Steve Birkinshaw starts his Wainwright Record Attempt - Day 1

The early morning shopper’s looked a little bewildered this morning as a large group of friends and family clapped and cheered as Steve (with support runners Nic Barber and Paul Cornforth) set off from Moot Hall in Keswick at 0900 sharp. Steve will attempt to break the 27-year-old Joss Naylor record for visiting all the Lake District Wainwrights (the 214 summits described in described in A. Wainwright's seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells). The current record is 7 days a 1 hour.

The night before Steve seemed relaxed and found time to play with his kids, whilst Jane Soul (chief organiser/help), Alison Scott and Alison Herbert sorted out mountains of food and kit for the week ahead. There is an incredible number of people helping with this challenge and a huge amount of organisation taking place.

According to his support runners, it sounds as though Steve started a little faster than the planned schedule this morning but once up on the tussocky High Seat he settled into a good rhythm and is bang on his forecast schedule.

His first leg finished at Borrowdale School and Andy Schofield (Schoffer), Malcolm Patterson and Jim Mann stepped in as the support runners for leg 2 through to Kirkstile Inn in Loweswater, which they are expected to arrive at 22:30 this evening. Right now (20:42) Steve is 500m from Great Borne and right on Schedule (you can follow the live tracking by click the link on the left).

Apparently Schoffer has been out in the fells over the last few days stashing cans of coke and Eccles cakes ready for Steve to collect!

At Kirstile Inn the intention is for Andy Bradley, Nic Barber (who was supporting on leg 1 earlier today) and possibly Malcolm Patterson (who will have just ran leg 2) to continue with Steve to Ennerdale Water car park. That will be day one complete with 87.7km with an incredible 6,022m of ascent in the bank.

Below are some photos from day one.

Ready to go

Well I all packed and ready to go. I am feeling surprisingly relaxed at the moment, I am going to do my best and see what happens. Whatever happens it will be a memorable journey with my friends amongst the fells.

I have just managed to squeeze another meal in. So all I need now is a good nights sleep and I will be ready to go at 9am tomorrow morning.

Hopefully there will be regular blog updates from Shane Ohly, Jane Saul, Charles Scott and my lovely wife Emma.

Final Preparations

I am really bad at waiting, I need to start this! 

I can feel the strength returning to my legs as I am now taking it very easy. But I have been for a couple of short runs and every click and slight pain I am now worried about. What will it be like after 300 miles? Training hard stops me worrying about everything, now I am not training hard but tapering I am getting stressed by small things!

Jane is doing a brilliant job of sorting out all the logistics. There is a huge amount of preparation needed for something like this with 40 people helping me on the fells another 10 or so at support points. Making sure everyone gets to the right place at the right time with everything they need is an amazing difficult job. Then there is sorting out my needs making sure I have the correct food and drink for each section and that there is a fast transition.

Amazingly the weather looks perfect for the week, dry with light winds but not too hot. Together with the support team lined up (thanks everyone), the hard training I have been doing I stand a good chance of doing this. I just hope my body holds together.

Putting it down in writing makes it clearer but my main goal is doing all the Wainwrights. It will be great to spend 7 days on the fells with my mates. The secondary goal is beating Joss Naylor’s time of 7 days 1 hour.  Everyone who knows me will realise I will be pushing it hard but there are so many unknowns over this distance I have no idea how long it will take me. 

I seem to have been doing a lot of media stuff recently. Lots of magazines, Border TV (something coming out soon) and filming with Al Lee for the Brit Rock film tour (http://www.berghaus.com/community/?p=12833). It is not something I particularly enjoy. In fact the amount of media interest sometimes scares me. But it all helps in raising money for my two MS charities (Samson Centre - http://www.justgiving.com/Steve-Birkinshaw and the MS Society - http://www.justgiving.com/Steve-Birkinshaw1). It also helps with the sponsorship side of things. Thanks Berghaus for your amazing support and also thanks to Torq, Open Tracking, Harvey Maps, King Kong climbing Walls, Great Langdale Bunkhouse and others I have probably forgotten. Huge thanks also must go to my wife Emma who does a great job of encouraging me and looking after me and the children and so ends up with very little time enjoying being out on the fells.

As I go round I will have a tracker with me, which should update every 3 minutes: http://steveb.opentracking.co.uk/

There will be updates to this blog and regular tweets from @SJBirkinshaw

Time for a rest

On the May Day bank holiday weekend I had a really hard weekend of training. On the Saturday I had an 8 hour run on the fells followed by a 2 and a half hour fell race on the Sunday and another 8 hour run on the fells on the Monday. The next weekend (last weekend) I did the 20 mile Duddon Valley fell race. It is a great race but I felt shattered from the start. There was just nothing in my legs. It was time for a rest for the final two weeks before I start on June 14^th. 

June 14th has been etched on my mind for a long time now. It now seems to be really close. I have really mixed feelings about the whole thing now. At times I feel really excited about doing it and cannot wait to start. I think of all the other races I have done, the training and I think I have a really good chance of breaking the record. Then suddenly my feelings change completely and I am daunted and scared by the length of the route and keeping going for 20 hours a day. I feel the pressure of having 40 or so people out to support me (thanks everyone for the help) having taken time of work and away from families. I worry that it will all go wrong and I will get an injury early on and have to pull out. Then I think that everyone has offered and is happy to help and they will understand completely if I do have to pull out.

As Emma (my wife) said in the previous blog Jane is doing a good job sorting me out. It is hard fitting it around work and seeing the family. But I should see a lot more of the family after 21^st June.

I am now sorting out clothing and food. Berghaus are providing me with some great kit. It is like Christmas at the house at the moment with big boxes arriving every day. Unlike normal I am going to look really smart during the 7 days.

I now have to decide what food I want to eat. Torq have provided me with some really good food to eat on the fells: bar, gels and energy drinks. At the 24 support points I am planning on eating normal food  - porridge for breakfast, pasta, potatoes, fruit etc. I need to provide a menu for Jane and my support team.

As well as sorting everything out the important thing for me to do is to try and rest, relax and look forward to this amazing adventure.

Update from Emma, AKA Steve's Wife

Hi there, Steve has asked me to do an update, not really sure why but here goes...
Only a couple of weeks to go, and I think Steve has realised how much organising this is going to take. He's quite happy with the running bit, it's the logistics that he leaves to the last minute. Jane came round yesterday and did her best to sort him out.
Jane: 'have you got someone to help on each leg?'
Steve: 'I think most of them'
Jane: 'do they know which leg they are doing'
Steve: 'Probably not'
Jane: 'do you think you should tell them?
Steve:  'OK I'll try'
I don't know what we would do without Jane. Steve now has a to do list which I think he is working through, he asked my advice on setting up a twitter account yesterday which is a good start although not very helpful as I am hardly an expert. I have to somehow work out what food he needs to take, where and when I can meet him (bearing in mind I will be looking after 3 children who won't appreciate being dragged out of bed at 3am), how I am going to wash 24 sets of smelly running gear, how I will manage all this around getting the children to school, going to work (I work 5 days a week for the Lake District National Park, I can take some days leave, but not the full week), helping out at our eldest child's residential, looking after various people who may or may not be staying with us at the time and trying to coordinate who has to be where when. Meanwhile the house is descending into complete chaos, Hannah says she would like to live in a new house 'without dirty bits in it' mmm, maybe it's time to stop writing and get on with some other stuff.....

Getting sorted

It is only four weeks to the start of my Wainwrights run and there is still a lot to sort out. It is going to be busy.

I was talking at the Keswick Mountain Festival on Saturday. The audience donated £60 to the MS charities I am collecting money for - thanks very much I really appreciate it. I have put £30 on both my Samson centre Just giving page (http://www.justgiving.com/Steve-Birkinshaw) and the MS Society Just giving page (http://www.justgiving.com/Steve-Birkinshaw1). I had the chance to have a chat with Joss Naylor after he gave his second talk of the weekend. It is great that he is so encouraging.

The Open Tracking website which will  have live updates whilst I am out is now live (http://steveb.opentracking.co.uk/). This will update every 3 minutes whilst i am out so anyone can follow my progress. It will be great for anyone wanting to know how i am getting on or for my supporters/pacers to catch up with me. There will also be a tracker in the support campervan which will be really useful.

 I have had loads of great offers of support from people willing to give up their time to help me (and even taking days off work to do it). I really appreciate this. If anyone else wants to help the best thing to do is email me on s.j.birkinshaw@ncl.ac.uk or if you just turn up and run with me that would be great.

History of Wainwright Runs

I have just seen my last post was over three weeks ago and I was going to try and blog every week. Oh well I will try and do better from now on!

Below is a brief history lesson on people who have attempted to run the Wainwrigths as quickly as possible. If anyone knows of any other attempts then it would be great if you could let me know.

Chris Bland - 1981
Chris attempted a Wainwright book a day for seven days. On each day he started and finished at a church – raising money for  a church roof in Borrowdale. Here is a list of how many Wainwrights he made each day compared with the number in the book.

Eastern fells 35/35 completed

Far eastern fells 27/36 completed

Central Fells 27/27 peaks completed

Southern Fells 17/30 completed

Northern Fells 24/24 completed

North Western Fells  29/29 completed

Western Fells 33/33 completed

He obviously failed to complete them all but it was a great attempt.

Alan Heaton - 1985

Alan started and finished in Keswick and did a round of all 214 in the order best suited to a continuous circuit. i.e he ignored which book they came from.

Total time 9 days 16 hours

Including visit to Keswick hospital for some antibiotics for inflamed foot.

Joss Naylor M.B.E - 1987

Joss started and finished in Keswick and like Alan he ignored which book they came from. But his route was slightly different to Alan's.

Total time 7 days 1 hours

Joss had a heatwave for the first 5 days and suffered badly from swollen feet, hands and mouth

I do not know of anyone how has attempted this since Joss did it 27 years ago. So it is about time someone had another go! I am following Alan and Joss' way of doing it by ignoring which book the Wainwrights came from. I am also changing the route, as Joss did, but following tradition by starting at finishing in Keswick.

I have had a busy few weeks.One highlight was helping two famous Americans (Scott Jurek and Rickey Gates) on their Bob Graham round. They showed great style by just turning up and doing it with a small group of supporters after a hard weeks training. They succeeded and we had a great evening on the fourth leg. The picture below shows dusk on Pillar with the moon rising over Great Gable.

Another highlight was helping out at the Berghaus Trail Running team event at Helvellyn Youth Hostel (https://www.facebook.com/trailrunningteam). We had a couple of really good runs and it was great being there and seeing the enthusiasm of everyone and how much they were enjoying running in the Lake District. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am to live here.

I have also set up pages to two MS charities I am raising money for.