Each year, on the first weekend of July, hundreds of runners and walkers descend on a location in the Lake District to compete in the Saunders Lake land Mountain Marathon (SLMM). It’s a summer mountain marathon known for its relaxed atmosphere and good weather…
2023 saw a large Carnethy contingent congregate at the Coniston event centre and compete in a number of the different classes. Keep reading below for some of the Carnethy accounts of the weekend.
Write up from Lisa Ferrero (Kirkfell class)
Mountain marathons are really just orienteering at a large scale over 2 days, and were my route into taking up running. I was a hillwalker, and could (mostly) navigate, but after trying a MM, I wanted to run the easy bits. I still love the mix of people that you get at these events, that you can walk, trot or run. There’s a range of course lengths, and you can take it seriously, or just have a nice day out. A friend quite regularly stops for a swim in a tarn part way around! Navigation is at least as important as speed- after all, walking in the right direction will get you to a checkpoint much quicker than running in the wrong one!
I’ve done the SLMM a good few times now- generally one of the shorter courses. However, for some strange reason after last years SLMM (which we didn’t even do particularly well in) I suffered a sudden bout of enthusiasm and suggested to my running partner Claire that we should give the harder Kirkfell course a try. Once she’ d got over the shock (generally its my job to veto her silly ideas), she agreed.
As a result of this, I think we were both a bit nervous this year. On the plus side, this meant I had actually trained a bit and tried to strengthen my unreliable knee. The weather forecast didn’t do much for the nerves though- clouds I can cope with, but 50 mph gusts are not my friends!
The start above Coniston was dreich and windy, so much so we only managed to mark the first 3 points on our map before the map got too wet. Thankfully it cheered up gradually through the day, which mostly went fine except for our ‘F-up’ of the weekend (there’s always one) which found us wasting a good 15 minutes scrambling down and back up very steep ground on the flank of Crinkle Crags, cursing our route choice, the mapmaker, and our inability to pay attention to the altimeter! Back on route, the sun came out, and combined with the strong wind, I dared to hope I’d get to the midcamp nice and dry. But the course setters had other ideas, so following a last river crossing, we squelched into the finish, tired, but at least nice and clean!
Midcamp in the Duddon Valley was mostly dry, and midge free. As sociable and weird as ever. A place where walking around a sheep field with your feet in plastic bags while drinking a nice beer is entirely normal. Despite being in the world’s smallest tent, we got a pretty good night’s sleep, and woke up feeling rather creaky but not as creaky as some people by the looks of them! Day 2 was much drier, still windy, and slightly shorter than we had feared. This turned out to be a very good thing, as after traversing (my least favourite activity apart from stumbling through tussocks) across the Seathwaite fells, I ‘fessed up to Claire that my knee had started grumbling. Claire looked rather concerned – she knows by now my grumbly knee can rapidly lead to us walking the rest of the route, and we had a fair old distance to go! Thankfully the rest of the course could be mostly done on paths, and the knee decided to shut up and behave. For the last long stretch we decided to go for the ‘short and sharp’ option, climbing back up above the coppermines valley when EVERYONE seemed to be coming down it…we got a lot of “the finish is that way you know!” comments 🙂. After a heavy-legged descent, we picked up the last few checkpoints without a faff, and were into the finish in time for a late lunch.
Claire and I have a long-standing set of MM success metrics (most important first!): Not injured and still friends, finished, not last, and added bonus if outside the bottom 1/3rd (overall). So we were well pleased with this year’s finish of half way down the field and 3rd female team.
I’m new to Carnethy, and didn’t realise till afterwards that loads of the runners (in the Kirkfell female category in particular) were Carnethys! Hopefully by next year I’ll know more faces, and will come and say hi. Congratulations to all of you!
Write up from Ellie Johnstone (Fairfield Class):
The Fairfield (score) class at the Saunders is a unique challenge as you get all the controls at the start of day 1 and you have to plan your route for both days then. This means that not only do you have to think about maximising your score on day 1 (and getting back on time!) but as you can’t revisit controls you have to make sure you leave enough options for day 2. The optimal route should never cross itself. The event area extended north from Coniston all the way to Esk Pike and on Saturday we spent much of the day running through rough, remote valleys with not many other teams around. Sunday was much more runnable and a control-dense route around Dow Crag, Swirl How and Wetherlam allowed us to extend our overnight mixed team lead. A very enjoyable and sociable weekend 🙂
Write up from Pippa Dakin (Kirkfell class) :
This was my third time at the Saunders and as usual it did not fail to be a fantastic weekend out in the hills, with friends/family and an element of friendly competition!
Checking the weather forecast the week before I was slightly worried to see that it was due to be a wet and windy affair but, as usual, once you’re out in it it is never too awful. The first morning was atmospheric, and as Kate and I set off on the walk from Coniston up the coppermines valley closer towards the clouds, I definitely questioned my sanity at points. However, in true Saunders style, by the time we had made it round our Day 1 course the sun was out and shining on the overnight camp, which was a welcome sight when it (eventually) came into view.
A social evening was had at the mid-camp, visiting different encampments of people we knew who had all camped “by the wall” but we’re actually scattered all over the large field. The one luxury of the weekend is a bar at the mid-camp, fully stocked with Coke, Beers and milk and so we made sure to make the most of this!
Day 2 dawned and looked much more welcoming than the previous day. The cloud was high and the sun was out, but the wind was still out in force! Luckily we held onto our map and we were soon completing out final descent back into Coniston and running towards the post event pie. Another fun and well organised weekend, so thank you to all organiser and volunteers.
A quick rundown of the results and I counted Carnethies in at least 7 pairs and the majority of them women – a great turnout for Carnethy women! If anyone wants to know more and get involved in the future then please get in touch!
Pippa Dakin