Many thanks to Debi Nicholson and Woodentops for the photos in this blog
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| Be warned- this blog will contain scathing comments about these "fell running" trainers. (Sorry about the hairy legs) |
A Strangled analogy
If the whole of the sport of amateur running were a cake, the icing would be races like the London Marathon and the Great North Run. But not nice icing like your granny would make; cheap nasty icing on a cake manufactured in a soulless, windowless factory on an industrial estate and sold in the budget section of a major supermarket, albeit cheered on by an enthusiastic and wonderful crowd. The sponge would be local charity races that are now the norm in most major city centres; nice and fun if you like that sort of thing. The filling, however, well the filling would be fell racing. Buried deep and hidden in the other layers it would surprise you with its sudden, sharp, amazing flavours. Then it would immediately glue your teeth together and deposit seeds in places that are impossible to reach. And one of the jammiest, sweetest and seediest of these races, is the Great Whernside Fell Race.
Breaking with tradition I actually had a bit of a nosy of what this race entailed before I set off for it and discovered it involved running from a farmer's field in Kettlewell, straight up Great Whernside, then back down again. And that's it. 1500ish feet and 4ish miles. It was then that the fatal thought entered my head................."That's not too bad"..............Ingleborough was 2800ft and 7 miles and that was ok, so this should be...............Easy...................
F.A.T.A.L. T.H.O.U.G.H.T.
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| The route really was that simple |
So now on to the side story that goes with this race; the story of the shoes. So briefly, my ridiculously generous friend Debi took me off to the excellent Complete Runner in Ilkley to buy me a pair of very much needed fell running trainers for my 40th birthday last month. (You might have read about the terrible experience I had at the Sedbergh fell race with a pair of Adidas Kanadias) After a lot of time fannying around and trying on lots of trainers amusing everyone by attempting to run around the tiny shop, I decided on a pair of Salomon "fellraisers" despite the fact they look like they were made by Tescos for their value range.
A couple of weeks later I was coming down St Sunday Crag during the Ian Hodgson mountain relay when the insoles of these "fell trainers" came adrift and ended up wadded up in the toe of my shoe. Imagine my annoyance that a pair of extreme trainers had failed me on their first major outing on a potentially very dangerous path. I had experienced the same thing the year before when wearing a pair of Salomon XA 3D ultra 2 but had put that down to the fact they weren't really fell trainers.
I posted on the Fell Running Association's (FRA) facebook group and asked if anyone else had experienced detaching Salomon insoles. Within an hour a good 30 people had confirmed that they had. One poster said he was on his 8th pair of speed cross and they had all done the same. Some posters said they had superglued the innersoles in (Not acceptable to me in what are very expensive trainers). Most scarily more than one mentioned they had emailed Salomon and had not received replies or had got denials that they'd ever received complaints before.
I took the shoes back to the shop and they were very sympathetic and offered me a few options including a refund, but I wanted to know what Salomon would say so I agreed the shop could send them back to Salomon.
(B)Race (Yourself) Day
Fast forward a week and and it's Saturday morning before the Great Whernside fell race and I've arranged to pick up the shoes from the shop. Salomon have told us that they have sent new insoles and that they have "Solved the problem" The insoles looked identical to the original ones and I expressed this to one of the shop assistants. He suggested we compare them to a pair they had. They looked absolutely no different. I decided not to take Salomon for the apparently total set of bullsh***ing a*******s they were appearing to be, give them the benefit of the doubt and try the new "improved" insoles at the race....... |
| 3/5 of the Fellandale turnout in one epic photo; we're just missing Mike and Carl |
We drove through the beautiful village of Kettlewell and out to the farmer's field to park, hoping that my car would be able to pull back out of it at the end (It did).
All was reassuringly low-key as ever with a fell race, even though this particular one was part of this year's Yorkshire championship and had attracted an even more high-class field than usual. I paid my £5 to the lovely ladies managing the awning attached to the camper van and received my race number.
I chatted to another runner wearing fellraisers and he confirmed that he too had experienced the detaching insoles. There followed quite a bit of milling-around combined with a little bit of warming up before we funnelled through the finishing, erm, funnel so we could be counted by the organisers (It incurs quite a lot of paperwork when fell runners go missing) and we were ready for the off.
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| That's us, milling |
Steepness is all Relative (A crazy relative that's in that home, the one you never talk about)
As you can see from the photo above, the start of this race is especially steep. As ever my tactics were vague, but I decided that with "only" 1500ft of ascent I should be able to run/power walk all of the ascent, after all, I had done that at Sedbergh for the first hill which was a similar height.I soon discovered how wrong I was.
Just before the start Carl had shouted to me, "Stick with him" whilst pointing at Adrian. "No chance" I had replied. Last year Adrian and I had been neck-and-neck, but since then I have spent a year trying to return to my previous fitness following an "epic face-plant" as the kids would say. I have been getting closer to Adrian all year, but am still not challenging him just yet, and up a hill, I have never been able to stick with him.
My memory has blocked out how far I got before I began to walk, but I know it was a disappointingly short distance and people began to over-take me, something that would continue for the whole ascent.
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| Early in the ascent, whilst I was still running, with my thumbs up, of course |
Picking a suitable path is a real trick in this race that I really didn't get right. Trying to be clever I strayed off the path several times and each time regretted it. I simply don't have the local knowledge to pull it off and at the first really boggy section, I came, as we say in Yorkshire, a "cropper".
I veered right off the path to try to avoid what appeared to be a bad section. The runner in front had done the same and had landed in a fairly soggy patch so I veered even further to avoid it.
Total disaster. My left leg plunged deep in to a bog and I sank up to my waist. For a second I was genuinely scared; this bog was deep and very wet. I flung my body forward praying that the ground in front would hold my weight while I army-crawled out. It did, just.
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| Just in case you were wondering, this picture illustrates that fell running ain't easy |
Now we entered the meat of the race. The relentless uphill trudge to reach the fun bit where you get to fling yourself down the hill in less than half the time it took you to get up. By half way up I was blowing hard. With a third of the ascent left I was gone. My power hike had turned in to a limp.
I always get my excuses in early, but I think a couple of hard training sessions during the week had left me still tired and not quite at my best. I definitely should have been doing better than this! That said, I had Adrian in my sights for most of the ascent, but eventually lost him.
Now I was beginning to look for the leaders. I knew I would be no-where near the top until I saw them coming down but they were taking an achingly long time to appear. I am sure more than one runner was fooled by the large cairn halfway up the ascent but I was still quite lucid at that point and knew that it couldn't be the summit as this is a classic "up-and-down" fell race- same path both ways and we would need to see people coming down first. Also, I knew that we had done nothing like 1500ft of climbing.
Eventually we entered the mist near the top and the leaders came flying past. I always love seeing them coming down, it gives you an idea of what's possible! I really thought I must have a lot further to go when I saw them, but actually, it wasn't that bad. By now we were climbing steps and entering the clag near the top. When the top came, it surprised me, I thought we still had a fair way to go. The runner in front was extremely cautious going around the craggy top and I began to itch to get past him.
The minute I started to descend I flew past the cautious runner and the insoles in my shoes detached and began to make their way to the front of the toe box. Salomon had lied to me and it hadn't come as a surprise. They had taken me for a total **** and thought I wouldn't notice when they replaced the useless insoles with identical useless insoles.
Don't Keep off the Grass
The wonderful thing about this race is the grippy, grassy slopes by the side of the path on the way down. It was time for "Brakes off, brains off" and man, did I turn my brain and brakes off. I felt like I was flying. I was really picking up speed and the runner behind me soon disappeared. At first there were no runners in front of me and I could see a long way in front. I was amazed when I saw runners begin to appear in my sight and I was catching them. I was descending much quicker than the people around me and I was picking them off. With each one I passed I eyed the next in front of me. |
| A lot of the mud had actually come off when this was taken |
Around 3/4 of the way down I veered to the right of the path again to try to avoid yet another wet stretch. Again, it was a mistake. This time my right foot plunged in to a bog. I was grateful it was only mid-shin this time and I yanked at my leg to pull it out. It didn't budge. I yanked again.Still stuck. On the 4th huge yank, it eventually popped out. At least salomon's quick release laces are good (Inov-8 take note)
There are a couple of flattish sections at the bottom and across those I lost time as I was beginning to tire, but the field that Debi had ensconced herself in was perfect for more running sans brains and brakes which meant I was moving so fast she could barely keep me in the frame........
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| Just kidding, she got loads of shots of me in the frame before this last one |
The end of the race was back down the very steep field and at the very last few feet there is a steep drop. Like the idiot I am, I decided to show-off and take a huge leap off this slope.
I utterly failed to land the jump and in front of 70 odd fell runners, I army-rolled through the finish line to a chorus of "Ooooooos" I bounced back up, unhurt for once and laughed to try to save face. When I stood up I wasn't quite sure if I had finished or if I needed to go down the whole finishing funnel, so I sheepishly trotted down it.
Afterwards I join the other runners washing themselves in the stream. At least I had won the bog-mud-transporting prize by managing to carry a whole wheelbarrow-full down to the bottom in my shoes and clothing.
Adrian had, of course, finished in front of me in 54th position a shade under 40 minutes. I came in 75th in 42:18 out of a field of 157. I was reasonably pleased to have finished just in the top 3rd of a Yorkshire champ race even if I was disappointed that I had ascended much slower then I was capable of.
On the way home I went straight back to Complete Runner. With their usual wonderful customer service they sympathised with me and offered a refund. I told them that was very nice of them, but I needed fell shoes and wouldn't leave the shop until I found a pair I liked. And here they are:
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| You probably recognise x-talons when you see them |
