Thankfully, the weather forecast is accurate and I wake up to clear blue skies. The day of the Allendale Challenge will be unseasonably warm for the second year in a row. But better too hot than too cold or worse still, too wet and too windy. With the elements seeming more friend than foe and a hearty breakfast lying on our stomachs we set off on the forty minute journey to Allendale.
The Allendale Challenge is a 26 mile hike or fell run (for the truly crackers) beginning and ending in the picturesque village of Allendale in Northumberland. Up to 850 people can participate in this iconic trek that’s superbly organised by the North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team to help raise money for the vital community service they provide.
If I said the route takes you on an anti clockwise loop from Allendale taking in Hard Rigg, Black Hill and Kilhope Law before returning to the town via Spartylea, The Drag and Ladlewell then you’re probably none the wiser as far as the route is concerned so I’d describe it as a traipse over wet moorland and peat bogs with a few steep uphill pulls and the occasional respite following the river. A never ending grind where with one misstep you can find yourself waist deep in the mud. You’ll be filthy, shattered and hankering after Haribo or anything else with significant sugar content. You’ll be feeling the aches and pains BEFORE the end. You may be hobbling on feet that are aching or blistered or both.
This is my third year in a row. Others have done it approaching thirty times.
So why do people keep coming back I hear you ask?
Well some folks are trying to beat a time, others are just trying to get round. For some it’s tradition and for others it might just be the craic in the pub afterwards or the certificate to put on their wall.
But I think it’s largely the enjoyment they derive from being part of something steeped in the countryside, a challenge in every sense of the word. We are temporarily removed from the modern world for the duration of the challenge. Mobile phones struggle for reception and are used primarily as cameras. People engage in the art of conversation and rest collectively like nomadic tribes.
When you’re in the challenge all you really think about is completing it. Your life is put on hold as you plough on through the dales. Then at the end, when you’re enjoying a few drinks with like minded souls who all feel that same sense of exhausted satisfaction, you realise there’s something seductive about the experience, exhilarating. Maybe I’ll do it again next year…
It’s 8am and we’re at the start line. We’ve been registered at the village hall and we’re good to go. We follow the crowds up, out of the village and onto the tops. The heart rate is elevated after the initial climb, bacon sandwiches stir in stomachs. We drink in the panoramic views of the rugged northern dales.
During the walk, I sip at my Platypus bladder (not a real Platypus bladder) a two litre water carrier which on a hot day like today, is an essential. Given the heat, the terrain and the distance I’d expect to burn near enough 3000 calories, maybe more, so keeping hydrated and fuelled is important. I have bananas, salty ham sandwiches and a few bounty bars which I know from experience will be enough. There are a number of checkpoints where food and drink is laid on and gratefully received by ravenous ramblers.
After an uphill start and a stretch along a road we drop down for our first experience of squelchy terrain. Here you find out if your footwear is up to scratch. If it’s not you’ll find yourself with wet feet. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me like it does other people but it’s not pleasant especially when peeling off one’s steaming socks twenty miles later.
Respite, if you can call it that, is found on a pull up a steep bank that seems to go on forever. Still, I prefer to go up than down so it’s something I enjoy. From there, we’re back onto wet moor and peat bogs for which the challenge has become known. By this time the fell runners have caught us up (they start an hour after us) and are chugging on through the mud. Some are cheerful, some intense but all worthy of respect.
The legs start to get a little heavier as the terrain gets boggier. Walkers employ various strategies to avoid the worst of the quagmire. Some hug the wall or fence line whilst others search for the remnants of a path. I plump for the amphibious approach, hopping like a frog from grassy clump to grassy clump.
Friends have gone in up to their waist much to everyone’s amusement of course. From the marshy land you transition to the peat bogs where you are soon caked in mud. For some people this is where it stops being fun. But as one of our number quite rightly pointed out, this is what we signed up for.
At one trig point, we chat two to elderly Scottish guys. The older is 77 and his brother in law is 74. The younger of the two tells me he’ll be burying his in law if he doesn’t hurry up but then as an aside tells me the auld bugger’s had both hips done late last year.
“It’s all between the ears lads,” he tells me before they head off. He isn’t wrong.
He confirmed they’d be having a wee dram when they got back. And they did, ahead of people some thirty to forty years their junior.
At the halfway point it is the heat that accounts for some of the participants. I see one fella go down as if he’d been picked off by a sniper hiding in the reeds. Mountain Rescue are, as you’d expect, prepared for most things (we’d see a man airlifted to hospital via helicopter after suffering a suspected heart attack near the end of the challenge) but this was merely a cramp. He was attended to and the cramp was stretched off. He bemoaned dehydration and genetic muscular tightness as he sat down nearby. He would continue (and finish.)
However, the vast majority were munching away at packed lunches and in good spirits before picking up the trail again and ploughing on through the final stretch of the bogs.
After a time groups tend to get stretched and stronger walkers and those with experience of the course tend to pull away from the less experienced and less fit participants. It’s surprisingly difficult to slow your walking pace down especially when you get into a rhythm so groups often get splintered. It’s important you walk with someone who can walk at your pace.
Yet many people surprise themselves, as our sage Scots reminded us it’s a mental challenge as much as it’s a physical one.
Eventually you leave the bogs behind for another year and drop down to follow the river, enjoying a welcome change of scenery before climbing up onto another track which leads you back across the moors towards Allendale.
This is a stretch where the feet, or at least my feet, accustomed to the softer ground, feel sore and begin to throb angrily. On walks of this distance, it’s the feet that cause walkers the most problems. A very brief shower is a welcome relief as we polish off the last of the food hoping the extra calories will propel us to the finish.
Finally, we drop down into Allendale where we began our journey some nine hours earlier. We have our times recorded at the hall and pick up our t shirts, certificates, pin badges as well as the food token which I hang on to for dear life. People are arriving into the village as we head to the pub. Many adopt a familiar hunched gait. Several of our group are walking like that.
It always amazes me how some people finish looking much like they did at the start whilst others look exceptionally weary in body and spirit. We make our way oohing and ahhing along the road to the Golden Lion. Early finishers are enjoying the last of the afternoon with a few drinks, full of congratulations and hearty well dones to new arrivals.
Inside there is a buzz about the place. Pie and peas are served, gratefully received by hungry challengers. Visitors mix with locals and a band plays as more challengers return to discuss the trials and tribulations of the day. More drinks. The aches and pains are numbed and laughed about.
This is the furthest some people have ever walked in one day. The band breaks for a while, the pub is full. Outside the sky is darkening and the last of the challengers have returned. Some have been out nearly 12 hours. They’re blistered, exhausted and filthy but mentally unbroken. Glasses of champagne are clinked.
Slowly people flitter away. They get back early enough to tell the story of the day to family at home or friends in the pub. They have done the miles and have left rewarded. They have created memories of an adventure shared. Many will come back again to create more whereas for some once in enough. They sleep well and dream of peat bogs.
The Allendale Challenge 2018
If this blog has whetted your appetite then you can apply for this year’s Allendale Challenge by following the link below. You will need to create an account with SI Entries (very quick and easy to do.) The closing date is Sunday March 25th.
https://www.sientries.co.uk/event.php?elid=Y&event_id=3996
