Race Review: The Sedbergh fell race: 17/8/14

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There were at least 194 reasons why me doing this race was stupid

At least I'm committed. And almost certainly, I should be 

When will I learn? Seriously; WHEN. WILL. I. LEARN?

"You doing Sedbergh Scott?"
"Yeah, sure" I replied, casually. Of course, I hadn't actually looked at what it entailed as per usual. It's on my club's Runner of the Year (ROTY) list, so I planned to do it. I had meant to recce it a couple of weeks beforehand and it's a bloody good job I didn't, for 2 reasons: 1) I wouldn't have been able to navigate the bloody thing and 2) I would never have done it had I known what it involved.

So for those of you who don't know me (Basically I am talking to spam bots here because only 5 people read this blog and one is my mother and at least one of the others is in my running club) I am a fiercely mediocre runner. In any given fell race I tend to finish just inside the top 3rd. Due to an only recently resolved injury, I am currently around 80% of the fitness I was last year when I set all my road race PBs.  At the Great North Run last year I finished in the top 1% of a field of 40000 runners, but of course, the fun runners that do the GNR cannot be compared to the cross-between-mountain-goat-and-mountain-lion that fell runners tend to be and all of them seemed to have turned up to the Sedbergh fell race to run around the Howgills. In addition, this year Sedbergh was an English championship race so the field was even more competitive than it might normally have been.

Okay, enough of the preamble. Brace yourself, I am going to break with my tradition and show you the profile of this race early in the blog post to give you an idea of exactly why I am about to tell you a story of a very bad day for me, running-wise.

Take note of the elevation on the Y-axis; that's the bit that kills you!

So yeah; 14 miles and 6000ft feet. Bear in mind that the big Welsh mountains are the 3000s- so basically, twice the height of one of those. Why did I not take this as a red flag? Why, why?!

We set off from Leeds in lovely bright sunshine, but I had seen the weather forecast and knew it wouldn't last and sure enough, it didn't. Before long we were all taking part in our own personal ice bucket challenges courtesy of mother nature. A long walk in the pouring rain from the car parking, way out side the village, to the People's hall in the centre meant I arrived with soaking wet tracky bottoms for registration, looking like I'd got lost on the way to my community service.. I was given number 194 and had a "dibber" attached to my wrist. A dibber is a small electronic thing-a-me-bob that you "dib" in at each check point enabling the computer to clock you. At fell races like this, it's important to keep a careful count of the runners, y'know, in case you lose one down a huge slope or in an abandoned mine shaft with Scooby Doo.
We all lined up on the unassuming road next to the hall for the start with most of us already clad in waterproof jackets. Each of us carried the standard kit, mostly in bum bags, consisting of full waterproof kit, map, compass, whistle, emergency food, hat and gloves. In addition I also had an empty collapsible water bottle, food to get me through the run and my mobile in a waterproof bag. I probably should have brought flares too.

I'm in there somewhere, edging my way towards the back

As per usual the race was started with a bare minimum of "to-do" and after a short safety speech, the race director said, "Off you go" in such a casual way that for a second none of us were quite sure if that was the start or not.

Standing around at the start on the brief section of road through the village that the route took gave me a chance to chat to Simon. We looked up at the hill towering above us and we considered the route we would take down it at the end of the race. I discovered that as little fun as that hill looked from the bottom, by the end of the race and over 3 hours and 6000ft later, it would look a whole lot less fun from the top.

Very soon we were staring up at the first ascent, which is actually the toughest of the race as you can see on the profile: from 150m up to 600m. So around 1300ft. I took this slope well, bouncing away, feeling good and powering-hiking; thrusting my feet downwards and putting my hands on my knees for help. This confidence and relatively swift movement did not last....

That's me on the right, looking almost happy. That's only because I had no idea......

Down we looked from the first summit; a mere drop of 1200ft down a grassy slope. I had asked Simon a few days beforehand what he did in long races with big slopes, take it easy or go for it? "Go for it", he had replied. I reasoned that if I went cautiously down this slope it would take so much braking from my thighs that they would burn out pretty quickly, so I decided to take Simon's advice and for a brief moment during this race I was flying. I over-took probably a dozen people and was down the hill before I knew it, but it had cost me. I was already very tired and my thighs were already complaining. This didn't bode well.......

Oh the humanity!

Over the next 10 or 12 miles the ascents and descents began to merge in to one blur of pain and despair. My memories are already fuzzy, so they may well be very mixed up and tumble out in a way that is in no way the correct order, but here goes anyway.......

The thing about this race is the elevation, obviously, but it's also that so much of the elevation is not gentle, in fact, I'd go as far as saying none of it is, but that could just be my mind playing tricks with me. I do remember looking at the last two slopes and being very glad that they weren't all that steep when on a normal day they would have looked fairly scary.

The Kanadias that I wore (HUGE mistake!) with a number from another race. I remember this as I had to shout out 194!! numerous times

My first clear memory is of going up the second hill and beginning to tire badly, it seemed absolutely relentless and endless. The first of the runners that over took me on the day went past, I would get very used to being over-taken by the end.

Before the race I had been panicking about navigation. Much of the race was not on clear paths, to navigate it without help would almost certainly require compass bearings. Luckily at no point did I lose view of the runner in front (The runner in front changed frequently as more and more people over-took me) At one point, the clag (A fell runners word for mist and fog) had come down, cutting visibility and I could only see one runner in front of me. I felt slight panic and began to push on as he was about to disappear over the crest of a hill. When I got to the crest and looked down, the mist was clear and I could probably see at least 20 runners and I had to laugh at myself for having put in a huge effort to keep the runner in view. I think it was around this point I saw the runner in front take a bite of an energy bar and I decided this was a good idea, however, eating a very sticky energy flap-jacky thing through gasps isn't easy. I know I also stopped at the second stream we crossed and filled my bottle for a drink. I idly wondered if I would incubate something over the next few days and end up with the world falling out of my bottom. (I didn't- but wouldn't that have been the icing on the cake?)

Never do a fell race without proper fell shoes. Duh!

At some point we began to run on a very muddy track that was "Contouring" i.e. we were running around the side of a hill. The adidas kanadias I was wearing revealed themselves as hopelessly, hopelessly inadequate for the terrain. And did I say very muddy? I mean extremely muddy, I mean stupidly muddy, I mean Mud Street in Mud central in the Mud district of Mud city, Mudland. And this was no mere mortal mud, this was the slipperiest mud man had ever seen *this may be slight exaggeration for comic effect; but only very slight* And also at a very steep angle. It wasn't very long before my ankles began to complain about being turned at 45 degrees for step after step after step (45 degrees may also be a slight exaggeration) The path became so treacherous that I could barely stay upright and I slowed to walking pace. The hill to my right dropped away several hundred feet, one slip and I wouldn't stop until I hit the bottom, a broken rag doll. Not for the first or the last time during the race, I moved the feeling of terror to the back of my mind and carried on regardless.
I think it was along this path that Simon passed me in far more appropriate shoes. I knew there was no way I would finish ahead of Simon in a race with over 6000ft of climb, but I had moved in front of him on the first slope and I believe it was around half way that he over-took me. He gave me some words of encouragement that I can't remember now; I'm fairly sure that my mind is trying to block out the whole experience to protect me, but to be honest, I was reasonably pleased to get to half way and still be in front of Simon.

These are my race splits....if you hadn't guessed. And if you hadn't guessed, get off my blog, you're drunk

After what seemed like days the contouring finally finished and I filled the bottle again at the stream in the bottom of the valley, before I looked up at the next horrific slope. My mind began to rebel "OH HELL NO! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE CRAZY!!"I looked around me. There had to be a way out. Where was the nearest road? Maybe I could flag down a truck driver?
As I trudged up this slope my thighs screamed and screamed. Several times I sat down and looked back on the field. I could see 20 or so runners. So many had passed me at this point that I began to wonder if I was looking at the back of the field. There was still at least 6 miles to go and I was utterly exhausted. I could only climb so many steps before needing to stop. I resorted to moments of walking on all fours, more than once I dropped to my knees and shuffled along for a few "steps" People were now starting to ask if I was alright, such was my obvious distress. "Yeah, just dying"
I decided I would drag out my packet of clif shot bloks. I far prefer them to energy gels as clif bloks taste like wine gums as opposed to liquid sugar. One lady of, let's say, advancing years, passed me looking like she was on a nice pleasant day out in the countryside rather than the middle of Hades as we clearly were. I decided to offer her a clif blok which she gratefully accepted and I felt good for a brief moment. But I knew I had to carry on at some point.
I managed to have a chat to a guy next to me who had given me some words of encouragement. Turns out he had done the lakeland 50 only a couple of weeks before and it heartened me to think I had kept up with him for a long way in this race.

As is traditional in fell racing, the route is in the shape of a noose.....

I haven't yet mentioned how wet we all were at this point. It's all very well wearing fancy, expensive raceshell running jackets, but nothing stops rain like that getting in and "breathable" material, isn't breathable, not really. Sweat soaks the inside and a lot of the time I was moving so slowly that I was getting cold.

Three times during the race I had to stop and empty an entire bog full of mud out of my shoes as well as enough gravel to cover a decent sized driveway. Each time I sat down I got soggier and soggier to the point my mind invented a new condition- Trench-bottom- and I wondered if you could die from it. It certainly felt like I was well on the way anyway.

Mummy, Mummy, please make it stop

With a mile or two to go it was taking all my, determination, all my stubbornness, all my strength, all my pig-headedness not to just give up and sit on the ground crying and rocking backwards and forwards. As it was, I was spending some time at the side of the track, bent double with my hands on my knees reflecting on my poor life choices. Very early in the race the young men had over taken me, then not long after the men my age had over taken me, then the women started to over take me, then the older men started to over take me followed by the really old men. Then finally, as I willed my legs to carry on whilst still bent-double, the old women started to pass me. I saw one such lady catching me up. My competitive spirit had long since deserted me; I couldn't have given a monkey's nuts who finished in front of me at this point, just as long as I could stop running/stumbling along in this ridiculous race. The lady was a veteran 65 (I know this as I looked her up after the race) and as she passed she gave me a look of sympathy and said "You alright, love?" before mountain-goating away after I mumbled a "Yes, fine". My humiliation was complete.

I had to laugh at a very dark moment late on in the race. I looked down at my watch and saw it was showing 21km- the half marathon point, and the time was showing as 3 hours 11 minutes- which is my road marathon PB. I was literally completing this race at half the pace of my best marathon. This should have been an encouraging thought considering 6000ft of ascent but it really wasn't.

Now my watch ticked over to the 14 mile mark- where the race should have ended, but somehow I was still on the course. At the very least I considered that it meant that it couldn't last much longer and lo and behold, the final descent down into Sedbergh appeared and it looked HORRIFIC. A massive 1000-odd-foot down a very steep grassy hill. Few people, if any, made it to the bottom without spending a large amount of time on their bottom. With my thighs screaming I knew this was going to be painful. So I sat down on the hill and stared at this thing from my nightmares, wondering why I had done this thing to myself. Then I made a large mistake, I tried to bring my knees up to my chest. Every muscle in my legs cramped painfully, so I quickly straightened them again. I tried to bend my legs again with the same painful result. Ok, so my legs no longer wanted to bend. Fair enough.
I tried to decide on the least painful method of getting down. First off, walking. Nope, too much thigh-braking; very painful. Running? Nope, also too painful. I "settled" in to a sort of weird, half walking, half bouncing, half running, erm, thing. It was still painful but there was no way of getting down that wouldn't be. Debi and Naomi were lurking halfway down this hill with Debi's camera. Vanity took over and I tried running to look athletic and like I still had something in the tank.......... I failed

The expression on my face in these shots tells the story

Debi was not supposed to take this shot of me having a rest immediately after I had passed her...

The painful ending

After what seemed like another million years I reached the bottom of the hill for a short road section back to the finish which I was soon mercifully able to see. Most runners at this point had finished and were milling around the hall and I entered the little gazebo that was the finish line to absolutely no fanfare, not that I expected any. It took all my concentration to get my waving, shaking arm to drop the dibber attached to my wrist in to the machine to record my final time, which all-told was 3 hours 27 minutes, the longest run I had ever done in my life, a full ten minutes slower than my slowest road marathon. I limped painfully to where my bag was in the hall and collapsed on the floor wondering if I would ever be pain-free again. I made the mistake again of trying to bend my legs and was greeted by the same crippling cramp. Changing out of my sopping wet clothes was another painful challenge and soon I just laid full length on the floor. I think I remember eating some food, high sugar stuff, probably Kendall mint cake, basically anything I could stuff in my mouth before I came over all Yorkshire and desperately wanted a cup of tea, but there was no way I was likely to wait in the long queue. Luckily it didn't take Debi and Naomi long to get down to the hall and Debi queued for me.
A while later, in to my hand was placed an amazing shining, golden chalice. It contained an elixir of wondrous liquid that swirled like a whirlpool in my eyes. It had the restoring powers of 20 hours sleep, a belly-fully of roast dinner and a pacman power-up pill, to-wit, a polystyrene cup of tea. A tiny percentage of myself began to turn human again.

This was on the toilet door. It even managed to raise a laugh from me

I dragged the girls off to the nearest pub so I could have a pint and tell them all about my terrible experience which they seemed to enjoy far too much and for some very odd reason they appeared surprised when I answered the question, "So, you going to do it next year?" with a very resounding, "F**k, no!"

The soreness in my legs took 10 days to pass. My spirit has never healed.

Race review: Round Hill Fell race 10/8/2014

Bertha Be Damned

It's generally accepted that fell runners are mad, even by us fell runners ourselves, but when Bertha, formally known as hurricane, is staggering across the country like a Friday night drunk, it takes a special kind of mad to ignore it and set off to run 9 miles around the wild and exposed fells and bogs of Blubberhouses moor.

Nothing to worry about, just a bit of rain

So the weather forecast looked bad, in fact there was a weather warning out, but this didn't stop me from digging out all my waterproofs (That had been safely stored until winter- it's August the bloody 10th for crying out loud!) and heading off to Mike's (A fellow Fellandaler) with Debi "the camera" in tow.

We set off from my house in the rain. We arrived at Mike's in the rain. And it was raining when we got to race registration in the little hall in the tiny and very lovely village of Timble. Rain was the theme of the day. But hell, we'd known it would be all week. The little voice in my head put it very succinctly:

Suck it up, buttercup.

And so I did.

I paid the princely sum of 3 whole English pounds and received race number 114- I nearly gave it back and asked for 118, just for the craic. In the hall the Fellandalers were gathering in numbers; a very decent turnout of myself, Mike, Adrian, Simon, Phil S, Christine and Kathryn.
I was pleased to see that the race kit required was just a waterproof jacket- no need to carry all the rest then!

I'm sure you've guessed, but this is the race route and not your eyeball after a Friday night out.

On Monday evening we had reccied the race route in glorious weather and had taken time to enjoy the wonderful views of the Yorkshire countryside. What a contrast today was promising to be as the clouds and rain raced round the sky in a white-out. But buttercups don't mind the rain, so we set off from the hall for the start, a ten minute walk away. During the race I was very pleased to have been able to check out the race route before hand, as there's a couple of tricky places where it would have been easy to go wrong and indeed numerous people did on the day.

Well chaps, off you go then

As ever at a fell race, it got under way with a stark lack of to-do. Basically, the race director shouted "Go" And go we did.  I attempted to start strava on my phone but it refused due to wet fingers and I quickly stuffed it in to the "waterproof" pocket of my jacket (I pulled it out of the pocket at the end of the race, a proverbially drowned rat and it refused to work for hours afterwards to punish my neglect). My garmin GPS watch has sadly developed a terrible illness in that the battery contacts inside have corroded- annoying as it's supposed to be pretty waterproof, hence me trying to use my phone instead.

We trotted along a section of fairly hard track and this helped the field to string out as we passed through the woods, it being easy for each runner to adopt their fast pace.

A quick corner around High wood, through a fence and we were looking up at the first small hill. The race route has a total elevation of just over 1000ft, but spread over 9 miles, it's actually fairly gentle and the slope up to this "Summit" was quick and not really arduous, so it came as something of a surprise to suddenly be struggling as I descended. It felt like a weight had been attached to the bottom of my lungs making it difficult to suck air in. With my returning fitness I thought that my ability to recover on the easy sections in a race had returned, but it was now deserting me. My breathing was coming in double time. All that said, I managed to fly down the hill and over took several people and in the process took more out of myself than I really should have been doing.

At the bottom of the descent we hit the first, and certainly not the last, boggy section. The runner in front of me was small and slight and he lightly sprung over the bog. I wrongly assumed it must be very shallow mud, so I took off.....and when I landed my right leg disappeared up to the knee in mud. I quickly yanked myself out and carried on running, very grateful that my trainer had stayed on; I had thought before the race to tighten the knot on my shoelaces as much as I could.

Now the race became a battle to just keep moving with my misfiring lungs failing to provide me with adequate oxygen. All the while the rain gently, and not so gently continued to persistently precipitate like a frigging hose pipe. I was very glad to be running in my excellent, and expensive, Innov8 raceshell 220 jacket with a baseball cap to stop the rain from dripping in to my eyes. But it was only really cold comfort in the conditions.

I feared the turn around point at Round Hill itself would feel like a trek to the north pole, but it actually seemed to come fairly quickly, albeit it with some more bogs in between, but this time I managed to avoid any more impromptu mud baths.

Oddly, this graph makes it look harder than it was!

Now we were heading downwards along reasonably stable trods. I could see a pack of runners maybe 100 metres in front of me and I did my best to keep them in sight; it would save me from getting horribly lost- especially as I wasn't totally sure that our reccy had finished the race correctly. Anyways, I often run in a weird sort of runner's Bermuda triangle whereby I end up almost entirely on my own- no one in front or behind of me for a long way. In fact, it happens so often I am beginning to get paranoid about it. Maybe I'll change my deodorant.

Runner's Nipple is no Laughing Matter.

Sometime on this down hill section I realised that the carefully cut and stuck plaster over my right nipple, wasn't as carefully cut and stuck as I'd thought and now my soaking wet clothing was attempting to file the end of said nipple right off. Ah well, we're tough us fell runners you know. I could cry about it later.

Soon we came to the climb up to the hunting lodge but just before we arrived at the turn, I came across Adrian who was stopped at the side of the path. I shouted out to ask him if he was alright, "Yeah, just thrown up a few times" he said, casually. Adrian has steel running through his veins and no matter what has befallen him, he doesn't ever complain, he may, however, state it as a matter of fact, thusly: "I've broken my legs, but it's ok, I'll just carry on a bit slower"
As I made my way up to the hunting lodge I passed one runner who was clearly struggling with the climb and another runner who clearly wasn't, flew past me. By this point, there was very little jockeying for position.

Down another small valley, across some very slippery wooden "bridges" then up the final ascent; quite a viscous little one and we hit the last track to take us to the finish.

I was moving so fast at this point that Debi only just got me in the shot. Not

And finally, in I trotted in 42nd position out of 112 runners with screaming calves and a bleeding nipple.
It's probably all worth it though, right?

I managed to cheer in a few of the other Fellandalers and asked Adrian how he was (He swapped his usual 1st Fellandaler position for a 4th due to his illness then headed off for an afternoon at Tropical world!!) before I got too cold and had to head back to the car. Adrian was soon fine, by the way.

By the time I headed back to see Debi, who had spent two hours in the cold taking photographs of the runners, she was absolutely freezing, so for once we didn't stick around for the prize giving.

So all in all, I was annoyed that with my current fitness, I could have finished a few minutes quicker had I prepared better (Or in fact, prepared at all) and with last September's fitness I might even have sneaked in to the top 20. I also very much learned not to eat a 12" pizza at 10pm the night before a race and that I am slowly, slowly returning to form and also, that Bertha, is my bitch.

Race Review: The Baildon Carnival Canter. 12/7/14

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All pictures reproduced by kind permission of Debi Nicholson

The start of the 2014 race. Photo courtesy of Debi Nicholson. (You can just spot me in my green Fellandale vest)

Cantering to Baildon

Saturday the 12th of July is a pretty busy day around the West Yorkshire region with carnivals and fêtes popping up everywhere. It was a tough choice but I decided to take the short drive to Baildon where a fell race was due to be run from the rugby and cricket club right next to Baildon's small and quintessentially English carnival.  A predictably understated affair, the carnival consisted of a tea tent, some bungee trampolines, a couple of burger vans and a few stalls. Oh, and a lovely family atmosphere. 

I arrived in plenty of time and watched the junior runners coming in from their 1 mile "fun run" then paid the £3 entry fee and eyed up the bananas we'd be eating afterwards. Getting there early gave me plenty of time to contemplate the last few running months and wonder what this race would bring......

A Quick Catch-Up

Very briefly, so as not to bore the under-armour off the 3 people who read this: In October last year I fell badly on my right arm during a mountain relay race in the lake district. The fall rammed my shoulder upwards and twanged all the nerves in my arm and they continued to give me pain for months. In the immediate aftermath I was unable to run at all for a couple of weeks. The injury affected my gait and I subsequently developed a problem with my right knee and ankle. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after physio and lots of strengthening exercises, I am just about ok now and am back up to tentatively running about 60 miles a month (I was doing 150 with no problems in September) but my fitness has suffered badly. Stupidly I didn't cross train enough whilst injured and was able to only do very limited running.

So it brought me to this race. A few weeks ago I ran the Chevin fell race at about 80% and went around 2 minutes slower than I had in 2013. Both races are a similar length but with less elevation at Baildon and now I felt that I was finally in a fit state to give a race some welly at least. Not that I currently possess much welly, but I could at least give it some flip flop.

A popular detail of fell races is to make the route look like a noose. This is on purpose, I'm sure

Your Starter For 10

There really weren't that many more of us than 10 but at least the 46 runners were nearly twice as many as last year, apparently. 

A tiny megaphone wielded by a tiny lady set us off and we cantered around the sports field. I heard a couple of people mention that there were some narrow bits early on that you could get stuck at so I decided to go reasonably hard at the beginning to ensure I didn't get stuck.

Shortly we came to a road that marshals were holding the traffic back from and we got our first look upwards to the trig point on Hope Hill at 282m. Whilst it didn't appear to be any sort of a walk in the park, it wasn't intimidatingly high and I formulated my master plan: Take it easy(ish) and try to make it to the top still running. Masterful eh?

In front of me I could see the long steady climb across Baildon moor and I forced myself to be sensible as I was passed by a lady in a Pudsey vest and not chase her. The race bimbled along on a gentle incline and I continued to preserve energy for the climb.

As the path turned from gradual incline to something a little more energy-sapping I began to reel in a few runners and the Pudsey runner soon disappeared behind me. For no real reason I suddenly became determined to make it to the top without walking. I tried to adjust my pace accordingly for this new target and when the path flattened out again I dared to dream I would achieve my goal. The path took us around to the back of the peak of the hill and we looked up to the summit, it really wasn't very far, but it was pretty steep. 

As I made my way up it my legs began to feel the burn and I slowed to a fast hike. Damn it. At least my hike was as fast as the people around me that were still running. 

At the top of Hope hill a small party of marshals had gathered for their summer solstice festival and I assume that after the race had passed within half an hour they would be naked and sacrificing a hi-viz vest to the Gods of the fells, but don't quote me on that.

Elevation graphs always look much less impressive that the actual climb was

Being Beaten by a Girl

I had reached the top of the climb in a reasonable shape and now I could enjoy (Sort of) the descent. I generally descend more quickly that the people around me running a similar pace so I had reasonable hope of a good finish. After all, these were mainly road runners, surely I could get down a hill quicker than them, right?

Well, yes and no. I did mange to catch a few runners, especially the ones descending with no real confidence, those ones I flew past, but all the while I could hear a runner behind me, catching me up. I felt ok, but I knew that I didn't really have enough in me for a big finish so was pretty much resigned to the fact I would be over taken by who ever it was.

As it turned out it was the second placed lady, Emma Stoney from Baildon runners and she was catching me at a rate of knots. I decided I would try a tactic on her that has worked once or twice- wait until there are a couple of hundred metres left, suddenly sprint and see if she would give up. 

Yeah, it didn't really happen. As we entered the final field to complete the race by running two sides of it, she put on her sprint first, I tried to respond knowing I wouldn't be able to keep up that sprint for the 150 or so metres left, she'd have to give for me to beat her. In the end, just as we turned the final corner and looked towards the finish, she came flying past me travelling at about twice my speed, I couldn't help but laugh out loud and I immediately gave up and slowed down- the only way I would have beaten her is if I'd tripped her up. My giving up had a very strange impact on the crowd though- they gave me a big boo!! Which just made me laugh all the more. 

Photo by Debi Nicholson

Above is Emma already a fair way in front of me despite having only just passed me. Her sprint finish was truly impressive.

So in I trotted in 14th place out of 46 runners. Looking at the winning time I felt a little pang of regret knowing that in September last year I would have been pretty close to that time. Ah well, there is always next year.

The results haven't made it on to the FRA site yet so I can't actually recall who won it, but I do remember that Hannah Oldroyd won the women's race, which is impressive as she had led the women home at Skipton park run that same morning!

Next up is the Washburn valley relay on Friday evening then the Ingleborough fell race on Saturday afternoon. Wish me luck!

Race review: The Otley Chevin Fell Race. 5/6/13

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Last week I finished reading Richard Askwith's, required-reading-for-all-fell-runners-book, Feet in the Clouds. This week, I felt like I stepped straight in to the pages as I entered my first ever fell race on the Otley Chevin. The course is simple; start from Station road in Otley, run up the huge hill that is The Chevin, a small loop at the top, then straight back down again. And what a wonderful, exhausting, terrible, punishing, joyous, fun-but-not-fun, experience it was.

I picked up my Saloman trail runners, selected a pair of shorts, donned my Manchester marathon t-shirt (probably a faux-pas at a fell race) and headed out. Half an hour later I arrived in Otley, a lovely little market town just north of Leeds and I was about an hour early. It's only a small place so I expected to see a little marquee set up and a few people milling around; I didn't. Hmmmm, best check to see where it actually starts.....

I parked very close to the start on Station Road where a small hand full of runners were milling around next to the ricketiest folding table you have ever seen, oddly it was never used and a good thing too as I nearly knocked it over when I grazed it slightly later on.
Station road is a cobbled street with beautiful Victorian stone houses on either side. If you created a street in a studio to scream "Yorkshire" you really couldn't do any better unless you included ferrets, pigeons and a small boy with bread in the basket of his bike. A battered sign, leaning against a wall, marked the start of the race. Having never been to a race like this before, I wasn't quite sure what to do; even the other club races I had been to before I had signed up for on line. Luckily I over-heard someone giving directions to registration, which turned out to be in a small shop front of a plumber's merchant. At least I think that's what it was. I filled out my details, signed the bit that promised I wasn't likely to keel over and die half way up (a blatant lie on my part) paid my £4 and picked up my number.

Looking around the assorted runners as they arrived was a scary experience. I have never seen so many incredibly fit-looking, sinewy people in all my life. Almost every one of them looked like they could sprint up Everest, wrestle a wild boar at the top, then carry it back down and make every one a bacon butty before the sun was over the yard arm.

I got talking to a friendly guy from Otley AC. He told me a little about the race and we idly chatted about our running history. He mentioned that the worse part of the race was a tarmac section that was really punishing. I misunderstood him entirely and said that it would probably be the only section I'd enjoy. I found out just how right he was later on and just how much I'd misunderstood him.
I was trying not to notice the way the Chevin looked down on us all with a black scowl from so high up. I have run around the Chevin enough times now to know that it can be a tough place to run, but I had never stared up at it from the very bottom. From this angle, if it was a person, it would be a socio-path with serial killer tendencies.

Yes, that's definitely a noose

I soon spotted some of the guys from Horsforth Fellendale and said hello to Simon, who, impressively, recently ran the Fellsman. You can read about his epic run here:

Simon has run the race before and gave me a few welcome tips, "Don't get frustrated on the steps, it'll be congested and you won't be able to over take"  As it turns out, by the time I got to the steps, running was out of the question, I was so tired. I think more than one person told me that I had picked a tough race for my first ever fell outing.

The starter stood on a wall with an air horn and everyone lined up at the imaginary start line. He counted us all down and caused a large laugh as he failed to get the air horn to work; the field set off running anyway, then laughed again as the horn finally went off 5 seconds later while everyone sprinted up the cobbles.

Judging the pace of this race was going to be impossible for me as I didn't know the course and had no idea exactly how to run to the top of a 925ft peak and remain alive at the end. I decided to tuck in behind Simon and use his pace.
The first section isn't very steep up Station road, then the route turns along a very brief flat section. I couldn't decided on whether to use the flat section to get in some quick running while I could and unsure as to what I should do, I adopted a moderate pace. Tentatively I moved passed Simon, also unsure if that would be a wise move. Another turn, some tarmac, then the route turned past a white building  that appears an intimidating height up the hill when viewed from the bottom.

I started to walk long before I saw anyone else start. Luckily my challenge walking experience meant my walk was pretty much as fast as the people running around me. I tried to adopt a run 10 metres-walk 10 metres strategy. Not long after the steps started, I abandoned the strategy and just walked. I was trying to keep the speed up as much as possible, but with sweat dripping from every pore and failing to gasp in anywhere close to the amount of air I required, it was, literally, an uphill struggle.

Mercifully the the path turned right at the top of the steps and levelled out somewhat. I tried to cruise to regather some breath. I wasn't able to.

Once again, Steve Prefontaine spoke to me, asking me how much guts I had, in his strange Yorkshire accent (I've never actually heard his voice, so naturally, to me, his accent is pure Dales)
 "Does thee have the guts, lad?"

After 2.8 BILLION steps. (I counted them all) the relief at seeing surprise view car park was muted. Although I was pleased to reach that point as I knew it to be the very top of the Chevin and it would all be down hill after that, I was still blowing incredibly hard. Too hard. Here I am, reaching the top in around 13 gruelling minutes:

 Many thanks to Woodentops for this fantastic picture. Now, why do I run with my thumbs up?

So the expected relief that came with the down hill bit never arrived. I may not have the iron will of an Olympian, but I do have enough desire that cruising down the hill after the immense effort of getting up there just wasn't going to happen. I kept pushing as hard as my burning muscles and lungs would allow.

We plunged back in to the forest and I accelerated. I started to reel in the runners in front. The forest seemed to flash by and we rounded the white building very soon (I really must find out what it is!) telling me there wasn't much further to go.

Through the small yard and I was staring down the steep tarmac hill that the Otley runner had mentioned. We had run up it, but it hadn't registered with me. Free speed! I thought. This was a chance to really open up, the only question was how fast did I dare to go?

I passed a mountain goat who was complaining about this stupid hill

Otley runner's words soon started to hammer home. My feet were beginning to burn within seconds of hitting the tarmac and I was reaching what felt like a dangerous speed. Did I engage my quads and cause those to burn and also slow me down, or did I just go for it? I settled for a half measure. It was still enough to reel in and pass 2 runners including a young man in his early 20s who I would encounter a little later. Unfortunately, slamming that hard in to tarmac injured my left heel. Thankfully it was only a bruise to the soft tissue which was better inside 4 days and during the race, I didn't feel it.

A trot back through the tiny industrial section as the young runner behind me caught me with every step, and we were back looking down the cobbles of Station road. As usual, my brain informed me I had absolutely nothing left and a sprint would not be possible. In fact, you should give up and walk, nay crawl, to the finish. Actually no, hot-wire a car and drive down.

Back in the real world and the young runner behind audibly upped his pace, I could tell from his breathing and foot fall. I idly wondered if I would be able to out-sprint him. I tried to up my pace and managed a tiny amount. I heard the young runner respond. I pushed a little harder and actually found something there. There was less than 100 metres of steep downhill cobbles to go. I always tell myself with 100 metres to go, no matter what, you can manage a sprint. After all, what does it matter if you collapse over the line? Everyone would be impressed, I am sure!

The relentless downward progress continued with everything on fire, it was taking all my will power not to just give up and walk; then wonderfully, I heard the young runner give up. He wasn't going to catch me. I was way happier than that should have made me. But still, I had heard the challenge, responded, and won my own little race. Perhaps a little bit of Dom's heightened determination was beginning to sink in. There is no logic in thrashing yourself to finish one place higher when you are nowhere near a podium finish, but it's that very attitude which slows you down, and it's rejecting those thoughts, believing in racing whomever you are up against, regardless of your position, that spurs you on to greater things. Honestly, it felt like a small break-through in that I was able to force myself to "beat" that young runner....

Who had the most guts, Steve?....Me, lad, me!

There was no finish line as such, just a small funnel created by ribbon and some traffic cones and I was confused as to where the race finished (other runners coming in behind me had the same trouble and many ran way past the official finish) Then I heard the time keeper call out a place, which sadly, I was too tired to commit to memory, but I realised I could stop running.

My time of a little over 22 minutes (I forgot to turn off my GPS at the end, so ignore the last split and overall time) would have placed me around 20th last year when just under 100 people raced. This year's field was something like 120, so we shall see what happens when the official results are published. 

After the race my legs continued to shake for quite some time and it took me far longer to recover from any road race I have ever done, including much longer races. I continued to gasp for air for far longer too.

Soon I had the unexpected pleasure of cheering in the other Horsforth Fellandale runners. Having never been part of a running club before, it really was a great feeling to stand at the end talking  to the other runners about their races. Simon felt he could have gone harder, but his only real aim for the race was just to get up and down in one piece, probably due to his training for the brutal 10 mountain challenge he is undertaking soon. 

Race Summary:

I had to be pleased with my run in my first ever fell race. I finished in a respectable time, in a respectable position. Although I walked much of the uphill sections I doubt I could have paced it much better as I don't think I am capable, yet, of running very far up a hill so steep. So, small injury aside, I couldn't have hoped for much better. Bring on the next one!

Update:

I finished in a slightly disappointing 42nd, although the official time I was given is a good 30 seconds more than I estimated it to be! Ah well, next year!