Back To The Beginning

Blistered feet, shaking knees and sweaty backs – all screaming out for the finish line.

That’s what I can only imagine awaits us in July. The Montane Lakeland 50: 24 hours to cover the 50 miles from Dalemain to Coniston, running through the heart of the Lake District.

What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?!

To answer that, however, let me take you back to the start.

Behind the blog:

I’m Joe, and together with my partner Amy, we started Rebalance Osteopathy towards the end of 2024. We’re a small, but growing osteopathic clinic in Kendal, Cumbria, helping locals, and some further afield, to get themselves back on the road to good health and wellbeing.

We see a wide range of problems and conditions pass through our clinic every day – from classic sprain and strain injuries to more complex long-term conditions that need regular management and maintenance. It’s a great job to have and we couldn’t be in a better place – the people we treat, the location, everything about the clinic just feels like it was meant to be. We both truly love it and wouldn’t change it for the world…. Unless we win the lotto millions of course. But even then, we wouldn’t dream of waving goodbye to what we do. We absolutely love learning about the body and the amazing things it does to keep us in the best shape possible (sometimes not all good, but still doing its best) – every day you learn something new and that’s the exciting bit.

However, we’ve both recently gotten to feeling a little bit stuck. Since we opened the clinic, all our time and effort has gone into its survival and growth – we simply stopped all forms of activity and exercise, and our diet…. well, we won’t discuss that one just yet!

We both felt like we needed something to give us a bit of a kick up the bum and get us back on track. Because after all, if we’re not at our best…. how on earth are we suppose to care for others? So, that’s where the ‘50’ comes in.

What exactly is the 50?

So, I touched on it a little before. It’s an annual race that’s been going on for the past 24 years (or around that time I believe). It’s a whole weekend event split into 3 different races: there’s the 10K; the 50; and the 100.

All taking part in July to raise awareness and funds for local charity ‘EpicKidz’. It features a 50-mile (yes, miles… not km) race through the Lake District. As I’m sure you’ve guessed the ‘100’ is absolutely 100 miles… but that’s not for this year!!! You start at 10:00am on Saturday morning and have to be at the finish line by 10:00am the following morning. Sounds simple, eh?

Broken down into stages, there are 7 checkpoints each participant will need to head through along the route – if you reach a checkpoint after a certain ‘cutoff’ time, you’re pulled out. So, you must keep ahead of the deadline. It’s like something you can’t see hunting you down (Hollywood, eat your heart out).

Oh yes, and everything you need through the 24-hour period, you have to carry yourself – the only thing at the checkpoint will be stations to fill up on water and food is provided at some stations too – if you can stomach a light meal at all! Everything else, you carry on your back – with only a map and compass to guide your way through the course (no arrows or guides hammered into the ground… no help at all in that sense).

I think it’s the sound of all that drama that pushed us to sign up for the entry ballot last September. Surely, we wouldn’t actually get through… would we??

Well, famous last words because two weeks later – that very email came through.

‘Lakeland 50 – entry accepted’…. oh dear. What have we done?

At that point, I started a little countdown timer until the big day – all that training and all the prep to do and only 324 days to do it.

More than enough time… right?

Well, who was to know what would happen next?