UKC

So it appears this is happening right now.

http://www.randomforestrunner.com/2019/05/seeking-grand-challenges/

One for the dot watchers... 

I don't think I've seen anything so hardcore! Nicky Spinks' double rounds seemed next level stuff  (to me a s anon-runner) but this seems exponentially more difficult, he seems to have only allowed about 9 hours rest. Have the three rounds been linked with car support before?

A friend of mine is supporting him on this. He was fulsome in his praise of JK's abilities but still doubtful of his ability to pull it off. Either way it will be interesting to watch!

Mike Hartley did that in 1990.

https://www.gofar.org.uk/UKBig3Records.html

Weather forecast is (or was anyway) looking, erm, slightly dubious.. Talking to said friend on Sunday as we came through Fort William in the torrential rain, he was fairly matter of fact about the prospects. But still totally supportive... exactly what you want in John Kelly's position.  

I think the schedule is for 100 hours....Which includes an 18 hour BGR... straight after the Paddy Buckley and then biking from Wales to Keswick. If he only gets half way through the whole thing it'll be an incredible effort!

Yes, that's a better way of putting it than 'doubtful'!

I'm not sure. It's awesome he's going for it and it's a novel challenge and it is super impressive though to even go for it.

He's not 'that' good of a runner so I'm not sure he could do 18 hours BGR after already doing so much. He's ran 6:30 for JFK, I ran under 6 hrs. He lowered one of my records on an FKT but not by a huge amount. I doubt I could have ran much better than a 15-16 hrs for BGR at my peak, never mind an 18 hour after all that, the lack of sleep alone would be an issue not even considering the immense amount of running and biking to that point.

I know he's done the BM's but this is a very different challenge in terms of physical undertaking.

That shows how hard it is, when you see the physical deterioration, and that's with driving.

Charlie Ramsay Round 21 hours 14 minutes

Bob Graham Round 23 hours 48 minutes

Paddy Buckley Round 33 hours 30 minutes

He's also a very good cyclist with a sub 9hr Iron Man PB.

Like I said, it'll be interesting to watch!

Hats off to him for having a go but the schedules seem pretty incredible to me, given the lack of sleep and the sheer amount of effort. he's not allowing much at all for the inevitable deterioration.  Hope he completes it whatever the times. It would still be an amazing achievement.

Looks like his Paddy is a bit behind schedule. Hard to tell exactly with the 30 min refresh rate on the tracker.

It looked like he set off 22 mins late.

isnt he a good 2.5 hrs behind already?

should have been on the last summit at 11:57 Plus 22, so 12:20 he’s there (well descending a bit) at 3:07am.

cold wet and cloudy by the looks of it, he’d have lost time over the rocks.

hes descending this last hill slowly too, and it’s mainly grass trods. He’s doing some hard sections at night. This is an easy descent in daylight, it could be tricky in the dark.

The forecast looks awful, biking in the rain will be miserable and not safe if he’s sleep deprived tbh..

23:20 ish I think for the paddy.

hes now pushing his biking through all the daylight hours so his BGR starts at night. 18 hrs would be almost all in day light typically. Rain and darkness makes 18 very ambitious.

It didn't look as much as that when I went to bed but the last leg looks to have taken a lot longer than planned. No movement on the tracker since he finished but if he sticks to the timings he'll have 3ish hours rest so maybe on the road by 7.30?

Edit: just looked at the weather, decent tail wind for the ride but pretty poor for a BG. 

It's already looking like the schedule was as optimistic as many of us thought. The question now is whether the round itself is possible at this point, especially with the weather forecast. Fingers crossed!

Movement now. He's about 5hrs down on schedule but TBH the schedule doesn't matter, any sort of completion would be amazing.

Damian Hall was supporting for second half of the PBR and his run is now on Strava. Sounds like pretty horrible conditions

https://www.strava.com/activities/2408188913

By wanting to do the biking in light he’s given himself an uphill task...

Scafell in dry light conditions is fine. Dark and wet is another thing. 

At least with the lakes they’ll have plenty of pacers.

hes now pushing timings along though so what he planned as day may not be anymore.

to even start this was super impressive, to start it with that forecast is even crazier. 100 plus miles on a bike in the rain after 24 hrs of running in the rain...

Closer to 200 between Capel Curig and Keswick.

I did BGR support on Leg 3 last year and even in light claggy damp conditions the section over Scafell Pike was horrible, the rock is so slippery.

He certainly has not been lucky with the weather.

Is it? More than I thought.

In the rain I think his stabilizing muscles will be getting destroyed. Even when you think you are OK you are constantly fighting slipping and your balance.

I can't imagine much worse than 100's of miles on a bike in cold rain after 23.5 hrs of running in the rain.

His route on the bike to Keswick is about 180 miles I think

One thing to note above, Mike was a beast, mountain and road. He ran a 6:35 ish 100km road race. That's sub 7 minute miling. And then loads of long mountain experience, long long ultra's and multi day stuff (pennine way etc). The year I ran 5:56 or so at JFK I ran 7:19 in a quick 100k. I was certainly fitter by JFK but won't have been in sub 7 hr shape. 

If even he deteriorated so much by his third round John's going to go through hell by then. 

Found it on Strava, 172 miles.

In reply to:

Why do I get the feeling that even if he fails this time, he'll be back until he gets it.

It's quite clever how he has set up a crazy but inspiring target, and then thrown the gauntlet down.

Respect.

Was fortunate to have a chat with Mike Hartley about his triple round last year (he was helping support my friend's BGR). He was most proud of his BGR, getting in under 24 after having already done the Ramsay Round, and said he really suffered on the PBR which was the last of the three.

MWIS forecast not looking great as he heads into Cumbria, visibility in particular.

http://www.mwis.org.uk/english-welsh-forecast/LD/

Poor sod. 

Yep. I was out walking today in Elterwater area with my kids. "Light rain" my arse. We were soaked through within an hour of a 3 hour jaunt. The thought of doing what he's doing in this weather fills me with both horror and admiration!

That’d be an interesting chat!

I was once sat talking with Don Richie on one side and Joss Naylor on the other.. they actually once had a race together they were telling me, organized by Chris brasher.

if he doesn’t complete the BGR in 24 is that it? He can carry on and it’s still super impressive but presumably he’s technically not done a BGR has he?

hes lost another 2 hrs on the bike with still about 2 hrs further to go so I was just told.. now bad weather.

Argh, he's just cycled within a 100m of me and I wasn't really looking at the tracker at the time...I could have run out and cheered him on! Damnit!

Looks like he's nearing Threlkeld on the BGR. I can't comprehend how mentally, never mind physically, tough this must be.

I don't think we can apply strict criteria to this '(well we could I suppose).

They way he's worded the challenge it seems like he's set himself an overall route and set a (very ambitious) 100hr target for the whole thing.

It'll be tremendous if he even completes the whole thing.

It's pretty arbitrary that 2 of the rounds have 24hr limits and one doesn't. So you could say that Mike Hartley completed all 3 rounds back to back despite taking 33.5 hrs over the Paddy and that Nicky Spinks didn't do a double Ramsay but did do a double Paddy! Also by those criteria if MH had gone the other way it wouldn't have counted!

I think this challenge is 100% about finishing and nothing to do with times.

If he does finish I think I'm going to go down to Glen Nevis to cheer him in.

totally agree. Its very miserable outside in the lakes today. persistent drizzle and cloud down to the house. It takes incredible mental fortitude to keep going that long with so little sleep. He won't see anything at all on the BG the whole way.

Agreed. There’s clag in our garden in Kendal this morning.

The vague saving grace, if there is one, is it’s not cold at lower altitudes.  

4 hrs for L1 of the BG according to the tracker. Am I right in thinking that's virtually bang on a 24hr schedule?

(I was in N Wales on Wednesday and the weather around the time he was on Snowdon - the Glyders was absolutely grim).

Yes, he's still roughly on 24hr schedule. If you want a detailed schedule to check against you can use this: http://bobwightman.co.uk/run/bgr_schedule_calculator.php

absolutely grim in the lakes now too - heavy rain and very poor visibility. Type C fun.

I suspect he may have to do the whole thing again just to see what he was missing in the clag

This is a good schedule too: http://www.macclesfield-harriers.co.uk/fell/bg/martinSchedule.html

He's at Dunmail Raise now and by my reckoning he made back some time on Leg 2, maybe 4:10 for that leg which is fairly good going and less weather dependent than the rockier legs.

I think that was why mike did it that way. I saw Geoff B on the fra forum hiked the paddy, camped half way and still got a completion as it was a continuous hike.

super Impressive to keep going. I’m amazed he even set off, there didn’t seem any window of even ok weather for the week.

I was thinking this too, Dave. Give me a shout if you head down (Sunday?).

He's definitely a little up on the 24hr schedule now.

If he can get up on schedule until after Scafell he should be OK, it's not that bad after that.. ignoring the 200 miles of biking and PBR obvs..

Just 250+ miles on the bike to come..

Looks to be brightening up a bit...

he's definitely found a second wind. seems to be going well now.  what powers of endurance.

He's basically done it now.. just a 250 mile bike, 60 mile run and 30k ft of ascent..

Mentally he must feel better having almost done 2 of the 3 rounds. I hope he at least gets a few hours of decent weather to give him a boost.

I'm kind of surprised he hasn't gone N to S though so he could get more car support on that last round. Up in the Ramsay round how many car points are there? Any?

Maybe he doesn't want any.. Its harder to quit this way once he gets going.

One point where it's close to the road and that's it. Easier nav on the RR though.

It surprises me how many folk seem to fail on the 4th leg of the BG. Its a tough leg, but you can smell Honister by that point. I'm not for one minute suggesting he's about to fail the round now, just that there's still a fair bit of climbing left before Keswick.

Its astounding to have got this far and I'm in total awe.  Whatever happens now, this has been a success and the gauntlet has been well and truly thrown down. Fingers crossed he can get some rest at some point..

I hope he's not having to think about the nav on any of it though. Leave that to the support runners..

One word: Yewbarrow...

I’m amazed he’s still going, it’s really windy here in Carlisle at the moment, wouldn’t want to be running on the hills or out on a bike!

Well, yes, you're right. But if you can up that then you can get round that leg. So you just get up it somehow.

Yep, blowing a hoolie on the West Cumbria coast. 

I can't even imagine getting on a bike again in that weather. He must need sleep.

I thought he was starting to fall away from 24hr pace but he's still pretty much on it. Incredible.

Just been running in the Howgills. It's grim.

Whatever happens this is incredibly impressive!

Just seen this...

https://twitter.com/jessilailkelly/status/1134527344851456000?s=21

Absolute animal. 

On Great Gable at 10pm. Looks like he’s gonna finish the BG leg within 24hrs. Chapeau!

That is seriously impressive! In good weather it’s impressive enough, in that weather it’s indescribable.

23.44 according to Twitter. Legendary.

Looks like he's just finishing the BGR now.

Do you have a link for the twitter feed? Ta.

Edit. Found it #grandround

Tracker suggests a nap in Keswick? A friend is mid Bob currently and I was worried he’d had too much weather. JK’s thing kinda puts this in perspective!

That’s seriously incredible.

After a sleep, then starting to ride, he's called it a day. From twitter :
John Kelly just finished what he’s calling #TheGrandRound “Fun Run”! On bike to Charlie Ramsay, it wasn’t safe to continue on the mtn roads due to lack of sleep. He says “Thank you so much for the support. It has been absolutely unbelievable.”

Huge respect for the 2 sub-24 rounds and 170 mile cycle in atrocious weather

Just amazing. Really amazing. I'm totally blown away by his determination, mental strength and stamina. I hope he has another crack it at some point, but after a long and very well deserved rest. Big, big respect. 

Amazing effort. Mind boggling really. 

Just got back from Skye and saw her stopped. Amazing effort!

Awesome effort, he can’t control not being tired. Doing that BGR sub 24 was incredible.

To go again he’s got to build in sleep.  Running on minimal sleep is one thing but biking at 20mph is another.

sensible decision to stop. Seeing that twitter clip, really showed how tough conditions were so to get the two sub 24 hr rounds done was seriously impressive.

Obvious (!) first step is to make it 120 hours, PB, day cycle plus sleep, BG, day cycle plus sleep, RR.

Then cut it down to 100. Easy peasy

It was I who was supporting him on BG Leg 3 in that wind, it was flipping brutal.  Very impressive effort from John to keep to a 23h schedule in those conditions.  He was tired but obviously a very strong athlete.  He seems to want to try again, if he will aim for 100h or not next time we will have to see!