Thanks for all the comments, photographs and emails.
Results and a short report together with a few photographs are now on our website at

http://www.ldwa.org.uk/Cumbria/W/1974/2012-report-and-results.html.

A firm date for next year has not yet been set but the provisional date is looking like June 15th 2013.
Entries will again be available online through SiEntries.

Who knows we may get some proper weather next year!

Just wanted to add my thanks to Tony and team for another great event. This was my second time after completing it in 2006 when the weather was fantastic, a bit different this year but really it just added to the fun of the challenge. Everyone I met - walkers, runners, and helpers - were all very cheerful, a challenge just brings out the best in us Brits, I reckon. Having not planned ahead and brought sufficient dry kit I decided to call it a day after the first ring, but it sounds like conditions on Rings 2 & 3 by comparison weren't so bad. Still, sitting in the pub on Saturday evening and talking to Tony I had no regrets.So I'm very glad that I tackled at least one ring this year, and I'll definitely be back again - it's surely got to be better weather next year!

continued (I obviously don't know how to use these posts, thought I was saving a draft!)....
the first ring copped the worst of the weather with driving rain on the open fell, then it settled down to a day of on and off showers where I naively tried to get my waterproof off, for 5 minutes at the most each time before giving it up as a bad job. The water table was high, the diversions were in place to avoid high rivers and swept away bridges, but the course was great with tremendous variety within and between the 3 Rings. And the conditions added to the distance and the climbing to make it a proper challenge, to dog it out through the rain. Directions were detailed enough to make navigation straight forward enough while still being challenging and needing use of the trusty compass. Our support throughout was excellent from the marshalls and also back at base at Shap, with a special mention again for the boys at Great Asby - when I appeared at the tent, one was just about to tuck into a beer and looked very sheepish like someone caught red-handed, but anyone who stays up in the middle of nowhere through the evening and night in the rain deserves a bit of something to keep going! That must be the longest 1500m on the road out of Crosby Ravensworth at the end - felt like much longer to me!
Despite everything a British summer could throw at us this was again a great weekend, terrific course, well fed and looked after, and will be back - hopefully with more in tow next time.

Big thanks to Tony and his team for an excellent event last weekend - a proper challenge. Even getting up the M6 on Friday night in the torrential downpours was a challenge in itself! But from a welcome tea offered and provided as soon as I stepped through the door, we were well looked after all weekend. For the event itself, the photo of the submerged signpost sums it up! The first ring took place in the worst of the conditions

Thanks to all that organised the walk. It was impressive considering the conditions.

Set backs started before the walk began when some colleagues (and the family of one) from the European Space Agency in Holland abandoned travelling over due to 5 hour flight delay that would have resulted arriving in Shap not many hours before the start.

So of the 4 friends that set off, 3 blokes and 1 lady, each of the blokes slowly dropped out one by one with various ailments at the end of ring 1 and 2 with myself reluctantly succumbing to a progressively worsening injury half way through ring three. Juliet completed in good time, despite the delays caused by myself, putting all 3 blokes to shame.
At the Crown and Mitre pub in Bampton Grange at Sunday lunch time there was no end to proof of victory to women! This is still going on after several days.

On my part, many thanks to the driver that took me back to Shap at 5 am ish and the entertaining two guy's at the checkpoint tent on the approach to Great Asby that put an end to my own disappointment with over an hours worth of comedy, statistics, ailment descriptions (symptoms, causes and treatment), general trivia and joking digs at each other! I left with the impression they'd been jokingly winding each other up for 13 hours.

It was a great day out despite the rain, mud and alleyways turn water ways turn mud baths; we expected to be tar and feathered at one point.

My thanks to Tony and his intrepid team from CUMBRIA LDWA .
Whose sterling efforts in manning the checkpoints providing food and cheerful Banter in an effort to spur us all on.
The Herculean efforts at taming the undergrowth in places did not go un-noticed, especially the path from white stuff to garden centre whoever cleared this must have needed a GPS to find there way through, where in our case a snorkel and fins my have been more appropriate ;-) well done everyone of you for staging the THREE RINGS of SHAP, such a great event.

Also thanks to all the entrants that I meet during the day such a cheerful bunch of folk to have around and share time, with well done all of you.

As to the weather who gives a Damn, it gave us sites and sounds that added to the overall experience,
PURE MAGIC

See you next year.

JohnK

LDWA and

Thanks for the correction Tony. 60% did seem rather improbable.

May be the excellent success rate was due to the overnight rain training on the 100 and no doubt other events. The otherwise eerie chemical lights marking the way on the difficult to navigate bit on the third ring were an immense help.

Once again, many thanks to the organisers - and this time also to my "guardian angel" fellow walkers who sorted me out when I did my ankle in! Still hobbling now, perhaps entering another challenge only three weeks after the 100 wasn't such a good idea...

The actual figures were 170 entries with 109 of those opting for all 3 Rings. The final starting figures were 124 of which 78 wanted to do the full course.
36 were successful i.e. 46% - a figure in line with previous years although the total number of finishers is much higher than we have had before. Amazing really considering the conditions. Even more remarkable was the new ladies record of 14 hours 36 minutes set by Clare McKeown.
Nearly all the remainder completed at least one Ring with many doing two – also some achievement.

It will come as no surprise to anyone at Shap last weekend to learn that Wet Sleddale enjoyed 1.5 inches of rain last Friday. I’m told that the waterfalls in Swindale were spectacular!

Many rivers (and stepping stones) were impassable and several diversions were necessary to avoid a large reduction in LDWA membership! Quite apart from the general sogginess of the whole route a lot of the smaller streams and watercourses had also ‘grown-up’ considerably making life generally interesting.

Organisation wasn’t made easier by the unavailability of the sodden sports field for parking never mind the continual influx of wet bodies into the Hall.

I was impressed with the cheerful co-operation and helpfulness of all who took part and their determination to have a good time come what may. I guess they all succeeded as well!

You worried about mental strength for the third ring. I wondered if the normal 10% no show rate had been increased by the poor weather forecast. I asked the organisers how many of the 103 pre booked entries for the three rings turned up. The answer was amazingly 41 which is just over a 60% no show. It would seem even if you turned up you did really well. If like me you did manage to drag yourself away to complete all three there is nothing at all wrong with your motivation or mental strength. If you are a Yorkshire man then may be your motivation was aided by one or other forms of the motto 'Hear all see all sat nowt, eat all drink all pay nowt, and if thy ever does owt for nowt, allas do it for thy sen.' Or in other words I've paid for three, I'm going to get my monies worth!
The weather forecast was bad but apart from the heavy rain at times on the first ring the rest by and large was only very light. We even managed some sunshine on the second ring. The heavy rain forecast late Saturday and Sunday morning was also very light.
Thanks to Cumbria for putting on an excellent good value for money event in my view. Where else these days can you get 23 hours of superb entertainment including food for just £13. As to the weather, well after all, it is the lake district.

Well I reckon T.R.S. is going to be interesting tomorrow should be some interesting bits of water to cross.

I am down for 3 rings and I reckon that it will require a shed load of mental strength to turn out of that comfy hall late Saturday evening for the third ring.

Really looking forward to it.

Have a good day all
JohnK