Heptonstall fell race report 20/3/2022

Dear God, what am I doing to myself this time?

Two weekends ago I did something very stupid. I took part in the Stan Bradshaw Pendle round (10 miles and  1900ft) and the next day the Ilkley fell race (5 miles and 1500ft) It was stupid for a few reasons, 

1) Who the hell does 2 races in a weekend? Only idiots, that's who 

2) I had been dieting during the week and lost a lot of weight which drained me of all energy. 

3) I'm still fat despite losing weight and I'm not very fit at the moment after 3 years of pretty much constant injury. 

So yeah, why not do a couple of fell races in a weekend that I am ill equipped to do, that'll be fun, won't it?

On both races that weekend I died. I completed them as a lukewarm corpse. On the final hills of both races I was not alive. Somehow my limbs kept moving, even though I was dead. I didn't enjoy either race in the slightest because it was just too hard to keep moving, even at the glacial pace I was going. 

As you can imagine I wasn't looking forward to taking part in the Heptonstall fell race this Sunday at 15 miles and 3425ft given that it was more-or-less Stan Bradshaw and Ilkley combined, only in one go. This couldn't possibly go well. Luckily I was still dead so none of this really mattered.

I decided to keep going with the 800 fasting diet until a few days before the race so I would have less fat to drag around with me and I had had no alcohol in the previous 2 weeks in what I was sure would be a futile attempt to not die again during this race. As it happens I went out for a training run with a friend last Tuesday on Ilkley moor and once again the diet had drained me of all energy. I started eating 3 meals a day again after that and continued to keep off the booze.

As the actress said to the Bishop, "Pull out, pull out!" 

Saturday night I seriously considered messaging Phil and telling him he didn't need to pick me up as I didn't fancy being air-lifted off the moors from Standing Stone Hill (398m) or some such god-forsaken spot. 
But anyway, I didn't, so Phil arrived with Alex in the big fat Lexus 4x4 with the automatic boot lid (laziest invention ever) Before they arrived I'd been trying to upload the 700ish photos from the parkrun I had been at the day before but facebook was being as twatty as it's ever been and restricted my account for "uploading too fast" Like I can tell my router to "just take it easy, facebook doesn't like it when you go too quick, have a beer and smoke some weed"
After I'd left them waiting 15 minutes I eventually gave in with face***k and I crossed my garden like it was the green mile and climbed in to the car.

The hour's trip to the village of Heptonstall perched high in the hills of Yorkshire was spent in a sense of impending doom. Was it too late to pull out now? Or perhaps me dying during this race would be best for everyone all round all things considered. Whilst I was trying to decide we turned up at the race HQ and I inadvertently carried on registering for the race as if I had made up my mind.

We queued up in a church to get our kit checked which made a nice change from most fell races where you queue in a field full of cow shit in the freezing cold, drizzly rain. The organ music being played gave an appropriate ominous feeling to the proceedings. I picked up my race number and we queued up for a short time at 3 port-a-loos which , for a fell race, was the height of luxury.

May as well get this over with...

The race starts in the narrow, cobbled street in the centre of Heptonstall outside the pubs and we moved aside to let a bus go through. No really. here's a picture:

After the vicar had blessed us (again, not kidding) and I had managed to stop myself shouting Hail Satan! the air horn went off and we made our way up the street to the first of many steep down hills in to the valley bottom. I hilariously ran past bits of broken air horn as I bimbled up the cobbles and I had to wonder exactly what had gone on.

Here's what the athletic types at the front looked like:

And here's what I looked like languishing at the back and seriously considering just nipping in to the pub for a quick pre-race pint:

It's different being slow

My recent fell running experiences are really quite different from the last time I was regularly running them about 3 years ago. I was much fitter then and tended to finish in the top 20ish% of a race. Now at the back there is far more walking and lots of people with terrible technique for running on mud and rocks and often woefully inadequate shoes. The sense of humour is blacker and there is a lot more chatting and a lot more clothing. If you're going to be out for an hour+ longer than the front runners and you're going to be walking a lot, you really aren't going to wear a vest and a tiny pair of shorts. Those boy don't even have a layer of fat to keep them warm like wot I do.
Talking of which, choosing what clothing to wear on a fell race is quite the dilemma. It's mandatory for safety to carry waterproof trousers and jacket with a hood but you don't have to wear them. You know you're going to be cold on the tops when the wind is whistling, but you're also going to be bloody warm climbing the hills. No one wants to keep packing and unpacking their jacket from their bumbag or backpack even if you are slow. To make it more complicated, Sunday was unseasonably warm, especially in the sun and out of the wind. In the event I went for a long sleeved base layer and I waited for the race to start in my jacket, but took it off and packed it away before the start. This turned out to be a good choice as there wasn't too much running on the tops in cold wind. I'm usually the person in the race wearing the most clothing so it was a miracle that I got rid of the gloves and buff pretty early in the race and didn't put them back on.

I recently bought a more expensive watch- a fenix 6 and I have set it to tell me my accumulated ascent. Previously in races I have miscounted the hills and ended up dying with plenty of climb still left so having a running total is a huge help. I had been warned often that right at the end of this race there is a nasty sting in the tail as you have to climb up a set of steps to return to the village from the valley bottom. All through the race I was dreading this and was fully expecting it to be a dead-man's trudge.

For the first few miles there was quite a bit of queueing at stiles which truth be told, I was quite happy about as it provided me with lots of guilt-free rests and spread the field out somewhat.
Of the 6 members of my running club that set off, I fully expected to finish dead last, so I was a little surprised to over-take Phil after about a mile and then a few miles later, Louise. 
The race route took in many beautiful views and 6, yes count them, 6 climbs.

The race route is a runner in a bobble hat drinking a pint:

When fitter my race tactics are a lot different, I would push the downhills and try to keep moving on the up hills but that would be fatal at the moment, I needed to pace this very differently. As I ran some of the up hills very slowly, I did wonder if this would bite me in the arse and if I should just walk them all, but I had got in to a reasonable rhythm and it didn't seem to be unduly taxing me, so I went with it. 
At around ten miles my thighs and glutes started to tire. Oh good- only 5 miles and a thousand feet left- what could possibly go wrong now?

I started to tick off the feet of climb waiting for the epic final hill to come up.  After crossing numerous moors and  5 peaks we arrived at the final valley bottom. Near the dreaded steps was a beautiful old stone cottage and several young girls were cheering runners along with great aplomb and handing out water which I gratefully took after they had informed me that none were in fact whisky. At the foot of the steps I checked my watch and was pleased to see that actually, there was only about 150ft to go. After all the dire warnings about this hill, it felt much easier than I was expecting, even with my rapidly tiring butt-cheeks. I have to admit, despite my cynicism, the several areas of cheering youngsters as we passed through this section was just amazing. It really made me smile and gave me a boost. They were doing it with such enthusiasm!
One of the advantages of starting so far towards the back is that I had spent most of the race passing people which tends to be much better for the morale than being continually over-taken and I continued passing people as we climbed. Smugness is a very motivating emotion I find when passing lots of people who have blown up when you're still moving reasonably. Most people seemed to be struggling badly up the steps and don't get me wrong, I wasn't skipping up like Heidi carrying a sheep in the alps, but I was able to give it a reasonable hike. At the top was a field that wasn't too steep and it was at this point I spotted another one of my club-mates, Ed. He was lumbering along with the gait of a man who was begging for this race to end and I could see salt marks on his face. It definitely didn't look like he would be doing any running up this incline, but I miraculously still had enough in my legs to run/jaunty walk past Ed with a cheery hello. "How you doing Ed?"
"Struggling, if I'm honest"

I was expecting the race to be about 25k (my watch is set to kilometres and metres even if my brain is set to miles and feet) so I was slightly surprised that when I turned a corner at the top of the field I could see the race finish not 100 yards away. I briefly considered sprinting past the Bingley runner in front of me but I quickly dismissed that as the silliness it was.

Passing through the finish line I couldn't help but laugh that I had passed Ed in a 15 mile race with 100 yards to go and I intend to never let him forget this, ever.

Alex had inevitably finished about 40 minutes in front of me and in around 20th spot and Shaun had completed his first ever fell race about 15 minutes later. Louise was only a few minutes behind me and Phil about 25 minutes after that.

Pasties, flapjacks and Guinness

There was an incredibly old, very dark, thick canvas tent presumably left over from a MASH unit in the Korean war set up in a corner of the field and it housed an array of home-made goodies. I helped myself to some very tasty flap jack. Another major positive of fell races and that's without mentioning that the race included a voucher to go pick up a free pasty at a pub in the village. 
In the field I spotted the Leeds university orienteering club members that I had spent the race leap-frogging and decided to confront them. "You know you spent that race wandering along chatting like you were on the Otley run pub crawl not a fell race, you know that's incredibly disrespectful to all us old buggers who were killing ourselves around you?"
I was pleased when they replied that the chatting had just been to hide the pain. Good, they should feel pain, bloody youngsters. Bet they feel fine today too, unlike me.

If I had been less tired, I might have spotted the giant head on the Guinness I had in the pub afterwards and asked for it to be topped up but I didn't. When I stood up from my seat in the pub I realised that the walk back up the cobbled high street to the car was going to be no fun at all as my legs were going to require quite a bit of cajoling to persuade them to move and when I eventually slumped in to the back of the car I was very pleased to not be the one driving home. Phil looked annoyingly fresh but he confirmed that he didn't feel it. 

Obviously I haven't learned my lesson, because later that evening I signed up for the club's next race in their championship this Sunday, which is the Blubberhouses 25. Yes, that's right, 25 miles. I think I must have been delirious.