Keswick Mountain Festival

A busy active long weekend for Colin at the Keswick Mountain Festival. On Friday it was the Three Peaks Challenge with a non-competitive hike or run over three hills surrounding Keswick; Catbells, Walla Craggs and Latrigg. It was a bit of an overcast and humid day but pretty good conditions for exertion. As I was feeling pretty good I decided to do the route at pace running the flats and downhills and walking fast up the hills. Some lovely views and nice to move through the crowds doing the route most of whom had started earlier in the morning. Made it round in about 4 hrs 30 mins - 18.7 miles & 1075 m climb.

On Friday night after doing the fortnightly Zoom call from a pub in the town centre I watched Bad Manners doing their hits on the festival stage. 

On Saturday I did the Back of Skiddaw Cyclosportive. The weather was similarly overcast and in parts quite windy. Having not been on the bike much this year this felt like a lot of hard work and not a great deal of fun. Pace was slow and laboured. I didn't find the route particularly interesting.

On Sunday morning I was running in a 10 K trail race. There was a boat at 10.30 to Hawes End to take us to the start. A lovely route out along the side of Derwent Water than back along the side of Catbells and then round back into Keswick. I was feeling surprisingly good after the previous two long days and was able to push along quite nicely getting a very respectable time for the hilly 10.7 km route and finishing 53rd out of 246 runners.

Definitely worth a trip back to the festival in future years. It was very well run and a nice atmosphere. I'm tempted by the 50K trail race!