Stage 4

The penultimate stage of the day looked like being the toughest. The 16km (ish) route took in climbs of Robinson, Dale Head, High Spy, Maiden Moor and Cats Bells which would give around a kilometre of ascent. The weather had really closed in and soon after leaving transition the heavens opened in a torrential downpour.

My start wasn't helped by getting North on the map rotated by 90 degrees and thus heading West rather than the route book's instruction of North (note to self - when chopping up maps, mark a clear North arrow). Ho hum, after a short detour and a bit of head scratching (the route I was trying to take went through an impenetrable forest) I. Was on the steep footpath up to Robinson.

This seemed to go on for ever, winding up the steep face of the fell. The wind was howling, the rain was constant and I was soon in the clouds with zero visibility. I kept catching glimpses of teams ahead and behind which gave some reassurance I was on the right track, but I made certain I stayed in touch with the map. The fells are an isolated place and it's all too easy to get disorientated and lose all sense of location; not good when surrounded by sheer cliffs and worsening weather.

Finally I crossed the wall onto the plateau and headed on a short out-and-back to the checkpoint at the summit to check in with the star of a marshall who had spent most of the day hiding from the weather in the summit windbreak.

It was then a run along Littledale Edge past Hindscarth and up to Dale Head. Of course, this required a descent and the regaining of the height as we passed along the saddle between fell tops.

Finally I reached Dale Head and a brief break in the weather let me sight Dale Head tarn and thus get a bearing to head off the peak along, a nice reassurance as I plunged down and extremely steep descent to the tar, the downside was this also let me see the next bit of the route; yet another ascent up to High Spy.

I failed miserably to find a decent route down the slope and took absolutely ages getting down to the tarn and on the path to the next peak. I was still not even halfway through the distance, but most of the climbing was done.

There followed a long slog slowly heading north over some pretty horrid ground. Finally the descent off Cat Bells arrived and I gratefully descended to the Cumbria way for the flat run-in to Nicol End to start the final stage of the day; a swim across Derwent water followed by a brief run to the finish in the centre of Keswick.

The run stage alone had taken nearly 3 and a half hours and had really taken its toll so it was with some tardiness that I got ready to plunge into the lake.

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