No, Matthew, we sodding can't. It's not going to be a long post tonight as I am totally knackered - courtesy partly of the Saunders Mountain Marathon, set in the Lake District, and partly because of the evil, underworld slave master known to some as 'The Lawson' - the most feared of all the demonic forces. Not sure I will ever run again.
There is something uniquely tough about the mountain marathon. There is going for hike in the mountains. There is going for a run in the mountains. There's even racing there. And there is the mountain marathon. A uniquely stupid event whereby those, devoid of sense or reason decide to traverse the un-traversable terrain all across the mountains in the name of fun.
'The Lawson' and I ran the hardest class of the Saunders, Scafell class - other than the solo class, the Klets. This being my second mountain marathon I had no choice but to plump for the hardest. Over the two days we covered around 50km and 3000m of ascent, covering some very rough terrain. The midway camp at the end of day one, in the middle of nowhere, was fun - once I had recovered the ability to walk.
Anyway, we finished in seventh place - not as grand as it sounds as the forecasted terrible weather had scared off half the Scafell teams - but our time for the two days was 12hr 49mins (or there abouts) which would probably only have dropped down us a couple of places in a full field. Overall, me and 'The Lawson' worked well together. We seemed to come to the same navigational choices - which were pretty close to the course organisers route. Where we differed was our fitness levels - I've turned to lard - and he hasn't - that and the fact I think he wanted to kill me. Forcing me to run when ever possible. On a couple of occasions he very nearly summoned the Hulk - but that is a story for another day...
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