On arrival in Geilo, we discovered Geilo and Finse were full as there was a ski-marathon on the next day. We considered entering until we saw the local toddlers whizzing past at a ski speed us non-Norwegians may never achieve. We decided to head to the mountain hut at Hallingskeid and hired some very racy, competition skis meant for use on groomed trails then proceeded to ski solely on fresh snow and ice all week! Arriving at Hallingskied train station, we thought we could walk the 200m to the hut, but swiftly discovered why Norwegians live on skis! The snow was warm so each step lead to entire body burial and our fellow hutters, a French group, were having similar problems. After many face-plants and digging each other out of the snow, we decided the only option was to attempt to put our new skis on and try to traverse the off-camber slope that was beyond the limits of out skiing capabilities! On the horizon, we could see Norwegians in the hut watching the comedy unfold in front of them, who would have thought 200m could be such an epic - it didn't look good for the long-distance adventure we had planned!




It was good to know we weren't the only ones falling over - Jean-Christophe tries to reach the Hallengskeid hut!



Rob tries to walk - impossible!

Handy sticks mark the ski routes

But we managed to arrive and discovered the DNT mountain huts are amazing; huge log fires, great lounges and big duvets! Our fellow hutters were really nice and we spent the following day improving our skiing skills, especially on a slope we aptly named 'The Slope of Death' because all the warm snow of the previous evening had turned to ice to challenge us some more! Apart from the day around Braemar, we hadn't done any cross-country skiing before so we provided some light evening entertainment for our fellow hutters by practising/crashing on the local slopes!

Rob sniffing his armpit

A very scenic train line!

Beautiful day for the ski to Finse

Once we could vaguely ski, we loaded up our backpacks for our first ski tour! We got up super early and excitedly skied to Finse. At first, I was dubious about skiing over 'frozen' lakes at the end of the ski season but soon realised they were a great way to cover distance. The ski routes were marked by sticks and it was awesome to see the routes go on for miles ahead across the lakes and up the mountains. The weather was absolutely perfect and on arrival to Finse, we were totally amazed by the place. One giant frozen lake becomes a huge park of activity. We hadn't seen anyone out on the mountains all day, but around the hut, there were loads of kite-skiers, serious skiers doing the 'ski-run' and loads of casual skiers out for a 'ski-walk'. A couple of Norwegians observed our not-so-polished skiing technique and were amazed we'd made it from Hallingskeid! We celebrated our first day with a well deserved ice-cream and then hid from the sun as we looked pretty tomato! The Finsehytta is an awesome place to stay, more of a luxury hotel than a mountain hut! We treated ourselves to a meal as we'd been living on a limited number of Ryvitas since seeing the price of Norwegian food!!

The lake at Finse - awesome place!!

The following morning, we awoke to high winds and no sunshine. The hut staff warned us of the conditions and suggested it would be safest to ski with a guy going in the same direction as us. He pointed to a lean, mean Norwegian skiing machine and we gulped...there was no way we could keep up with him! But then we saw his rucksack, which was the size of a small house, so we actually made a great team! Kjetil got to laugh at our downhill skiing technique, which involved lots of 'aaaaaaaaah!!' and face-planting, and we had a great time chatting about mountains. It was great to make our first Norwegian friend and he gave us some good skiing tips :-) During the day, the wind got stronger and stronger, which did nothing for our skiing technique as it was now becoming hard to stand up! After attempting to eat biscuits without them blowing away, Kjetil skied off to a different hut and Rob and I battled against the wind for a few more hours! Arriving at Kjeldebu after about 25km of skiing into a headwind, we were totally battered! The hut was empty but Rob soon got the fire going and we cracked out the Ryvitas! Looking out the window, it seemed like we might be stuck here for a few days, Kjetil txted us the forecast...the wind was going to get worse! The toilet block was only 10m away from the hut, but getting there was a journey of epic proportions! Rob and I watched each other make the journey, waiting for each other to be blown away or swallowed by the snow! I curled up under several duvets and had a fantastic deep sleep.

Norwegian skiing machine, Kjetil

Trying to eat biscuits in a blizzard

Rob summarizes our technique

The forecast was right, it was blowing a gale! Fresh snow and old snow shot past the window and we peered out, wondering if we could make it to the toilet block, never mind a different hut! By mid-morning though, we were keen to do something, so we put our skis on and powered on! The wind was in a favourable direction to take us to the Kraekkja hut and it was awesome to finally see it on the horizon after a few tough hours! Being a staffed hut, they even sold fruit and nut chocolate, booyeah!! It was so wild outside, it felt like we were the only people in Norway. The toilet block was atleast 20m away this time, across some challenging deep snow and ice, so the evening entertainment was sorted - making videos of us making the journey to the toilet! :-)

Despite the same storm the next day, we optimistically told the hut guy we'd ski to Geilo. 'You will not make it to Geilo' he said grimly. Haugastol it was then! Off we merrily skied, loving the flat, quick lakes until we skied into a sign warning us of the 'dangerously thin ice'!! It didn't look very thin and we were still on the marked ski route, but we sure skied faster!! In the white out conditions, it was tough going to spot the next stick though and even harder to actually tell what the snow underfoot was like as everything just looks white! It became impossible to know if the snow was smooth or bumpy, steep or flat, until you face-planted! Same with judging speed, so we were soon caked in snow! On the last section to Haugastol, we came across a useful map of the lake we needed to ski across. The danger areas of the lake were highlighted and then the ski routes were marked directly on top on these areas! We gently skied onto the lake and scurried across, quietly freaking out about the visible rivers on the lake before whooping once we reached dry land!! We'd survived our first ski tour with barely a bruise!! Norway is awesome, so is xc skiing - we will be back!!

Kjetil found some sun! :-)

Reaching civilization! :-)