Just back from a fantastic weekend at Hawkshead - the sun shone, the race was brilliant, there were over a hundred children in the Under 8's race and everybody was walking around with a HUGE smile on their face. Garburn will be more of the same.
cr - bring the whole family - they will not get bored (unless it rains - which it never has at Garburn - in which case hanging around in a field for three hours or so may not be terribly appealing). Trail shoes are a must - its nothing like as muddy as Cartmel but there are a couple of slippy bits and lots of quite rough, loose ground underfoot. Pacing wise - expect to be the best part of two minutes per mile slower than your normal road race pace. You'll need the extra time to watch where your feet are going and to take in the scenery.
If anybody feels that running at that reduced pace is going to give you problems meeting the cut-off time for the Trail Race then do the Challenge instead (you can swap free of charge if you need to). The Challenge is run over the same course but sets off about two hours earlier and is an altogether much more relaxed affair - no pressure to keep up with the pack or worry that you're keeping marshalls out on the course for too long - you'll get the same T-shirt and feed at the end whichever event you're in.
Oh - and before anybody gets hung up on the race distance - its not 24k. The route was shortened last year and still reached 25k - I don't know if they'll need to run the same shortened route this year - something to do with not disturbing some nesting buzzards who had been attacking anything in the area. The quoted race distances for all the Lakeland Trails races are estimates rather than precise measurements. Just run the route and enjoy yourself.
