Undaunted by the suffer-fest that was the Breca Buttermere
SwimRun, Steve C and Britta W followed up on the race format to compete in the Breca Coniston Sprint
event. As before, this race format includes several open water swim legs that
are connected with several wetsuit-clad fell-run legs (or vice versa depending
how you see things). Steve reports that, if anything, this event was even
harder than the Buttermere event, mainly because the water in Windermere, Rydal
Water and Grasmere was simply debilitatingly
cold. The pic shows Steve in action and he’s the first to admit he was
suffering - genuinely medically suffering - at this point. To give an
indication of just how bad things were, Steve reports thinking that Britta would
have been up for quitting had there been any suggestion of wavering and looked
in a genuinely rough state by the finish. Imagine his surprise, then, when
Britta was left to be whilst medics immediately pounced on him instead in a
blind rush to get him out of his wet gear and to stabilise his body
temperature. His core was 31
degrees at the finish. Almost unbelievably, the pair are considering
further SwimRun forays…
Back on dry (well dry-ish) land, Steve has now also taken on
a couple of rounds of the Mad Bull Torch
Challenge, a night-time trail / fell run series held around the Rivington /
Pike Fell area of Lancashire. Unsurprisingly given the location, the going is
tough with steep ascents / descents, rocks, mud, ice, peat, roots, and all
manner of other ankle-snapping substrate to contend with. Now, this kind of
stuff is tough by day, but by night - with only a headtorch separating
competitors from total blackout - it’s not hard to imagine how much more serious
things get. Notwithstanding - and in a refreshing change to the current
zeitgeist - the race briefing for the latter of the two rounds saw the race
organiser stating simply “'Watch yourselves, it's bloody icy on the paths near
the top”.
Of course, Steve is no stranger to such madness and as
things get tougher he just gets better. In the first round he took an age group
win and in the second did enough to stand a chance of an age-group series in the
event he can pull out a good performance in the last round of the series to be
held on 5th January 2019.
