Well I managed to finish in the end.
78:23:52 it took me. Far away from the 45 hours I wanted. To be honest I was just glad to finish. Bad feet got too much for me over the last day.
I will definitely be attempting it again in the future and making a few route changes and probably footwear changes. I don’t usually get blisters or bad feet so it has been a weird one. This was probably down to the wet ground and the heat. It was very hot over all three days and it also rained both nights.
I decided to start at Keld and do the route in reverse with a few slight route changes to make the climbs/decents easier. I started at Keld as this was closer to my house and I wanted to camp there the day before and after. I also felt that the terrain between Great Shunner Fell to the Howgills was going to be the worse if it was wet.
Not sure if that strategy would have made any difference, however I actually had a good start averaging around 17min/miles to my first checkpoint. I used an open tracking device from Kong but unfortunately the battery died after around 41 hours.
I had 5 checkpoints all together most around 24-30 miles apart expect for the last one which was just there as a boost for the push on the last 10 miles. I had 5ltr bottles of water, army ration packs, pork pies/sausage rolls and the usual electrolytes and energy bars to resupply my running pack.
It was such an adventure that I will never forget. I’ve taken loads away from it and this was my first step to attempting multi-day Ultras in the future.
Please message me on Strava if you are ever attempting this and want any help with drop bag caching locations or advice as I am local to the area.