Great Langdale Pudding Run

We are up in the Lake District for our traditional pre-Christmas weekend away where we take in the Great Langdale Pudding Run.

The run is on Saturday, with a 12:10 start to fit in round the bus timetable, and it’s rather damp and misty. Although it’s nowhere near as wet as last year. There are 700 of us in the 10K, which is now no longer split over two days and means parking all the cars is quite an issue but they just about cope. We make sure of a space by arriving early and parking in the National Trust car park by the Sticklebarn. It’s a choice of £7 donation to National Trust to park there or a £5 donation to the Brathay Trust if you park in the race car park. Both are worthy causes.

Many of the runners are in fancy dress and I dress up as a frozen turkey still in its shrink rap, as I try out one of L's new ponchos in a bid to keep dry. Although I don’t run in it.

Perhaps I should have done as it might have given me an excuse for being outwitted in the race by a Christmas Pudding that although it huffed and puffed its way up the one big hill, it positively rolled down the other side. Although not stopping for a mull wine at the drinks station, as I did, gave it a distinct advantage.

My time of 47:49 is 22 seconds quicker than last year, a small victory I suppose. They hand me a Sainsburys Christmas pudding as I cross the line, which will no doubt sit in the cupboard for most of the year. We’re not big Christmas pudding eaters. Much more to my liking is the Hawkshead's Dry Stone Stout they had on in the Sticklebarn for a post-race tipple.

Windermere Marathon

With around a thousand entries this year the race is growing year on year. In addition to the Marathon there are also seventeen runners doing the 10 in 10 challenge in aid of the Brathay Trust. Basically this is ten laps of the marathon course over ten consecutive days. Gulp. Sixteen of them have lasted the distance.

These mad folk/legends (delete as applicable) are given a heroes send off when they start one by one an hour before us mere mortals.

Then it’s our turn and we led down from Brathay Hall to the start line on the main road by a marching band. Then we’re off and it’s all somewhat pleasant, undulating as you’d expect but nothing too extreme. The roads have even been closed for us and remain so for most of the first half of the race. They are briefly open around Hawkshead, where we are diverted through the centre of the village which was packed with spectators who lined the street and cheered us along the cobbled streets and alleyways.  

Then we are back into the countryside past Esthwaite Water with Lake Windermere itself in the distance. The next landmark is when we reach the bottom of Lake Windermere at Newby Bridge and then start coming back up the other side. This is roughly halfway and I’m pleased that not only am I feeling pretty good but also that I go through 13 miles in 1:59. Therefore I'm running at four hour marathon pace despite the testing terrain.

We turn onto the A592 ‘coast’ road and past Fell Foot where we have parkrun. Here it’s busy with cars but after that the road is made one way until Bowness and goes relatively quiet again. I really cannot fault the organisation on how they have minimised the traffic.

The course though gets more difficult, hiller and not as scenic with Lake Windermere largely obscured despite the fact you’re mostly alongside it.

After 20 miles we arrive in Bowness, which is packed with mostly bemused tourists but with plenty of spectators too. I recall from when I did the bike leg of the Windermere Triathlon, which started in Bowness, that there is a bloody big hill coming all the way up to the main A591 road and beyond. My memory is not wrong.

This is where I begin to struggle. Although I have had no calf problems at all my lack of training post-Manchester is telling and I drop well off my four hour marathon pace. In fact it get so tough and my legs so knackered that I walk considerable chucks of it. I do put on a spurt when I pass local legend Rocket Rod who was helping at the next feed station.

It probably doesn’t help that I know the A591 through Troutbeck Bridge to Ambleside so well, that I know exactly what is coming. Even then Ambleside seems hillier than before and even once through Ambleside it goes up again at Clappersgate and then just to cap it all the finish up the driveway back to Brathay Hall is uphill as well.

I cross the line in 4:15:22 which, I suppose, for a course like this still isn’t too bad and at least I’ve not got another nine laps to do.

Langdale Christmas Pudding 10k

This year we return for a race that we have run many times before, Great Langdale’s Christmas Pudding 10K run which is under new management this year.

The Brathay Trust, who are based in Ambleside, have taken over the running of this race along with the Langdale Half and Full Marathon. The youth charity already organises the Windermere Marathon.

This year it is the 30th running of the event and the new organiser has invited the long time previous organiser, Rod, to start it.

Then a thousand of us, less those who have wimped out because of the high winds and cold wet weather, set out from outside the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel at 12.10 once the local bus has been let through.

This year there is a new course which I was a little worried about, and I wasn't only one. Rather than being the practically out and back run of old the route now takes us around the back of Elterwater village and back to Langdale via Baysbrown Farm which must surely have off-roads sections? Apparently not, it turns out that due to some excellent footpathing, it doesn't.

It isn’t easy though and it was at Elterwater that it started to get serious with a climb that went on far longer than I recall from when we've walked it. There was a reward for completely this part though and I could smell the drinks station probably half a km before I reached it. Yep, smells like mulled wine to me. It's not really good athletic practice to stop for such things but I wasn't going to pass up on this.

That sort of spurs you on to the finish which is in the muddy swamp that used to be the field in front of the New Dungeon Ghyll. I then rush to get some clothes on and to warm up, just as the rain starts again with poor L still out there.

The other change the organisers have made is to downsize the Christmas pudding. It is no longer one you can feed your whole family off on Christmas Day but a tiny individual one. Which for us is probably better, it might actually get eaten, and we already have one for Christmas Day from the Heanor run.

Some folk resorted to fancy dress to keep warm.