Mountain marathons are all very well but there's more to multi-day fell running than banging along with eleven pounds on your back, looking for a boulder on an otherwise featureless hillside while contouring over tussocky grass or boulders and never stopping to take in the view.
That's where the non-competitive Great Lakeland 3 Day Event comes in, "a fell adventure for competent hill folk" be they runners, walkers or anything in between. No heavy pack. No trying to figure out which of the many streams or boulders on a hillside are marked and which are not. No ankle-breaking contouring legs which you feel obliged to take because they'll be 5 nanoseconds faster than the easy option over the top. No feeling that you can't afford to stop for a photo. And three days of it, to boot. It's a cross between an MM and a weekend's hill walking.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy mountain marathons (most of the time!). 2000's Saunders was one of the best weekends I've ever spent in the hills, particularly the second day with a short course in low cloud demanding spot-on navigation for three fast and furious hours of serious fell-banging. But every so often I like to ease back for some low-pressure time in the hills and the GL3Day really hits the mark. Cerebral fell running at its best.
The extra day gives a lot more scope for route. Consider this year's event: Haweswater-Harter Fell-Angletarn Pikes-Gavel Pike-Steel Fell-Tarn Crag-Loft Crag-Langdale followed by Langdale-Cold Pike-Seathwaite Fell-Fleetwith Pike-Maiden Moor-High Tove-Raven Crag-Legburthwaite and finally Legburthwaite-Catstycam-Birkhouse Moor-Place Fell-Pikeawassa-Howtown (a truncated route due to Foot and Mouth closures around Haweswater). An excellent combination of classic ground with a liberal sprinkling of less-frequented areas.
And then there's the company. It's a small event (50 limit) which makes it particularly sociable. Last year I ran with six different people at various times over the three days, none of whom I'd met before and two of whom have become good friends (despite one of them subjecting me to a miserably wet KIMM!) and this year I spent part of the first day in groups of up to seven. You can arrive on your own and end up running with any number of other people. Without the pressure of competition you chat and discover that, however mad you may be, there's always a bigger loony!
The real beauty of the event, though, is being able to chose your own pace and route without the feeling that you should push hard along the optimum line. Some runners keep moving relatively fast while others (like me) take it more casually and a few people walk it all. (Times for this year's 70-odd miles & 20,000' ranged from 17 to 27 hours.) From speed merchants to amblers, anyone who can look after themselves for a day out in the hills is welcome so why not give it a go? You can contact the organiser via www.bamptonpo.co.uk.
I took some photos of this year's event and wrote about 1998's and 2000's events.