This is Dougie Zinis’s personal blog about his recent Wainwrights Round
I chose to set off from Moot Hall Keswick at 10am so I could have a full vegi breakfast at Spoons first. Here my leg1 support met me (Jane’s and Paul) and Toby (road support) I had 4 coffees to clear my bowels out and it was time to go. It was market day so quite busy and it was final kit faff 🎉always good to get the logistics out of the way I can look forward to the pain now 😁.
The first leg is always great you are fresh you are happy and the first climb is good. You are soon up latrigg for peak 1 and it’s game on. The weathers sunny and clear and no wind could be perfect could be too warm but I’ll deal with it if so. This is a nice leg in these conditions and it was great to meet my 2 support team members and we soon ticked off the peaks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 it was getting hot and was fantastic to have a river crossing to cool us down. I made sure to lift the tracker I had hired from opentracking incase of leaks and we climbed strong up the last peak of this leg Castle crag which will make a fantastic walk with the family. And down and onto the road support and food.
The next leg is a long slog so I had 2 long distance experts Kev Hoult and Rory Harris. Rory looked a little pail but I thought nothing of it and off we rose up the first big climb to Bessyboot here I turned to look at Rory and he wasn’t good infact he was projectile vomiting(Exorcist style) so Kev grabbed the kit while Rory got to safety. This leg has some decent climbs which are good to get out of the way whist freshish. On the decent of kirk fell We passed lots of runners in the Great Lakeland 3 day event then at Brandreth Toby met us with supplys. From here the views were magical and the banter with Kev fun we cruised around the peaks pointing out sights and surprised to hear music whilst climbing High Stile, there was a event on in buttermere which looked so inviting in the heat. Looking across from Starling Dodd there looked to be a carpet of clag which was confusing in this heat until we got there and found a carpet of cotton. The last climb on this leg to Mellbreak had my questioning my sanity for the only time on this challenge. A long spongy soggy tussocky slog after a long hot day wasn’t great but once I ticked off the summit all was forgiven. Headtorchs and decent to Loweswater.
I had a 20min nap here and a shed load of food. I had been grazing regularly and having something more substantial every few hours plus the MF shakes. My feet were fine and I set off on the next leg thankfully shorter with 3 supporters Damian/Matt and Dom after a first climb up a grassy fencelind the going is a lot better than the last leg, alot of banter was thrown about which always makes things easier. I was concentrating on my running form now as the first day of excitement had passed and conserving every is always key so any little helps to steal a quote. It was night so I had on more layers and moved well as a team I was eating well and drinking lots I could tell by my rest stops and colour of my wee. The night went quick and soon Ennerdale water was in front of me that was another 5 peaks ticked off and the sunrise had begun.
The Autistic FellRunner 