A two day fell running and navigational challenge which Preston Harriers Michael McLoughlin and Alan Appleby undertook at the weekend. The event was based at Outhgill in the Upper Eden Valley in the Mallerstang area of the Yorkshire Dales, a beautiful valley which the Settle to Carlisle railway passes through. There are several course formats and distances to take part in and they decided to attempt the Long Score in which you have a list of checkpoints with scores assigned to them and over the two days you have to amass as many points as you can within the time limits each day.

On the Saturday they traversed the Mallerstang Edge and Hangingstone Scar side of the valley with the overnight camp near Garsdale Station. The strong wind was against them all day but it kept rain away until night time. On Sunday they returned via Swarth Fell Pike, Wild Boar Fell and Little Fell.
A new feature of the event was that each competitor or team carried a GPS tracker which allowed friends and family to follow the them in real time and also allowed competitors to see where they had actually been afterwards via a replay function. It also had an emergency button which would alert the emergency services automatically if used.
After two days of demanding effort they finished second in their age group category of MSV (male super vets, ie combined age over 110) with 530points in 11hours 35min. The first MSV's scored 605points in 12hours 25min.