King's Challenge Fell race 9/8/18

You can tweet me at @scott_leach if you like. But you don't have to, I'm not that needy

A typical fell race 

There's many reasons why fell races are different to roads races, but just one of them is that fell races aren't really run over distances like 10k or 10 miles; generally they're something like "Go out of pub, up road, through park, up moor, round trig, then back here t' bandstand" and the distance is whatever that turns out to be, which in the case of the King's Challenge fell race in Silsden, happens to be quite close to 10k

Debi arrived at my house nice and early and we headed off to Silsden, cutting across country to avoid traffic which was so effective we found the King's arms nearly an hour before we were due to set off. The smell of the food wafting across from the restaurant next door was way too much to take before a fell race and I was feeling pretty hungry, but I decided against eating any scabby horses' heads so close to race time.

Where's the bloody start?

We milled around outside the pub and the main talking point seemed to be "So where's the start then?" No one seemed to know. But as is the way with these things, I knew we'd soon enough find out.

At the pub I ran in to my clubmates Daniel, Martin (Surprisingly. I say surprisingly, because despite being chairman of a fell running club he doesn't really do "fell" races) Christine and Paul.

Paul and I have developed a small rivalry this year. At the beginning of the year Paul had the beating of me and in fact had been beating me for a year before I finally managed to beat him in a couple of races, but then last time out at Ingleborough he had got me again. I've not been training great recently and neither has Paul so today was anyone's guess. As is now traditional, I pretended to kick Paul in the knees before the race. I also tried to persuade him that drinking a couple of pints in the pub would help his time. He didn't buy it, damn it. I really didn't think I had any chance to finish in front of Paul as I really had a bad case of the "I can't be bothereds" 

I had a bit of a look at the map. I've been up to the trig we were running to a couple of times, but never from this direction. I was pretty confident I'd be ok though, the race being an out and back and I was pretty unlikely to be leading it unless something pretty tragic happened to 50 other runners, so I would always have someone to follow and would see them coming back. A quick check with the race organises confirmed that there were no kit requirements so my bum bag and waterproofs remained in the car.

As I mentioned, I didn't feel especially good. A pretty average night's sleep and a hard day at work had sapped my enthusiasm, but I took heart from the fact that I have often had my best races when I've really not felt like it.

The start revealed itself when the race director pushed the button on the pedestrian crossing and everyone walked in to the middle of the main road. Nope, I'm not joking.

About 50 yards up the road another marshal was stopping the cars. I idly wondered if they had permission to block off the main road through the town, but not for too long, because within seconds we were off.

This is a picture of the start of The Stoop fell race which has nothing to do with this fell race, basically because I couldn't find any photos from the start of this race

And off we went

We set off "up road" with half a dozen car drivers no doubt wondering what the hell was going on before we turned right up a little side street and into the park. My legs were already talking to me saying "Oooooooo, no. We're not going to be doing this, this evening you silly bugger"

Luckily I am very well used to ignoring anything my legs have to say to me and I carried on regardless.

Through a small housing estate, through some farmer's fields and we started on up the track to the trig.

Paul was a little way in front of me and as always, he looked to be running easy and strong. Earlier I had caught him at a stile and he seemed to be blowing hard, but right now he looked good and I didn't think I would be catching him.

The route up isn't one long climb, there are a couple of small down hills and each time we went down them Paul pulled away from me. I didn't think this boded well for me should he get to the top in front. However, by half way up the climb, each time we went up anything steep, I was catching him. Quite the cat and mouse game, although Paul of course had no idea as I was behind him the whole time.

Many thanks to Carolyn Brett Muir for the awesome photos. This was early in the climb 

Going down (Fnar fnar)

I was pretty sure that if Paul beat me to the top, I would have no chance of finishing in front, so when he suddenly started walking not far from the top as we approached another stile, I took my chance and sprinted in front of him as I was feeling pretty good. Through the stile I could see the trig point maybe a hundred yards away and I gave it some welly. A quick trip around the trig and I set off hard. To my surprise I still felt good and started to push- I needed a lead on Paul before he got to the top and inevitably started catching me during the descent.

I suppose I ought to finish writing this

So, it's now 3 months after the fell race and I've come back to finish this account. The accuracy may  not be up to my usual standard of "bad" and may drop to "a bit rubbish"
Also, I managed to find a picture of the real start of the race now:

The "inevitable" catching of me by Paul never happened. Apparently he didn't feel very well on the way down and as I did and was going hard, my lead was never in jeopardy .
I nearly went wrong a few times on the descent and had to keep a good eye out for tape hanging off random pieces of fence and bushes.

On the way down

Eventually we came back to the park and I followed a Bingley runner back they way we'd come. Turns out you actually come back in a different way than you go out and we had added a little extra distance but in the end it made no difference.
I came 27th in 52:08 out of a field of 76 which I was perfectly happy with
Here's me looking confused (my default setting) after the race

That's another fine mess you've got me in to