Rat Race Run Britannia - Week 3, day 3 - Kendal to Askham
Into the high hills
Distance: 43.33km (total so far 795.37km)
After a wonderful sendoff from the same mad friend who welcomed us yesterday, we climbed out of Kendal by road and farm track to the bottom of the first hill, which was as close as Rat Race could get a van - a place appropriately called Sadgill. After that, no more pitstops until the end.
We'd been very lucky with the weather so far, the only real issue being the morning on Dunkery, but today the weather decided to catch up. We were already in our waterproof jackets before the pitstop, but once past it we climbed straight up into the cloud layer, and the wind and rain started to crank.
There were still some nice views until we reached the cloud layer.
But the view ahead was looking ominous.
We were already in full waterproofs by the time we'd got much further up the road, and doing the big climb up onto the Gatescarth pass. The terrain was also getting slippery. We slid around a bit on the path, but once up to the top with the wind and rain on the rocky terrain we were going very slowly indeed. Somewhere at the back of our minds was "if this is all going to be like this, this is going to be a really long day". Fortunately, although the weather never changed, the terrain improved to something we could walk on, although at no great pace.
The temperature had gone from short sleeves in Kendal to very cold on top - fortunately we were carrying appropriate kit. We stopped again, possibly later than we should, to get our fleece layers on under the waterproofs, which made a massive difference. It really isn't difficult to see how people can get into trouble up here - and this was June.
From that point on, although still damp, it was a lot easier, and we descended into Askham in good order - we even got a view of the castle we'd be running past in the morning.
We actually found we'd made fairly good time over the hills, although it certainly didn't feel like it at times. We reached the finish, to discover that we had about half an hour wait for the minibus - and there was a community swimming pool that was part of the village hall we finished in. It would have been rude not to!
Total climb: 1507m (total so far 15,102m)
Steps: 57,113 (total so far 960,548)
Also:
Number of potential views: many
Number of actual views: possibly 1
Number of lengths swum: 6
Nominally, this was the same sort of distance as yesterday's leg from Lancaster. However, it was a world away in terms of how hard it was.
The route is apparently a classic Lakes walk - north from Kendal into the hills over a route called (appropriately enough) High Street. It should have been very beautiful. It wasn't.
There were still some nice views until we reached the cloud layer.
But the view ahead was looking ominous.
We were already in full waterproofs by the time we'd got much further up the road, and doing the big climb up onto the Gatescarth pass. The terrain was also getting slippery. We slid around a bit on the path, but once up to the top with the wind and rain on the rocky terrain we were going very slowly indeed. Somewhere at the back of our minds was "if this is all going to be like this, this is going to be a really long day". Fortunately, although the weather never changed, the terrain improved to something we could walk on, although at no great pace.
The temperature had gone from short sleeves in Kendal to very cold on top - fortunately we were carrying appropriate kit. We stopped again, possibly later than we should, to get our fleece layers on under the waterproofs, which made a massive difference. It really isn't difficult to see how people can get into trouble up here - and this was June.
Some hours later, we'd just started to descend far enough to get to the lower edge of the cloud layer, and could believe there was a view.
From that point on, although still damp, it was a lot easier, and we descended into Askham in good order - we even got a view of the castle we'd be running past in the morning.
We actually found we'd made fairly good time over the hills, although it certainly didn't feel like it at times. We reached the finish, to discover that we had about half an hour wait for the minibus - and there was a community swimming pool that was part of the village hall we finished in. It would have been rude not to!
Song of the day - I had problems with this one. I could have picked something about rain or fog, but it should have been a beautiful day with gorgeous views. Maybe it will be for us at some time in the future. So we'll go for "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood - the song has nothing to do with hills, but we'd certainly done "higher" that day.
Last: Halfway there!
Next: The shortest day
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