9 minutes in 24 hours

24 hours is a long time to be awake. You can do a lot in 24 hours, but you may not be able to remember it all. Between 6pm on Friday 17th April and 6pm on Saturday 18th April, I stayed awake and ran around the Lake District. These are the 9 minutes I remember out of those 24 hours.

9. Sergeant Man/High Raise

4:31am Saturday - 10 hours 31 mins elapsed

We've just hit the top of Sergeant Man at the second try, and are heading across the boggy ground towards the next peak. Suddenly the nausea I've felt for the last 4 hours that has stopped me eating gets worse.

As I stand bent double over the grass, I think about the normal world 2,000ft below. In that world I would currently be planning a day off work, probably in bed with a possible trip to the doctors needed. Here though, I'm starting to look ahead. I think of people I know who have had to stop their Bob Graham attempts and where they got to. I can't think of any that stopped this soon. Can I make it to Wasdale? Can I make it to Great Gable? If I make it to Honister, I should really continue, but I'll probably be so far behind schedule by then, I may as well stop anyway.

Then I think of a runner I know in a race in Spain last year. At the 10 mile point of a 50 mile race there was a vertical kilometre; a huge climb in morning heat. She was really sick on this climb, and by the time she'd started recovering and moving again she was last. At this point the race had done a circuit and therefore was passing back close to the start, but, despite this, she'd headed out on the rest of the race. At that point she was over 2 hours behind me, but by 35 miles she'd overtaken me and at the end she was an hour ahead. And it wasn't even an important race to her. If she can do that, I think, that's what I need to be doing if I'm ever going to finish anything.

I look up from my fell shoes. Tom has hung back with me. I stand up. The other runners are distant lights ahead in the dark.

In silence, Tom and I start up again on the climb to High Raise to catch them up.

8. Watson's Dodd

11:44pm Friday - 5 hours 44 mins elapsed

I'm getting used to running in the dark now. Since the sun went down on the climb to Blencathra, I've dropped down Doddick Fell, drunk a pint of soup to add to all the rest of the food I've eaten in the first 5 hours of the run, and then climbed up the front of Clough Head.

C is navigating in the darkness. The weather is mostly clear and around us we can see the black outlines of the Dodds against the ultraviolet of the sky. James is keeping up everyone's spirits with his bounciness, but I'm just starting to feel the edges of queasiness. As we head away from the shallow top of Watson's Dodd I try to take a drink whilst running and end up inhaling it. Kev gives me a handful of mixed nuts and I struggle to eat them. My mind is starting to run through the list of foods I know are in the rucksacks around me and struggling to think of any I feel like eating. We lost a couple of minutes on my schedule getting to Great Dodd and C has gone a bit quiet. Cloud is drifting across the path as we run towards the next top.

My optimism is starting to dip.

7. Harrison Stickle

5:07am Saturday - 11 hours 7 mins elapsed

My legs cope best with climbing up rocks rather than grass and picking my way up the mass of boulders to the top of Harrison Stickle I feel OK. When I reach the top, I'm suddenly hanging over the edge of a drop down to Langdale. The land looks like a deep blue liquid and the lakes look like mercury. I can make out Pavey Ark and Stickle Tarn below me and, on the far east horizon, the Howgills and the Yorkshire Dales are outlined with an orange glow.

"Look at...", I start to say to Tom.

"Oi! Come on! We've got a job on here!".

100ft down below, Jarv's headtorch is pointing up at us. He's right. I start to climb back down as he moves away. Either I'll finish this and look at the pictures in my head later, or I won't and I won't want to know.

6. Kirk Fell

12:58pm Saturday - 18 hours 58 mins elapsed

We've come out of the top of Red Gully and Andy is waiting in the sun there. The last "nausea incident" coming off Pillar is forgotten and I now know not to try any more quirky gel flavours.

I know that C is ahead, waiting to meet me on Kirk Fell, and that I'll soon be seeing her for the first time since the darkness of Dunmail Raise. And beyond that is the last big climb up Great Gable. I push on up the slope. Last time I was here we got caught in a snow storm, just two weeks ago. For the first time then, I'd thought about how it would feel to have to ring everyone in the week before to call my attempt off. There would have been no time for a further attempt this year with everything else planned. Making the final strides to the summit and C, the perfect 24 hour weather window turning the Lakes into my personal playground, I've forgotten that now.

5. Skiddaw

7:24pm Friday  - 1 hours 24 mins elapsed

We're at the fence marking the final ascent up to Skiddaw summit. The last hour has been relaxed and fun. Lots of chat and fantastic early evening views across Keswick to Derwentwater and the Northwestern fells.

I haven't looked beyond the next three summits and it really hasn't felt like this is my big day, just a run out with some friends and a dog.

As we hit the summit ridge, Andy looks at his watch.

"1:22. You've got 3 minutes to the summit, let's just walk it."

I've been up here a lot of time, but never with the chance to look at the view. We can see the Galloway hills, the Isle of Man, even a thin line that may or may not be Ireland. It's going to be a fantastic day out whatever the outcome. The sunset is still out there to look forward to and somewhere even further ahead, the sunrise.

I touch the summit, right on schedule and now it feels like I've started.

4. Robinson

3:55pm Saturday - 21 hours 55 mins elapsed

Mark has been navigating me on leg 5, but now, on the final descent off Robinson, he has handed over to Martyn for some of the intricate parts avoiding crags. He and I quickly pick up a bit of momentum and leave the rest of the group behind us trying to follow. Keswick is glistening white in the sunshine ahead.

Soon, the ground levels slightly and the rest of the group catches up and overtakes and suddenly C and I are running together in a little two person bubble.

For the first time I feel like I want to cry. It's not happiness;it's just emotion that I don't know how to handle, like an overtired baby.

"It's so close", I whine.

"No, it isn't" C says, and actually that's what I meant. No-one should fail from this point. I have over an hour left, but what if I have to walk? Would 20 minute miles get me back in time? 30 minute miles? What if I have to stop to be sick again? I can't bring myself to believe I'm going to do it.

Then we round a corner and there's the gate off the fells, and John K, a proper runner, waiting to run with us for the first time. The mood lifts.

3. Lord's Rake

8:45am Saturday - 14 hours 45 mins elapsed

Leg 3 stretches back in time behind me to the dark of Dunmail Raise. Now though, it's light and we have visited the highest point on the round and have the traverse over Mickledore to Scafell to make.

C and I were up here 4 weeks ago, checking my preferred option of Lord's Rake, a steep, rock filled gully, and it had been covered in hard packed ice and snow. The experience had made us promise ourselves a winter mountain skills course for next year.

As we get to it now,though, there is just a little snow remaining right at the top.

Fewston Paul leads the way and we follow in a spaced out line to avoid falling rocks. When he gets to the top of the rocks, Paul kicks into the soft snow and, far from being difficult, it is much easier going than the scree. As I stride up the staircase of ice, I feel a new strength. Perhaps I have been secretly worrying about this, or maybe one of the small pieces of nutrition I've sneaked in has reached my engine, but I look ahead eagerly to the climb to the summit and then the drop of close on 3,000ft in the morning sunshine to the next support point.  

2. Moot Hall

5:37pm Saturday - 23 hours 37 mins elapsed

We've just crossed the suspension bridge and are going through the meadows. I have a big group of runners around me, and also some ahead, shouting at innocent people strolling in the late evening sun that there's a Bob Graham finisher coming through. I try not to look too embarrassed. It's going to happen now; we're just chatting and laughing, but as I come out onto the road into Keswick, the heaviness in my legs lifts and I stop talking.

I up my pace and for a second my running support are surprised and have to up their pace too. Scott and Martyn run to the roundabout and dramatically stop the traffic. I'm running uphill toward the market square with no fatigue and I can feel the smile starting to fix on my face. Past the market traders and I can see my supporters waiting to one side of the Moot Hall.

As I lift my arms above my head (a new habit I seem to have picked up in the last 6 hours) I scan the faces and see people who were with me on earlier legs and some who've followed me around the support points. I really don't think I'm ever going to stop smiling.


There's a van and trailer parked across the green door I need to touch and I hurdle the tow bar and bang my hand against the wood panel. Martyn is right next to me, finger on the master watch.

"23:37!"

1. Yewbarrow

10:32am Saturday - 16 hours 32 mins elapsed

We're at the bottom of Yewbarrow. I've dreaded this for months but everything is different now. 

10 minutes ago I'd arrived at Wasdale to worried looking faces and a Martyn in full motivational mode.  Within 30 seconds I'd been sat down and handed a cup of tea, a bacon sandwich, a drink and a piece of cake. 

This wasn't much use as I still only had two hands and one of those needed dressing from a fall I'd taken at the top of the scree on Scafell. The sense of urgency had me fired up and we'd jogged out of the support point in high spirits.

Martyn takes the lead. "Just watch my heels", he advises, but I'm ready to push on. My legs feel great. I don't know where the power is still coming from, but at least I've managed to eat the bacon from the sandwich. This lot are leg 4 specialists. Generic caffeine tablets, electrolyte capsules, and Linda's special leg 4 liquid power all come out on the climb. 

The morning has fully developed now. Clear blue skies and a nice April warmth. Looking back we have gained ground quickly and the support point is far below us. The group is starting to string out a bit; I'm warmed up and they're straight into this climb cold but it still makes me feel strong.

  

Martyn keeps up the encouragement and we're over the scree and then the ground is starting to level out. I knew I was almost 30 minutes over a 24 hour schedule when we arrived in Wasdale below, and that I have to start making up ground here. My schedule says I have 50 minutes to get to the top. In training I did 45 mins fresh.

Emma has my tracker but has disappeared to take a short cut, so Linda texts C to let her know that we're still going. Everyone is laughing and joking. Even me. I feel brilliant.

I see the top and break into a small jog. Linda gets a text back from C who will be waiting on Kirk fell. She reads the message and we all smile. 

Martyn stands by the summit ready to stop the lap. I touch the cairn. Just under 42 minutes. We all cheer. 

I feel like I could climb like this forever. We turn and start the run along the ridge, Pillar, Kirk Fell and Great Gable ahead and still to be climbed, crisp in the spring sunshine. For the first time I know I'm going to do it.