Everesting – Roseberry Topping 2023

So after being inspired by previous multiple repetitions of Roseberry Topping in the quest to match or surpass the height of Mt Everest I thought I’d give it a go in the name of Charity (Prostate Cancer UK). I’ve always talked about doing something for charity, but just never got around to actually doing it. After my mother passed away this year I thought I really ought to do something for charity and not necessarily just because, more so because why not.

Looking at previous completions which had multiple repetitions of Roseberry Topping they came in all shapes and sizes from 28 reps, 29 reps, shared reps between a group of hikers and 2 guys who dressed in star wars outfits to support one of their friends. Feeling very inspired I started to pull together a plan in the hopes to replicate what others had already done, but maybe do it a little faster. This is were the first surprise came to light.

Roseberry Topping is some 1,049ft high with the nickname “The Yorkshire Matterhorn”. If you were looking to match the height of Mt Everest which is 29,032ft high, then surely you just divide 29,032ft by Roseberry Topping’s height of 1,049 and that gets you 27.7. This then made sense that most people have completed at least 28 repetitions. The problem is as I found out was that unless you start from the coast at sea level, its not as easy as dividing one by the other.

The car park at the bottom of Roseberry Topping is sat at about 350ft above sea level and therefore the elevation gain from car park to the top is about 700ft. This is were I started to have second thoughts on the challenge as this would mean I’d need to complete at least 41.5 repetitions. With this in mind I took some time to lay all the stats down and see if it sounded remotely achievable.

Each repetition from the track just outside the car park is about 1.4 miles from bottom to top to bottom and 700ft of elevation, so rounding the new repetitions up to 42 would mean roughly 59 miles and 29,400ft of total elevation gain. The stats are not too far away from a Bob Graham Round and as there would be no time limit involved with this one I felt it was achievable. This was of course if I could get the right quality and quantity of training in (mainly uphill walking/hiking).

Commeth Everesting.cc Website

All this searching for all things Everest lead me to a popular cycling phenomenon known as Everesting, which also has included a section to recognise running achievements. The concept of Everesting is fiendishly simple (or so the website says): Pick any hill, anywhere in the world and complete repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8,848m/29,032ft – the equivalent height of Mt Everest.

So that was that, Perfect challenge to raise much needed funds for Prostate Cancer!

Preparations

So my preparations for a training plan were fairly simple as the ascent and distance were similar to a Bob Graham Round, so try and get time on feet and roughly 10k climb in a week. Easy peasy when you have every other weekend to drive to the lakes district and train, time to relax and recover and a fairly stress free job, but I I have two young children now, a demanding job and need to ensure we are building good memories as a family. So that in mind meant early morning runs and gym sessions before everyone wakes up and the occasional 3am start at Roseberry Topping to practice some night running/hiking on the hill.

I’m still fairly fit coming off the back of the 100 miler in May and the Tough Mudder Infinity in July, so just needed to focus on getting as much vert/climb in my legs with a solid block of training. started off ok, but quickly went down hill with a foot issue (maybe plantar) then a calf twinge a couple of weeks before. So training wasn’t ideal leading up to this, but mental strength was pretty strong so let’s have at it!

I’d ran a few test runs and timed myself up and down going at a pace I’d plan to start at on the day and then pulled back a little on the next one to get a rough idea of the average pace for at least the early part of this challenge. My tests were around 26-28 minutes per repetition, which would be well within 24 hours to complete the 45 repetitions and allow for me to slow down. With this in mind I add 3 minutes for contingency or holdups on the route and built up a schedule based on an average pace of 31 minutes per rep as per below:

Leg	Reps	Avg time	Total time	Hot Meal Break
1	10	00:31	05:10	00:05
2	10	00:31	05:10	00:05
3	8	00:31	04:08	00:05
4	8	00:31	04:08	00:05
5	8	00:31	04:08	00:05
6	7	00:31	03:37
	Cumulative time including breaks			26hrs 41mins

Some eagle eyed folks will notice that the plan above actually accumulates to 51 repetitions. Daft idea really but I wanted my wife and kids at the end to see me finish and if I was going to plan with my 45 rep plan and times I’d potentially finish at 06:00-06:30 in the morning and they’d potentially miss it. So by adding 7 more put my total climb to greater than 10k metres and if I was going well this would have me finishing around 10am in the morning.

With regards to food prep I’ve got a few favourites at the moment, such as cheese sandwiches, choc crepes and Tailwind as much as I can stomach it. To add some variety I basically went to the supermarket and spent £50 on various sweets and savouries that you would normally find at various checkpoints at most ultras. One key ingredient that can’t be missed in crystallised ginger, which I can’t recommend enough for those moments you need to kick start you stomach after getting a bit off your food.

The Attempt

I didn’t take any time off work on the lead up to this challenge as I didn’t want to be sat around all day thinking about it. other races I tend to take at least a day off for checking weather, checking my kit and making any last minute adjustments for the weather and also spend some time looking at the route again. I resided to that fact that a know the route, even if it was clagged out, sea threat or downpours all day/night. I’m 30-45 mins away from my next food stop or change of clothes and I’ll have my support crew around me.

So as usual the night before I had a poor nights sleep, got to bed fairly early, but woke up at 11:30pm, 2am and 5am. Prepped a cuppa tea to take with me, loaded all the various bags of gear into the car and drove the 35 mins to Roseberry Topping. I got to the car Park just after 6am and changed into what I planned to start in and had a catch up with Charmian and Steve. showed Charmian were all the food and clothes were in my car and put the sign out, next it was almost time to go.

As we approached the start point with start time fast approaching a quick photo and 3, 2, 1 go! I was off with Steve by my side for the first few reps, which we used to catch up on his recent trip to Greenland (lucky sod). So apparently Greenland is a fantastic place, the glacier they hiked to was amazing but some of the areas were much of a muchness…. Hated to disappoint Steve, but the at least the next 24 hours were going to be much of a muchness going up and down the same hill. This became the common joke for the next two days and often kept me chuckling when David and Bevan asked about Greenland.

Before long we were joined by our good friend David Pickering who bolstered the ranks and kept spirits high. The time passed very quickly in these early repetitions and between 1-10 I’d been visited by two colleagues from work Andrew Quinn and Nicola Hopper who continued the theme of positivity and keeping spirits high. Quick spaghetti hoops on toast, change of shirt and off we go for another 10 reps and as far as I can remember I was still running a few of these reps and keeping good time.

The hill had slowly started to get more visits from hill goers and kept the reps interesting and diverse from someone who always came up to see the sunset on his birthday (no chance of that this time) to another training for Duke of Edinburgh Award. Two particular individuals stick in my head from the day and left food for thought over the remainder of the challenge, one of these was a gentleman who is heading to the Himalayas in a few weeks and ultimately hopes to summit Mt Everest! and another lady who was wearing a Prostate Cancer UK Jumper and I couldn’t help but ask if she was doing a hike for the charity that day.

The Lady who was flying the Prostate Cancer UK flag that day spoke to my support crew at the bottom, she told them how happy she was that I was supporting Prostate Cancer UK and that her Dad had terminal prostate cancer. She came back up to shake my hand before she left and didn’t mention anything about her dad, it was only later when my support crew told me her story that it kind of hit different and it’s been on and off my mind since and definitely throughout the rest of the challenge. Also what was on my mind when things got hard in the night was the messages Charmian was relaying to me from Social media and the Charity website.

I’d passed a tall fella with his son working their way to the top a few times and we’d not exchanged any conversation of note until I arrived at the bottom and Charmian introduced us and said this guys gutted as he’d been up 28 times back in 2014 to match the height of Everest and you’ve changed that opinion. As Anthony had descended he’d advised Charmian that I’d got my maths wrong and didn’t need to do so many reps, until Charmian mentioned we’re not at sea level. Anthony Garbutt was my original inspiration and had paved the way for me to follow in his footsteps and ultimately raise some more donations for charity, Thank you Anthony!

A few more colleagues from work turned up to hike one rep with Shaun Purvis, Daniel Herriot, Phil Crame and Dawn Richardson also joined us to walk the hill twice, take photos and supply everyone with fish, chips and batteries for lights as we entered the night. Charmian and Steve had mentioned a guy who lived in Newton under Roseberry was intending on joining me for a few repetitions, which could give Steve some much needed respite. Duncan Barnett was his name and was good to talk to someone fresh and the next 3 reps passed quickly with conversations about the Hardmoors race series and other races.

As Duncan’s support came to an end, I thanked him and wished him well. The next 4-5 hours were really tough, the rain didn’t let up until around 3am from memory and me and Steve had totally run out of conversational points, resorting to counting steps and naming some of the rocks on the way up. Bob the rock was one of those rocks, a big boulder which signified you wasn’t too far from the top. Bob was always received with welcoming arms as we trudged up through the 30’s.

Great news received, Bevan is on his way up and should be with us in a couple of hours. Now don’t get me wrong me and Steve love to spend time with each other (well I think the feeling is mutual), but Steve and I were very happy with this news. Steve planned to have a rest/sleep once Bevan arrived and I was looking forward to someone with fresh conversation so I could just listen too or even answer questions if I wasn’t sat of my favourite rock getting my heart rate back down.

Before Bevan had arrived my heart rate would race a certain points of the climb 1. being as I got to the top of the steep wooden steps, which I would take 30 seconds rest and 2. was shortly after this a steep’ish slope before you got to the final Gate next to the bench, were I would sit on a certain rock for 30-60 seconds and breath. I could normally hike the rest of the way to the top without stopping or only stopping for 10-30 seconds.

The descents by now were nothing but quick walking, I’d had various twinges through the night that kept playing on my mind. My right calf in particular had been calling out earlier in the day, but thankfully not had any issues throughout the challenge. Left calf pulling, left little toe extreme pain, felt like I’d got two full foot blisters under my foot (later to find out they were just wrinkled like I’d been in the bath for too long (change of socks midway next time)). All things considered other than twinges here and there my body was holding up pretty well.

Bevan arrives and is looking very fresh and happy to be here, exactly what everyone needs. I’ve got 8 reps left to do, which seems nothing when you’ve already ticked off 37 reps. The problem is even in my weary state I still know that’s around 6-7 hours until the finish line is close. Immediately I ask how he’s been and what’s new, tell me everything! Now I’d be a liar if I could remember all but a few snippets as I was goosed at this point, but it was great to have his chipper mood along for the final stage of this challenge.

Daylight is soon upon us and I’m already feeling better and maybe I could eat a little more food, just what to eat?? Although I’m only 4 reps away from completing this, I’m very conscious that one trip, sprained ankle or pulled muscle could soon bring this challenge to an end. So I mention to Bevan I’ve not taken a tumble yet, literally 10 seconds later I slip on my backside and slide into a boulder. Thankfully I didn’t break anything and only ended up with a muddy bum, no more provoking the running gods today.

As I’ve mentioned above, my body held up pretty well to the constant ups and rugged downs, my quads were sore and my knees a little but mostly my body was ok. I’m soon coming down from my second to last repetition hoping Zoe will be already there with the kids as I’d really like them to see me finish this and share the finish line with me (even though the finish is up the top). Ella can see us running down and runs to hold the gate open and hold her hand out for high fives, 1, 2, 3, High fives from Me, Steve and Bevan.

Quick drink of water, ditch the race vest, swap my top now the charity shirt is dry and onto the final rep! Charmian jokes “I thought you were running these last two reps”, I really would have liked to have run the last one a bit more I just didn’t have it in me. I still have to pause at the usual spots and somewhat think it was habit by this point, with a final push I can feel the finish getting closer and the adrenaline starts to pump a little and I start to speed up knowing no matter what I’ll be finish in less than 2 minutes.

I passed Bob the boulder and zig zagged through the last section, lifted myself up over the awkward slabs and onto the plateau of Roseberry Topping walking straight into someone’s photo while apologising as I just wanted it done. Around the trig and stopped my watch, thanked the guys and sat down to soak it up a little. We got a great shot on the top with the three of us and a shame David Pickering couldn’t have joined us for that last rep, but I did spare a thought for you buddy and you’d done your job well yesterday.

All that was left to do was thank everyone, pack everything up and thank everyone again before letting Steve and Charmian get some well deserved sleep, Bevan drive home and that left me to fall asleep within 30 seconds of setting off from Roseberry Topping. I managed 20 minutes before waking to ask Zoe to turn into McDonalds for a Sweet Chilli Chicken wrap meal with a Chocolate milkshake nom nom! Then bath and bed for me, only to wake up and order chinses takeaway, quick dip in the hot tub and back to sleep. 2am wake up for the leftovers and back to bed for a few more hours.

I wasn’t too wrecked in the morning and able to walk my daughter to school for the first time since she’s started reception, can’t believe how grown up she looked walking around to her classroom on her own. It’s my Wife’s birthday today so off out we went for a meal and to buy her something special, before we know it we’re picking Ella back up from school with more hot tub fun and back to bed. Wednesday swings round in a flash and back to work, almost could have forgotten what I’ve done on the weekend once you’re back to normality if it wasn’t for the donation still coming in.

As I write this on Sunday 24/09/2023 the donations are at £2,235…. no wait A66 Test Centre have just donated £100!! make that £2,335 raised so far, thank you , thank you everyone! I’ve managed to get the challenge reported on one of the local news sites so far and hope to get it published on others if possible for one last push for donations. First fundraiser I’ve done since doing laps around the school field when I was 10, very rewarding experience and I’ve got a little time to think what I might do next time.

For now though, back to normality again in the morning. Just like to thank my fantastic support crew, wife and kids as without these behind me this wouldn’t have been possible. I’d also like to thank everyone on the hill cheering me on especially the ones who responded “he’s going up how many f**king times?”, Duncan Barnett for the out of the blue support in the night, Anthony Garbutt for the original Inspiration and everyone who has donated and left kind messages. Thank you and goodnight.

News article links below:

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/hartlepool-man-climbs-roseberry-topping-27744298

27 September 2023 Issue 291

Reflections

My support team did a fantastic job, but it did play on my mind that we were a little thin on the ground. In my head I’d planned to run a lot of the initial reps on my own and then hoped I’d get some help throughout the night and maybe I should have made that clear. what happened was Steve ended up running 25-30 reps with me, so should have maybe had a call with Charmian before hand to run over what support I had on the day and what support I required to try and give everyone some rest.

Now with the above in mind if I were to do something like this I’d have road/car park support on 8/12 shifts to allow people to get some rest and probably overlap the shifts in the middle of the night to ensure not one person was covering the whole of the night. Definitely more runners for maybe 6-8 reps each or even work with the available runners to ascertain how much they could do. If fitter individuals fancied multi/back-to-back support then they would be welcome, but ultimately spread the load over more runners.

I’m still somewhat new to races/challenges longer than 12 hours, so I’m still learning on what I can eat easily as I start to lose my appetite. Crystallised ginger worked a treat to get my stomach moving, but what to eat became a constant question. Tomato soup went down easy and enabled me to eat white bread with it and that worked a treat. Unpacking my bags after I realised I had custard and rice pudding that if I’d have remembered I would have probably wanted.

Watermelon worked a treat to both keep me hydrated and my stomach going as well. then surprisingly towards the end have a gel every 40 minutes kept me ticking over.

Choice of hill if I were to offer some advice, Roseberry Topping I’d say is perfect for a charity challenge because it’s known and a favourite so it gets plenty of traffic that might generate more donations. Now if you’re looking for a hill to make it “easier” or kinder on your body, maybe something with a consistent gradient up and down with good well kept path/steps. Roseberry Topping is quite cobbled, with missing chunks of path and steeps steps in areas.

Temperature management with regards to Roseberry Topping, in the day it was warm going up through the trees, but then got cool to cold as you got to the open top area. I maybe could have worn a wind proof earlier in the evening, even if I was a little warm and this may have prevented my low mood/energy in the night as I think I got a little cold.

I’ll read this back at a later date and add anything that comes to mind, but for now that’ll do

Final Thoughts

The challenge is a great one to get a group of running/fit friends and family supporting you at a favourite hill or even a not so favourite hill. The fact I chose a locals favourite and one that either most people in Teesside had either climbed it, wanted to climb it or knew about it meant that people could relate to the challenge I was undertaking and potentially helped me smash my charity fundraising target. Also because the day wasn’t too bad early on weather wise there was still a good amount of people venturing up the hill and also asking about what I was doing which ultimately lead to more donations.

Great experience and would definitely consider something similar, but maybe not too soon….