A splendid weekend in Langdale

I had just the best weekend! Stef and Sam arrived as planned on Friday evening and after what felt like 10minutes after going to bed my alarm went off at 4-45am ready for me to take them to Langdale for the Saunders Mountain Marathon. We arrived in plenty of time for registration and for me to then meet John Preston plus three of his friends Richard, Barbara and John at Dunmail for a run out over leg 3 of the Bob Graham route

We set off up Steel Fell in bright sunshine and ran as far as Pike O'Stickle at about 23hour schedule pace. John's friends continued on to Wasdale while me and John made our way back to the cars at Dunmail. We saw loads of Saunders competitors on the hill plus a solo anti-clockwise BG contender and two groups going clockwise. The visibility was fantastic while we were out, the sun continued to shine and we were ready for a drink after finishing so we called at the Travellers Rest  in Grasmere for a pint 

My original plan had been to go home Saturday afternoon and then drive back to collect Stef and Sam on Sunday lunchtime but it didn't take much persuading to stay in Lakeland overnight with John at the Saunders base in Langdale (John's wife, Chris was running in the MM too)

On Saturday evening we went to the Old Dungeon Gyll for food and a few beers before calling in at the Achilles Ratti climbing hut to see some friends who were staying there. John and Chris are associate members of the club and I was made very welcome too and we spent a very pleasant hour there before going back to the campsite

I woke up at 8-45am on Sunday morning (very late for me) in the front seat of my car in warm sunshine after a better night's sleep than I anticipated (I didn't have any camping gear with me!). After breakfast and a cup of tea courtesy of John we went for a couple of hours run out over Lingmoor Fell (a new Wainwright for me). We saw even more mountain marathoners than the day before, including many tired and footsore looking ones

Not long after returning to base I was lucky to see Sam and Stef finish and find out they'd had a pretty good time of it apart from one major navigation error. They had been seventh in their class overnight and had been in the chasing start but suspected they'd lost a lot of places because of the error. We had lunch together (John and I bought food) before heading back to Yorkshire in the afternoon

Fish and chips were in order when we got back to mine and Stef and Sam then headed off down south in decent spirits. On checking the results this morning we found out they'd finished 14th, which I reckon is a brilliant result on what was Sam's first ever visit to Lakeland!