Lakes 2004

With cold dark November nights drawing in and those long summer days a distant memory, it must mean only one thing. The annual Roadhog pilgrimage up to the Lake District.

Over the Bonfire weekend four Hogs took the opportunity to get away from the big city and had a relaxing weekend up in the Langdale Valley. As usual there was plenty of good beer, (the Coniston Bluebird and Jennings Cumberland are well worth a try) loads of good food, and just the odd tipple of Whiskey.

By Saturday we had managed to knock off another two mountains from the Lakeland top 100. Both High Raise and Sergeant Man were scaled with relative easy. As usual the visibility at the top was about 5 meters. By all account there are some great views from the mountain tops in the Lake District, although I am not sure we have seen any since about 1999.

We just about managed to drink Wainwright's inn out of Jameson's, luckily though, thanks to Tony W & Eddie H closing time was just a number on a clock, as once we got back to the cottage the whiskey and Boddingtons were free flowing.

If that was not good preparation for the Derwent Water 10M, Sunday morning Mick O proved his cooking skills with a top notch fried breakfast. Being top athletes both Eddie and I had to think long and hard about eating the fried breakfast as it might slow us down in the race 2 hours later. What do you do? Well, we both ate the fried breakfast and sacrificed the cornflakes (I also cut the toast down and only had 2 rounds,) I bet Paula was having the same dilemma in New York that very morning.

If you have never done it before, the Derwent Water 10M starts and finishes in Keswick. You do not get anything for completing the race, there are about 3 marshals on the entire course, and the organisers, Keswick AC do not seem to believe in a finishing line. It is however in its 45th year, and attracts a quality field of 500+ each year.

Jon Ogle