Hidden Corners of the Durham Dales

Jane and I ran the LDWA Durham Dales Challenge on Saturday, and recommend it as a fun, friendly and relaxed way to see corners of our backyard that you may never have visited. Three routes – 52, 28 and 16 miles – all with manned checkpoints, cake and drink at many of them and blow by blow route descriptions. We entered the 52 miler, our last “long run” before the UTMB at the end of August, and enjoyed ourselves, jogging along through moorland, riverbank and Dales villages. I measured about 2200m of ascent in the route – it makes a good local training run for any sad, obsessed “ultra” fans

I had a good day, finishing in 10hrs 24m, feeling strong at the end, though in awe of Dave A, who did the same last weekend, but added a frightening 44miles to what I had done! Though its not a race, runners are welcome and  I think I can claim the miniscule honour of now holding the record – hopefully providing further impetus to a real runner to break it next year. Jane wisely retired at 30 miles, nursing a very sore knee from a fall during a 3 mile road jog earlier in the week, but going well until then.

We are learning more about how long it takes to recover from long runs – I’ll no doubt learn more in the Wasdale in 2 weeks time. Jane’s got the frozen peas on her knee but hopefully we will see a few purple vests on the slog up Seatallan!

Lewis and Jane Grundy