I love multi sport events, and I love the mountains.. so back in 2018 I was thrilled to discover the Frog Graham round which combined trail running and wild swimming in my favourite place: the Lake District.
The Frog Graham Round, is a Lake District based swimrun challenge, created in 2005 by Peter Hayes inspired by the Bob Graham Round. It consists of 40 miles of running, with just over 15,000 feet of elevation combined with swimming 2 miles over four different lakes.
Now, up to this point my trail running experience was a little lacking.. consisting of one trail 10km and a weekend at the Original Mountain Marathon in October 2018. I had a bigger background with swimming, and being a competitive swimmer in my youth had given me pretty good technique, but my wild swimming experience had been solely in Pennsylvania, USA in the summer months, and I was in for a bit of a shock when it came to the transition to UK waters.
So you may be wondering.. with such little experience, why would I decide on a challenge as demanding as the Frog Graham Round?
Firstly, I’m drawn to big adventures. I find the concept of making a long journey compelling, even more so when it’s entirely using my own body. Secondly, I love to have a project: having something to daydream about, to focus my training and to get excited planning. Thirdly, my good friend JD messaged me saying if I decided to attempt it, he would film and help with the logistics.. and I knew that having this kind of accountability would really help my commitment.
In January 2019, my training began. Between heading to the US at the start of June, and having my second year university exams in May, I knew I only had about 5 months to get training and reccing the route. The majority of my training was made up of running to Lancaster University and back each day (a 12km round trip), combined with my regular team training sessions (climbing, canoe polo, and badminton) and the odd micro adventure in the Lake District to do some route finding. These trips were my first experiences of running in the Lake District, the first reccy with my good friend Jade consisted of myself having an unfortunate fall about 100m from the car and cutting open my hand and knee, followed by some particularly regrettable route finding leaving us bum-shuffling through dense forest! All in all, my training had been mostly successful, I had come a fair way with my running.. and I figured I could wing the swimming a little – after all.. where would I swim outside in the Lancaster area? (I’ll come back to this later)
Fast forward to Saturday 11th May, 2019. Frog day #1.
The weather was incredible. Mostly sun, not too warm and good visibility. I set off from Keswick Moot Hall at 4am, accompanied by Jade. We made our way through sunrise to the top of a snowy Skiddaw before heading down to Bassenthwaite. By this point I had reccyed leg 1 twice already, so I was confident that my route choice up Skiddaw was the most efficient (via the direct route through Millbeck).
I had organised kayak support from friends for all the legs, so I met Martin and Ben who were in the duo kayak at the lake shore, swapped them my running kit for my wetsuit they had brought and we set off. The water was quite cold, but I found the first swim to be comfortable despite my lack of open water training, (almost entirely pool training). It was still, and I made good time making it across the roughly 800m distance. When I reached the other side, I was instantly smiling as I saw my friend Matt dressed in a Frog onesie with the rest of my friends. I had a quick bite to eat, gave the crew my wetsuit and set off on leg 2 with John and Grin.
I had spent a sunny weekend hiking leg 1 and 2 beforehand, so I knew what lay ahead of me when I set off along the path and road to the base of Barf. We made good time running over and then down into Whinlatter, met Martin to eat some more food, before starting the slog up Grizedale Pike. No matter how many times I head up Grizedale Pike, I’m always tricked by the false summits. This was where the enormity of the Frog Graham really sunk in, and I was regretting not bringing my walking poles: mistake #1.
Once we were up, leg 2 has some delightful running. The undulating ridge line from Grizedale Pike to Hopegill Head is followed by a fast decent down to a crossroads before detouring to Crag Hill before a lovely grassy trot to Whiteless Pike. My spirits were lifted as I spotted fellow vegan ultrarunners Jonny and Rachel, who had hiked up to see me, but as I started the steep decent, my quads started to really struggle and my mood dipped. Rannerdale knots was the last thing I wanted after the steep descent of Whiteless Pike, but I was happy to see my support crew sunbathing down at the car at the shore of Crummock. I made mistake #2 here, and let myself get very hungry right before my swim and ate some food. The water felt like ice and it took me about 10 minutes to relax and control my breathing enough to swim. Martin and Ben were in the duo kayak again, and also a friend from canoe polo, Kirsten, in a carbon boat. Unfortunately, and completely expected, about half way across Crummock water I had my first ever bout of cramp whist swimming. It felt hard to breath, and I was forced to continue with a slow breaststroke.
Looming above Crummock water is Mellbreak. My support runners for leg 3 were Matt, Grin and Maya and we decided to take the line straight up to the peak. It was coming up to the evening now, and my legs weren’t fairing too well. We made it up to Mellbreak, and I declared it to be the most dismal hill I’d ever been up. Matt was encouraging me to run the grassy decline from here, but my quads wouldn’t let me. I was getting dehydrated in the heat, and only had capacity for 1L of water in my running vest. The leg 3 support crew definitely had the most challenging job on the hike up to Red Pike and High Stile, but we were also concerned as this is a blind spot for phone signal, we were behind time and we were relying on the kayak crew being in the right place at the right time. We slowly descended the rocky route, nightfall looming, finally reaching the base of Buttermere around 22:30. We met JD at the bottom, but as we feared Martin and Ben had gotten worried and had gone to try and find signal and it took about half an hour for them to head over on the kayak (with my wetsuit and swim kit). I started to get cold, at this point I had been out almost 19 hours.
I was done.
Sometimes it’s hard to know when you are well and truly finished off, but I could barely walk, I was cold and needed to sleep. When it came down to it, not reccing leg 3 meant that I had messed up my logistics, and this was fundamentally the biggest mistake I made.
At the time, I was okay with the failure – I knew on the day I gave it my all. However, as time went by I started to consider how I could have better prepared myself.
May 11th 2020.
I sat on my bed in my parent’s house wearing my Frog Graham shirt my best friend Hutch had made me a year earlier. I’d been living at home just over a month after splitting up from my partner, and we were in the midst of the first COVID lockdown. The past six months had been particularly challenging, and it broke my heart to think back to my Frog attempt the previous year. I’d have done anything to have a day in the mountains with my friends again.
I knew I had to try again. I’d been back running for about a month, it had become my coping mechanism when I had suddenly become the President of Lancaster University Students’ Union (and a governor of Lancaster University during a pandemic) at the same time my life began to fall apart a little.
This time I wanted to be ready, I wanted to know I could finish the entire route. To the ‘thrill’ of my parents, I started hill training on our staircase, and spending my weekends running laps of my local flat trails. When travel restrictions eased, I returned to the Forest of Bowland to run my first marathon (well, second if you count Frog attempt #1). Although it was slow and boggy, I felt really good being out in the hills on my own and when I finished I knew I could have gone further and longer.
In June, I jumped at the chance to test out running leg 2 and leg 4 of the Frog Graham route in one day (50km, and about 2600m of elevation). After this, I decided to talk to a few friends about wanting to go for attempt #2, with a rough aim for the end of summer. These months were really empowering for me, for the first time in my life I had no summer job, access to a car and a heck of a lot of running psych. I had moved back to Lancaster with my dog, and every time I had a break from looking after her, I would head to the Lake District for 3-4 days at a time, wild camping and sleeping in my car – I spent every day running and swimming in all weather conditions!
I started swimming in the local Lancaster area: mainly in the river, Morecambe Bay and at Capenwray dive centre.
Saturday 5th September 2020. Frog day #2.
Leg 1
I left Keswick Moot Hall 03:45, accompanied by my good friend Ben. It was dark, windy and raining a little bit.
A couple of weeks earlier, I had reccied this same route up Skiddaw (different to my initial attempt route the year prior), however had made the mistake of running too quickly, loosing too much salt and then swimming across Bassenthwaite. I felt terrible afterwards and had to get a bus back to my car parked in Keswick.
Not wanting to make this mistake again, I made sure we took it gentle on the uphills. The weather was making it miserable, howling winds, rain and total darkness accompanied us on the way up, only glimpsing sunrise as we ventured down through Dodd Wood. I was very glad to have packed my insulated mitts as they helped avoid complete misery! Running down the wide trails of Dodd wood was a pleasure, I felt strong and soon made it to the shore of Bassenthwaite next to the shore. Although I was making good progress, I was a little stressed about my support timings and rushed putting my things into my tow float. As it was September and I was acclimatised to the water, I had decided to swim the first three legs in different swimsuits, stashing my wetsuit with friends stationed at Derwent Water. Being much more comfortable in the water as opposed to on land, I welcomed the ~800m swim, soon making it across to the other side.
Leg 2
Getting out of the water I felt revitalised and felt ready for a quick change. I was disheartened to find that I hadn’t sealed my inner dry bag properly within my tow float, and the majority of my running clothing had gotten wet. Thankfully, my insulated layers and emergency clothing remained dry, so I hurriedly got dressed and tried to not let my mistake bother me.
The start of the second leg is on the road, followed by a steep uphill to Barf, with a brilliant lookout over Keswick and the Frog route so far. The decent down through Grizedale is lovely, and I made a quick stop to use the bathroom and wash my swim cap and goggles to avoid any contamination risks between lakes.
The hike up Grizedale Pike seems to be never-ending. Back to the rolling ridge and false summits, so much so that no matter how many times I have been there before, I can never judge how far there is left to go! So far, leg 2 had been completed solo, but at Crag Hill I met up with JD. We continued together along Whiteless Pike and along the Ridgeline up Rannerdale Knotts, thankful that the clouds had parted displaying beautiful Crummock Water below. It was at this point that Matt Fleming joined us, he is a friend of a friend, but since he was doing his own Frog Graham the following weekend, he had offered to come help support for leg 3 and the swims either side. We made it down to the shore of Crummock water, and at this point Matt realised that he had forgotten his swimming shorts, so it was a Naked Matt who swam alongside me – a nickname which has stuck to him ever since. The water was choppy, but this only added to the fun!
Leg 3
Melbreak is my least favourite Lake District hill. To avoid a repeat of attempt #1, I decided to add extra distance on by running the main path up to the peak, which would not be as steep. The weather was not kind to us, but thankfully I had Naked Matt, Jennie and her wonderful collie, Spot with me for company. As we headed up to Red Pike, the weather really came in, and Jennie had to take spot down off the mountain, leaving myself and Matt to continue to make friends for the rest of the leg. When we got down to Buttermere, I could see a collection of my best friends stood socially distanced across the lake. We made the quick 350m swim across to meet them, and I had the hilarious pleasure of introducing my new friend Matt to everyone (he was once again stark naked after the swim!)
Leg 4
After some food and hugs from my housemate Megan, I was ready to push on. I had been out 16 hours so far, but I knew at this point that I would finish, that very little would stop me from getting back to the Moot Hall in Keswick.
It felt strange, that after so much time spent on the Frog Graham route, I was actually on the final leg, the same which could be said for my own legs! Although I had used walking poles, I was still stumbling and feeling a little light headed due to sheer exhaustion and lack of food. I couldn’t seem to stomach much more than plain wraps at this point.
The darkness seemed endless, as did the distance still to go on the leg. Being back out with Jade and John in the middle of the night, reminded me of just a few months earlier when Jade and I ran Abraham’s Tea Round (now the George Fisher Tea Round), where we finished around 2am after a 17 hour day. Thankfully, the weather was kinder to us tonight. When I trained for the the first attempt of the frog, I reccyed the first half of this leg, but it was the only part of the frog which was still slightly unknown. It felt odd being so close to finishing, when the night felt like it would never end.
I finally reached the bottom of Catbells around 4am, and was met with Kiki and Martin who had paddled across Derwent water in a double kayak ready to meet me. They had placed lights on each of the islands, and across the other side of the lake – and it was surreal really, to be swimming across the perfectly still water, with the outlines of the mountains surrounding us.
I felt so tired I wasn’t; really up for swimming, so I held onto my tow float and paddled my feet – which led to me almost falling asleep on my tow float! Once I got to the first island and collected the light, I perked up and slowly swam to the next island. However once I reached the final island.. something clicked and I realised how close I was to the end. I sprinted the final 500m to the shore – surprising my kayak support!
At the other side of the lake, my friend Ryan helped me be freed from the wetsuit, and provided me with a tasteful change of outfit into a frog onesie! He ‘ran’ with me back into Keswick… though this was much more of a ‘stagger’ at this point, and he had quite a job making sure I didn’t wander off the path as the sleep deprivation was really starting to kick in.
Somehow. Finally. I had reached Keswick Moot Hall, a mere 26 hours and 45 minutes after I had set out. I even managed to set a new ‘Slowest Known Time (SKT)’ for the Frog Graham Round! I do joke here, but I think it’s a completely different challenge if it takes you 12 hours compared to over 26, the sleep deprivation, the amount of food you need to carry and the size and organisation of the support team.
The aftermath:
Post adventure slump, doing more climbing and properly getting into wild swimming, through the winter.
I really didn’t see my post Frog-Graham round slump coming. I spent the first week or so hobbling around my regular life, it was surreal that I had finally completed the Frog after so many years.
The night before I attempted my first Frog Graham Round, I stayed with an old friend in Penrith. Jonny is an accomplished runner and had much more of an idea of what I was in for than I did. He gave me a little postcard with some words of good luck, and the quote:
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go”.
– T.S. Elliot
Even years later, this quote has stuck with me. I realise now the brilliance of blindly trying, of not being afraid to fail and just doing your best. Someone once told me “you’ll go far, Vic”, and I’ve tried to make this true.. at least when I go running. The combination of being overly optimistic in my running ability and stupidly determined not to give up whilst on an adventure has led to some ‘interesting’ situations over the years… but it certainly doesn’t promote a boring life…
The autumn after the Frog followed with a break from running goals, instead attempting to climb outside in the long, dark and wet nights in the Lake District. When it became too miserable for this, I decided to continue swimming in open water through the winter and see how I fared.
What have I gained from doing the Frog Graham Round?
- Although it was disappointing to have failed initially, I had achieved so much more that I ever knew I could, and learnt a lot along the way.
- When I finally did complete the round, it meant so much more to me.
- This taught me the importance of setting big goals, that failure can be a great learning curve, and finally – that we really can do whatever we set out minds too.