Trail Running: Dixon Ground & Swirl How Circular

About Dixon Ground & Swirl How Circular

This route has challenging terrain and following rain or bad weather can be slippery so ensure to wear appropriate footwear. Following this route you are unlikely to encounter many other people, unlike, the always busy Old Man routes.

The full route is 20km and reaches 1,136m elevation. Parking is also available on Coniston Ruskin Avenue (all day) and there are also toilet facilities available.

Route Description

(1) We made our way up the steep road towards the Walna Scar car park, you could park here if you wanted to make the route shorter but we wanted the extra elevation for training.

Not an easy start going straight up the steep road. It was a really hot day with very little breeze. I made the mistake of only taking 1-litre of water with me to keep my pack light and thinking it would take me a lot less time to complete.

I’m still recovering from illness and didn’t realise my body wasn’t quite ready to tackle the mountains. Luckily, there’s water facilities at Coniston Youth Hostel which was a life saver on the way back round.

(2) This route heads up towards Goat’s Water just under Dow Crag which was great for cooling off, I always dip my cap in any clean looking water to cool me down. It’s such a good trick whilst trail running. My running buddy jumped in this tarn to cool off completely.

Once we headed off we could see that the route we were following wasn’t ideal as there was no easy path to follow. Very boggy grass land where it’s easy to lose your trainers. We ended up on a super steep gradient getting up Swirls How and I was literally on all fours pushing straight up the side of the mountain.

This can be the problem when following certain routes, we dropped down and followed it but if we would have stayed on the path we could see a much easier route whilst up on the tops. All part of the learning curve whilst running.

(3) With not being fully recovered from my illness all ascents felt difficult and laboured. I also felt unsteady with a dizzy feeling on steep exposed bits. We then had a good section to run across over to Great Carrs.

Then taking in Wetherlam I knew I had no water and could see Levers Water below, I was overheating and decided to drop down to cool off in the water. At this point I actually sat in it up to my waist, I was getting a headache and just to give my body the shock of cold water worked wonders.

We then followed the path down to Coniston which was fairly runnable as they’re doing a lot of work on the pathways. At Coniston Coppermines we came across the perfect wedding venue.

The official route would have been 20km as you can circle round to Blake Rigg but my run ended at 18km with me not feeling my best.

What kit we used

• Montane Gecko – Trail Running Vest
• Altra Mont Blanc Trail Running Shoes
• Innov8 shorts
• Salomon vest
• Packed my Innov8 lightweight running jacket and gloves as well as foil blanket, first aid kit.
• 1 litre of water (not enough)
• Nutri grain/protein nut bar for energy/1 gel