From John Hayes…
The Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon takes place every year on the first weekend in July. There are various courses, each named after a mountain. All are line courses except one score event (Fairfield) which I entered with my brother-in-law Martyn. This year, the event started in Eskdale, with the Saturday overnight camp at Wasdale Head. It was great to see Mark & Rebecca and Alison & Nea at the event. All of us had good runs and enjoyed the relaxed friendly atmosphere of the event.
I put our surprisingly high placing in the Fairfield (score) course down to two things: (1) After a lot of deliberating over the map handed out at the start, we made the right call on the first day (7 hours) to head west to the high fells and pick up some high-scoring flags. We then concentrated on day two (5 hours) collecting as many points as we could in a zigzag route back to Eskdale; and (2) I could not resist adding a swim in Wastwater after we had pitched our tent overlooking the lake on Saturday night. This acted as a miracle cure for my very tired legs!
Carrock Fell (line course)
(1st Simon Patton + Euan Patton 7:21:1)
23rd Mark Mon-Williams + Rebecca Mon-Williams 9:52:3
45th Alison Weston + Nea Weston 11:30:1
61 finished
Fairfield (score course)
(1st Mark Clarkson + Andrew Higgins 912 points) 11:58:0
8th John Hayes + Martyn Pegg 590 points 11:15:2
87 finished