Ultra_Tales_Issue_13

ARTICLETHE BOB GRAHAM ROUNDquestions as I could, before this third effort.- Navigation: It was really one man who made mymind up to get this done this season and not next.Bill Williamson is a BGR legend. He's completed all 3British Rounds, and helped scores of runners ontheir own attempts over the years. I had contactedhim at the beginning of the year, but with his ownrace schedule and being 'booked out' to manyother attempts, he simply wasn't able to makeeither of my first two attempts. After the secondfailure, he read my report and promptly emailed meto say he'd get the navigators together, told me toget on and do some training and that he'd get itsorted. Within a few hours, he'd emailed me back tosay that he'd rallied around and a quite exceptionalgroup of runners had offered to help. I think they'dmostly found the shambolic efforts to date prettyfunny, but I took heart from the fact that theyseemed convinced I could get around in under 24.From my side I got a few good friends to agree todo the pacing side of things. The list of navigators &pacers ran as follows:Leg 1: Jim Mann (Winter BGR record holder). MattWinn-Smith (Double Iron World Champ/ BGRfinisher)Leg 2: Alan Lucker (All 3 British Rounds). Matt Winn-SmithLeg 3: Bill (All 3 British Rounds). Drew Sheffield(Team CR Legend).Leg 4: Rob Woodall (All 3 British Rounds and PeakBagger Extraordinaire). Natalie White (FormerEnglish Fell Running Champ/ 21hr BGR Finisher).Aidain Linskill (Supporter of multiple BG attempts).Leg 5: Ian Roberts (31 years of BG support). Bill.Robbie Britton (Team CR Legend).I knew I would perhaps only be able to ammass thiscalibre of support the one time. By adding a groupof 5 additional pacers to the list, we now had 3 of usout on each leg, one pacer who would help carrykit, a lead navigator, and me. I ended up with morepacers for Leg 5 this time, than the whole of thefirst attempt. This is how I knew now, to make a BGhappen. Nici Griffin would crew us and co-ordinateeverything between legs. She would be the gluethat held the whole thing together and with herattention to detail and experience on this side ofthe fence I could think of no one better for that role.- Nutrition: With only 4 crew points in a 24hr run, alot of gear, water and food needs to go out with youon each leg. Nici who crewed the second attemptwas left with no options for my nutrition going outon stage 3 last time because I hadn't doneadequate shopping before hand. This time I listeditems to be packed together in individual bags togo out on each leg. No opportunity for error.- Fitness: I was running ok in training. With 10previous visits to the Lakes in 2014 alone I hadspent a good amount of time learning how to moveefficiently over the terrain. But I had hardly raced atall, sticking to occasional one off big efforts ratherthan consistent shorter racing that I've relied on inthe past. This time I ran a marathon on a highschool grass track, 3 weeks out from the BG just tosee where I was at. I didn't kill myself and ran fairlywell. I knew then I had the base fitness to completeand as vastly different as that running experiencewas, it allayed my doubts about my basic runningfitness.Leg 1: One issue I had with the first two attemptswas lack of sleep. This time with an 0100 start I gotto bed at the same time as our 8 month old at 1900the night before. He woke at 2100 but I managed toget him back down by 2130 and got 80 minutessleep before the alarm went at 2345 and we droveon to Keswick. It wasn't a lot but it was a damnsight better than 0 minutes.When we got there, Ian Roberts was already on siteand we were shortly joined by the crew. At the startthere were about 8 of us and I was already startingto think the support infrasructure/ team effort onthis day was going to be overwhelming. All for oneperson to run around in a giant circle in under24hrs. It sounds crazy, it is crazy. That's why it's sobrilliant.Jim Mann the lead navigator, jogged down to thehall with about 5 minutes to spare having hotfooted it from threlkeld. He, Matt Winn Smith and Icracked on at 0100 exactly, Ian's voice shouting '85minutes up skiddaw is fine' as we shifted throughthe back streets of Keswick. As is more commonthan not on the first top, we ran in to clag and some165 ULTRA TALES | OCTOBER 2014Sponsored by thehttp://