Thursday 23 July 2020. The weather yesterday and today in Barnard Castle has been cool & windy with intermittent showers. Not really the sort of weather one would expect in mid-July and totally unsuitable for a fair-weather walker like myself. So, confined to my caravan, I’ve been following the GPS tracker of ultra-marathon runner, Damian Hall, who is currently trying to set a new FKT for the Pennine Way. I had thought that I would go to nearby Middleton-in-Teesdale this morning to cheer him on as his schedule had him due to arrive at 10:50am. However, when I woke this morning, I could see that he was running so fast that he shot through Middleton at 7:00am which was a little too early, even for me.
I’ve had an interest in the 268-mile Pennine Way trail since I took up hill walking but have no ambition to do it all as parts of it are just a bog. I’ve walked the section out of Edale and into Kirk Yetholm with the Cheviots being a particularly attractive part of the trail. A race called “The Spine” is run along the Pennine Way each summer and each winter with the latter being particularly brutal. The record for the Fastest Known Time (FKT) for the Pennine Way had stood for 31 years at 2 days, 17 hours and 20 minutes. That was until last week when John Kelly, an amazing American ultra-runner, knocked 40 minutes off this bringing it down to 2 days 16 hours and 40 minutes. That is a pace of just about 100 miles per day.
Damian Hall has set a schedule which would see him finish in 2 days, 16 hours and 4 minutes. He was 3 hours 50 minutes ahead of this schedule at Middelton and is likely to set a new FKT which will take some beating. I wish him luck.
Back to my walking plans. A weather window is forecast for tomorrow, Friday, before becoming wet and windy again for the weekend. I think that I should make the most of this opportunity to go and do a walk up Dufton Pike, which, whilst being only 1,600ft high, is a nice conical shape and seems quite inviting. But, as they say, tomorrow is another day.