Ticking Hills: Should have studied the Currickulum!

Mon – nothing

Tuesday – Sprint reps on Cockfield Fell. 7 Miles, 200m of ascent.

Wednesday – nothing

Thursday – DFR hill reps, 6 miles, 500m of ascent

Friday – nothing

Saturday – Hamsterley run, 11 miles, 500m of ascent,

Sunday – 21 miles, 1000m of ascent – more on this later.

45 miles, 2200m of ascent.

Really busy with work this week, but managed to get out 4 times, so quite a good week. Not enough ascent, but a good workout on Sunday makes me fell like it was a decent week.

Not convinced by sprint reps, hard work and quite dull. Thursday reps were fun, turned up late so only did 4 sets, but felt strong. Saturday morning was fun to get out on a glorious winters day.

Sunday, I didn't want to drive all the way to the Lakes with the snowy road conditions and the early start, so decided to have a go at a silly idea of mine. A round of all the curricks on Hamsterley Common. For those of you who haven't met Stuart Ferguson, a currick is a pile of stones, the ones I had seen prior to today were like a well constructed cairn, about 5-6 feet tall, after today I think the definition is “a pile of stones, which may or may not have once been a well constructed cairn used by ancient shepherds, and perhaps might just be a couple of rocks on the floor.”

At around 10pm on Saturday night I started planning the route. Quickly realising I didn't know where the boundaries of Hamsterley Common were, I expanded my currick search to cover the whole east sheet of OL31 (Teesdale and Weardale). I found 15 Currick or Curricks marked on and with a bit of string reckoned the route was about 40 miles – see above, I didn't run 40 miles. That was the planning done.

Setting off at 7:30am the weather looked perfect, the ground conditions less so, with thick snow covering all the fells, I realised this was ridiculous, but fancied giving it a go.

Things were going well, at around 13 miles I started to get tired, trying to take a traverse around James's Hill rather than going up and over was a mistake, the running was atrocious, with deep drifts and gullys every few yards some drifts knee deep and some chest deep and requiring a swimming motion to get through. I was knackered, starting to get cold and on my own, 5 miles from the car it wasn't time to get exhausted so I plodded up to the top of James's hill and set off back to the car, disappointed but happy that the day hadn't ended up with a rescue or hyperthermia.

I got back to the car after 21 miles and 5:50 minutes.

It is only now, that I have looked at the second part of the route that I have realised that to pick up the extra curricks I was planning would have only been 5 or 6 miles longer than the direct route back to the car. I had mis-measured my route. Thinking it was 40 miles there was no way I was going to get round, so came home. Had I realised that my route was only 27 miles I would have plodded on through the snow and probably made it.

Bugger.

Anyone who has an interest in this sort of thing, I would appreciate it if you give me a few months to have another crack at this “OL31 (east sheet) Currick Round”, so I can complete the inaugural round and perhaps get rid of some of the disappointment of cocking up the planning so badly today!