The Hardmoors 30 1/1/16

Hardmoors 30

Hands up those who are fed up of me banging on about me, myself and I in my races!?


1...2..3....4...5.. Ok, I get the hint......


So instead of talking all about me, I am going to tell you all about the people I met during the Hardmoors 30 on New Year's Day

Inov8 raceshell 220 Bloke

I trotted alongside a tallish, slim gent with a neat beard for a mile or two on the cinder track heading towards Whitby at the start of the race. Eventually we spoke.

"Do you come here often?"

This is the question that is asked many, many times during each Hardmoors race I imagine, although it's generally worded "You done many Hardmoors races then?" which is what I said, but it amounts to the same thing.
He was from Teesside and in a lovely, soothing, lilting, North East accent he told me he'd done a few and he returned the question. I confessed it was my first. He asked if I had anymore planned this year. I sheepishly admitted I hadn't as I had other plans which, or course, elicited the question, "What plans are those?"
I didn't really want to admit to an ultra runner that my main aim for the year was a road marathon PB, but that's what he asked.
As it turns out it was ok though, as he told me that he had done the same a few months ago in Edinburgh and that it had left him injured for a few months, but he managed to beat his friend's PB as well as his own, so he was happy. Over the course of the race we bumped in to each other a few times before he pulled away from me as I took a long time at a checkpoint trying to massage my feet into life and away from stabbing pain.

Paul from Glasgow

Coming out of Whitby the coast path was extremely muddy and I began to overtake people in trail shoes as my mudclaws afforded me far more grip. I caught and started to pass a stocky guy in a pair of full-on, heavy duty, combat pants in a camouflage pattern.

"How you getting on?" He asked in a thick Scottish accent.

"Terrible", I said. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad. What's up?"

I told him I was having trouble with stabbing pains through my feet. He said something in such a thick Glaswegian brogue that I couldn't catch it and asked him to repeat it. He tried again and I still missed it. I took off my running beanie to uncover my ears, "Sorry, go again"

"They gi'ing ye some jip, pal?"
Yes, they bloody well were.
Turns out Paul had been a marine a while ago and he had decided he needed a challenge again. He had travelled all the way from Glasgow for the race and had stayed in the Boggle Hole youth hostel, which, he said, "Was a f****** nightmare" as drunken new year's eve revellers falling about, making noise and turning on lights at 3am had prevented a full night's sleep. He told me it was his first ultra. "But you must have done long stuff for the marines though", I said. His last challenge to become a marine was a thirty miler with full pack in army boots. As he walked the uphill inclines I pulled away from him.

Barefoot Guy

The cinder path to the Hayburn Wyke pub was a neverending incline. I was in a whole world of pain with my feet. Running was agony, walking was worse.
I was rapidly catching a tall man dressed in a blue waterproof jacket in front of me. As I caught him I realised he was in some sort of barefoot trainer. They turned out to be vibram 5 fingers. "Nice vibrams" I said. "Oh yes, I love them." he replied.
I like a chat about minimalist running as much as anyone and I desperately needed a distraction so I walked along with him and had a chat.
He told me that it hadn't taken long for him to transition to barefoot trainers and he had been using them for about 5 years
At first he had alternated each run with vibrams and normal road trainers. He said the difference in impact was huge- it was far less when he ran barefoot. His running gait was incredibly light and it looked like he wouldn't break egg shells if he landed on them. He had done plenty of ultras in his vibrams too.
Our chat ended prematurely when bizarrely I ran into.....

3 people I know!

Mark, Kelly and Dave were walkers from the group I was a member of before I returned to running. I know Mark often cycles the cinder track because I see his traces on strava and he lives in Scarborough. He nearly managed to throw himself off his bike by attempting to give me a flying hug and stop his bike at the same time.
"What you up to?" he said.
"Killing myself"
I told them about the race and moaned about the red hot pokers that were stabbing through my feet. "Well you're doing brilliant" they said. The walking group they are members of is not exactly hardcore. 6-8 miles over the course of 10 hours is kind of the norm, so impressing them is not really too hard. That said, Mark and Kelly have attempted the 100km Trail trekker Oxfam event as walkers, but neither managed to finish. Kelly is a runner but stops at the half marathon distance.
"Where you heading?" They asked.
"Erm, wherever the markers take me"
"You turning around at the pub?"
"I think so"

The course description and maps didn't come out of my bag the entire day.
I bade farewell to the group and set off after the barefoot guy.

The marshalls at The Hayburn Wyke pub.

I caught the end of a conversation between 2 marshalls. "Jon needs to start disqualifying a few of them"
(Jon is Jon Steele, the organiser of the Hardmoors series of races)
"Wait", I said. "What is it I need to do to get disqualified??"
"Ha! you're not getting out of it that easily!"
"Oh come on, surely I can do summat!? I know, Jon said abuse of the marshalls is automatic disqualification!"
"Nah, we've got really thick skins around here"
A sign was leaning against the car. "If you give up now, you can be relaxing in the pub pretty soon", it said.
Tempting, extremely tempting. A marshall came out with a pint in his hand, taunting us all.
"I say we we gang up and pour that pint over his head" I said to the large crowd of runners milling around. There was general agreement. (And laughing!)

The rugby union player

As I headed away from the pub, I was behind a runner wearing a pair of shorts and a top from his rugby union club.
"I've got a story for you that you'll like" I said.
Rather than him recoiling at this rather strange thing to say to a stranger he said, "Oh yes, go on" in a friendly tone.
During ultra marathons talking to strangers to distract yourself or pass the time is what you do, so it wasn't as strange as it sounds.
I told him a true story that had happened a couple of weeks ago......
For the 2nd time in a short period, I returned to a 94 year-old lady with dementia to dress a second skinned knee. After a while she asked, "Am I alright then?"
"Yes", I said, "But you're going to have to give up playing rugby league"
She looked at me with horror.
"Well I am not switching to union" she said.
My new friend laughed heartily and said, "Fair play!" He told me he actually thought league was a much better game to watch and he had full respect for anyone playing it. I asked why he played rugby union then? "I'm not hard enough to play league!", he laughed. He told me had tried it but got too battered.
I soon lost him as the first of many, many steps started as we headed back to Robin Hood's bay.

The RAF lass

A stocky girl with short-cropped hair appeared on the horizon and I caught her up. I needed more distraction so I said hello and asked how she was going.
Turns out she was another military type, albeit one that had just joined and was still in her training. She was doing "logistics movement" I thought logistics WAS movement, but what do I know?
She was a regular to Hardmoors events and lived close by so knew the paths very well. Which turned out to be a very lucky thing as I would definitely have gone the wrong and added a fair bit to the distance. As it was we still slightly over-ran the Cleveland way and had to turn back, but it was only about 30 yards.
She told me that she had completed the Hardmoors 110 and obviously, that commands huge respect! She said she hadn't done much since then and hadn't trained for this race so was actually finding it a little tough. Her hoka's lack of grip in mud wasn't helping either. We started to catch people along the very muddy coastal path as everyone skidded around. I seemed to be more sure footed than most, though, and despite my very slow pace and the trail shoes I was now wearing, I over took quite a lot of people. I stuck with the RAF lass for a bit, chatting away, but at the climb down and out of Boggle hole I left her behind.

The rugby league legend

Running through the shoppers in Robin Hood's bay was an odd experience and probably as much for them as it was for us.
Then suddenly, I spotted a big, familiar man amongst the shoppers.
"Andy Dannatt!!" I exclaimed. He looked at me with no recognition, as he wouldn't, seeing as how I had watched him play at the Boulevard from the terraces in the 1980's and 90's when he was a tough-as-nails prop for'ard for Hull FC and Great Britain.
I held out my hand and he shook it. I then realised I had my gloves on. The incredibly sweaty gloves I had worn for 30 miles.......
Whooops. Ah well, having played professional rugby league he was used to worse I am sure. He seemed pleased to be recognised and also when I told him I had loved watching him play.

Adam from Kirkstall Harriers

Sophia offered to pay for a massage for me back at Flyingdales village hall when I'd finished, probably less out of the goodness of her heart and more out of not wanting to do it herself, but still, I was very grateful. As I waited a familiar face asked if there was a queue, "There is now" I smiled.
The familiar face that I couldn't quite place asked if I was going to do PECO on Sunday. "Ah, is that where I know you from?" He said yes, and introduced himself as Adam, a Kirkstall Harrier. I recognised the name from their facebook page. He recognised me from the ridiculous Phillip Bland picture of me at the last PECO where I jumped and pulled a silly face (See below). Adam had been carrying a gopro camera during the race. I said I had run past him when he had the camera on a selfie stick early on, "Not sure I got you on it", he said. "You want to be on it?" At this point I was lying topless on the massage table, but I am always up for a laugh, so I feigned being in terrible pain. "Umm, how about a thumbs up?" he said and I obliged.

"Thanks" to Phillip Bland for this photo.

Jon Steele

Before I left the hall for the drive home that was peppered with long queues in bank-holiday traffic and road works, I went over to thank Jon for the race. I shook his hand, "Great race Jon, thanks a lot", I said, "I think......"

Great Whernside Fell Race: 25/10/14

Leave a message at the end or tweet me @scott_leach
Many thanks to Debi Nicholson and Woodentops for the photos in this blog

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.

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.

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.

Early in the ascent, whilst I was still running, with my thumbs up, of course

Mercifully the first hill wasn't too long and it flattened out for a little while. When I say "flattened" of course, this is a relative term in comparison to the slopes of the mountains of Hades.
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.

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........

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:

You probably recognise x-talons when you see them

The Washburn Valley Relay 18/7/14

Say hello in the comments or twit me up @scott_leach
All pictures reproduced by kind permission of Debi Nicholson

Simon, me and Mike; the Fellandale team

As is my usual trick, when I was asked if I'd like to take part in the Washburn valley relay, I immediately said yes, then promptly forgot all about it. Normally that isn't really a problem, but it fell the evening before the Ingleborough fell race. No worries, I thought, I'll just do 'em both. I've never claimed to be sensible.

Under Starters orders

The relay is over three legs, and here they are:

After a quick discussion, we decided that Simon, as the fastest runner, would do the longest leg (the middle one) Mike would start us off and I would do the final leg.

Just after the start as the field makes its way across the causeway

The relay was carried out in a great atmosphere with everyone cheering their team mates on loudly. The abilities of the teams varied greatly from racing snake to snail.

Each of the 3 legs ends cruelly up a short, sharp hill and pride cut in time and again with the runners as they did their best to make a good showing for their team mates.

Here's Mike on the first leg

Great fun was had watching the first leg runners coming in up the hill and handing over. Mike came steaming in, clearly giving it his all before handing over to Simon.

Here's Simon floating on air as he finished the second leg, ready to hand over to me.

So off I went for my leg around Swinsty reservoir. It started on a flat and well maintained path and I was making good time. To my amazement, when I looked down at my garmin it told me I was running at less than 4 mins/k. I have not run anywhere like that fast this year, so I actually assumed that something odd was going on with the GPS. The path continued to meander through the woods and around the reservoir and soon I heard the familiar sound of a runner catching me from behind and all the while I was catching the runner in front. I was soon passed by a flash of blue and there was no point in me giving chase, his pace was so much quicker than mine.
As I reached the causeway at the end of the reservoir I over took my first runner and I was given a long view of the next part of the route and I could see a number of runners in front of me, which gave me some targets to chase.
As the race went on we cruised around the far side of the reservoir and I slowly picked off more runners before I could see a lady in Skipton's hi-viz yellow top. I was catching her, but only very slowly. My hope was that I would catch her on any hilly sections, or perhaps the final hill.
To get back up to the final causeway between the reservoirs to take us to the finish line, there was a reasonably substantial climb. I expected the Skipton runner to slow on the way up, but she seemed strong and the gap only closed slightly. Along the causeway she still seemed strong and I decided the effort required to catch her would probably be beyond me and I also had half an eye on the Ingleborough fell race the next day.

Me, on the way up to the finish

Of course, up the final hill, being cheered on by my team mates and a couple of people in the crowd that knew me, I couldn't help but put in a bit of a sprint.
I had actually run the leg around 45 seconds quicker than the Skipton lady, but it hadn't been enough to catch her. However, I felt reasonably pleased by my tally of picking off 4 runners in front of me and only being over-taken by one.

In the final reckoning our team came in a very respectable 21st out of 56 teams. A fine evening's work

Run review: The classic Malham round with an extra twist

The stunning Malham Cove.

A Friday off work and with the world my running lobster, I decided to set off for Malham, a truly beautiful corner of the world. I have walked the classic Malham round on many occasions and the appeal of running in "the wilds" without navigating was very appealing. The classic round is not much more than 6 miles however, so I decided to extend it somewhat. A trip round the back of the tarn seemed to fit the bill.

Usually, the round is thus: From Malham to the cove. Up the 300+ steps to the top. Along one of the valleys to the tarn. Lunch at the waterside, then down through Gordale scar, along past Janet's Foss and back to Malham. I didn't feel that 6 miles would justify an hour's drive so I decided to add on a little "getting lost" session behind the tarn to extend the run to about 10 miles. I know my way around part of the back of the tarn (It's only one path, it'd be tough to get lost) but didn't know exactly how to keep going right around the back then join up with the path back to the cove. Still, it didn't look that hard. I decided to do the route in the opposite direction to usual, that way I would be able to take the path I knew around the back of the tarn and then find my way from there. What could possibly go wrong?

I could forget my map.

But I would never be stupid enough to do that, would I? Hmmmmm, good job I committed it to my photographic memory before I set off *cough*

Malham: Yorkshire cliche No5.

 Having avoided the wooly "traffic" in Malham, I set off for the Janet's Foss. This involved a run down a track that follows the side of a lovely stream and through a forest. Even though I wasn't running fast and the way was easy and flat, I was already blowing quite hard soon in to the run. It had to be due to there being some actual heat for once!  I started to receive the first of many odd looks I got from the walkers that day. It wasn't that long ago I was one of those walkers looking with incredulity at the runners. I didn't pass a single other runner the whole day.

On my way to Janet's Foss. The wild garlic was out in force

It's not far to Janet's Foss but by the time I got there I already needed a rest, so I stopped and took some photos and had a drink.

Janet's Foss is a little waterfall if you didn't know. Faeries live here. Yes they do.

The next stop was Gordale scar, also, not very far away. I have never climbed up the scar, only down, so it would be a new experience. The scar is very dry at the moment, so I knew that it wouldn't be too difficult.

Shame there is nothing in this pic for scale; to give you an idea, the bottom waterfall is probably about a 30ft drop

The climb proved quite easy with the lack of water and was great fun as always. 

The view from the second, higher waterfall looking down through the scar.

On reaching the second waterfall there is a long set of rough-hewn steps to negotiate before running along a valley to the tarn. The climb up the scar and the steps isn't for the faint-hearted and I have scared the life out of several people with it, but in reality, it's really not very hard; if you've ever climbed at all, you wouldn't struggle and I have got several people down through it who have never climbed before.

The run continued through the gorgeous countryside in glorious sunshine and it wasn't very long before I arrived at the tarn.

It wasn't actually dull, but I can't be arsed to correct the light in photoshop

As I got around the "back" of the tarn, I stopped at a beautiful viewing point and had a bite to eat and a drink. The clif bar went down especially well. The deuter waist pack is just large enough to carry the things I need on a warm day.

Nom, nom, as they say, nom

Now it was time for the adventure to start; find my way around the back of the tarn with only the magnets in my head and a vague recollection of a map to go by. I basically navigated by heading in the direction I thought the cove was. Amazingly, it worked and I soon found the road I needed and headed down the valley towards the cove.

The valley isn't very long and I soon hit the famous limestone pavement.

The limestone walk is slippery as the Devil's banana skin in winter, but this day it was dry and easy to run on. The cove itself is, essentially, a giant cliff. Once upon a time it was a waterfall bigger than Niagara, but that was a few thousand years ago, so I missed it.

The view from the top of the cove is stunning.

The looks of incredulity increased tenfold as I ran down the steps of the cove but everyone was very kind in making sure they gave me enough room to get by.  

 Looking back up from the bottom of the cove steps. These are just the first few....

 Always nice to linger at the bottom of the cove.

A quick trot across the ancient stone bridge and I was on the path back to Malham, which was getting a bit over grown.

I was happy to provide a moving buffet for a variety of flying insects as I moved along the path and they certainly dined out. Hope I was tasty.

The run back to Malham flew by and I settled down in one of the local cafes after discovering it wasn't possible to buy a newspaper in Malham!

The moist carrot cake was absolutely delicious and even better, the waitress decided the last 2 pieces of it were too small so gave me both to make one giant slice. Maybe I looked like I need it after 10 miles.

The local wildlife is very friendly/cheeky.

Malham is a truly beautiful place to run and navigation is pretty easy, which is always a bonus to me! I picked a lovely, if rather hot, day. Bonus! If you haven't been to Malham yet, why not?

Here's the run wot I did, as seen in google earth.

My Garmin had a strange freak-out and decided that I had also run back to Leeds afterwards and drew it on the map, yet didn't add the distance. Odd. But here's the run on Garmin connect

Race review: The Pain Barrier, Frickley. 13/4/13

Say hello in the comments or tweet me: @scott_leach

The very brief period at the start when I was clean

I really ought to be a little more careful to check out the crazy races I do before I sign up for them. In the high of finishing the Men's Health "Survival of the fittest" last year, I signed up for this 10k "mud run". The obstacle course in Manchester had been fantastic fun and I searched on line for something else a bit mad to do. This one sounded like a good idea at the time....

Fast forward a few months and the day of this one loomed very large, in a very inconvenient spot as the end of my marathon training was coming up. I seriously considered not doing it as I still needed to fit in my final long run before the marathon and I had almost no idea of the effect a mud run would have on me. And little did I know.

The first conundrum was what to wear for such a race. Gok Wan really ought to do a program on this kind of thing, although perhaps practicality might not be his first concern.
A lot would depend on the weather of course. As usual I set off with a variety of options in my bag so I could change if I needed to when I got there. In the event, the weather was pretty warm. I decided on a pair of above-knee lycra shorts, a long sleeve compression shirt and a dri-fit t-shirt over the top. The t-shirt turned out to be a mistake as it soon became very heavy and wasn't necessary, however, I didn't really want to inflict the sight of me in a compression shirt on the general public without a t-shirt to hide some of the man-boobage. I also needed to decide on whether to wear my GPS watch. I really wanted to be able to tell how far in to the race I was, but didn't want to break a pretty expensive piece of kit. I checked out the specs and found it had an IPx7 rating. Having been an engineer I knew this to be a high ingress protection score, so I decided to wear it. Half way through the race as my hand and arm sank fully in to the mud for the umpteenth time, I wondered if I had made a mistake. There was so much mud on the watch that it was impossible to read at times and wiping it with my muddy hands didn't have a lot of effect, I was spreading the mud more evenly instead of wiping it off. I did manage to just about wipe off the bit with the distance on it though, so it proved useful. Thankfully, it still seems to be working and I have used it since.

My unrealistic expectation of the race was that there'd be a bit of mud, maybe a couple of water crossings and I'd probably go round in 45-50 minutes. Talk about naivety! As the race unfolded, I found I had seriously underestimated just how tough this was going to be.

Looks like a baby crawling on the ground, which is exactly what I felt like.

As I lined up at the start I looked around, eyeing up my "competition". I certainly wasn't deluded enough to think I could win it but no one seemed confident to take a place at the front, and in fact, the people at the front were a few metres from the start line, no one wanting to toe the line. It seemed only a few people were actually keen to try to set a fast pace. The general consensus behind me was of simply "getting round".
Suddenly a little voice spoke up in my head and said "We could finish in the top 10 here". I replied with "What's with the "we", pale face?".

We set off after a few minutes of comic relief when the inflatable Saucony arch collapsed at the start line. Oddly, the same thing had happened when I did the Wetherby 10k last year. And no, I am not going around puncturing them. A few people went off  hard, and I set off at a fairly quick pace of around 4 mins/k. For the first couple of k the course was a dry and reasonable trail and I thought I had better crack on while the going was easy. It really didn't last......

After leaping a couple of ditches, the hills started. Let me get this straight, the people who set this event up are evil, evil I tell you! Not content with running a race on a 4x4 track liberally spackled with man-deep holes filled with mud and water, they had set the course to run up and down the nastiest hill for probably miles around, not once, but at least 2.8 billion times. Well ok, it was something like 4 or 5 times, but it felt like a lot more. The hill was so steep it was impossible to run up, in fact, it was pretty much a scramble. As I said, evil! The effect it had on sapping the strength from my legs was pretty impressive.

As my brain is now trying to block out the memories of the race, trying to recall the exact order of the things we did, even while looking at the map, is tough, so forgive me if I get slightly mixed up. As we came down the massive hill for the 7000th time we entered the biggest water obstacle, so large that a rope was needed to pull yourself through it.

I enter the pool at about 1:08 in the yellow shirt. What the video in the link below doesn't show is that there was a couple of feet of mud underneath the water. Half way across I heard someone in the crowd shout, "Swim, it's easier" It sounded like good advice so I set off.

Nearing the end of the biggest pool

Swimming past the guy in front of me put me in 5th place at that point. Another thing that wouldn't last.

The course continued through huge deep ruts in the land, in the main filled full of muddy water. At times the mud was thigh-deep. Having already lost most of the strength in my legs from the hills, dragging my legs out of the mud time and again was beginning to seriously take its toll. I have no idea where it was on the course, but at one point we entered yet another swamp. This one was nipple-deep and mostly mud. It had to be 30 metres long. Time and again my right leg jammed solid in the the mud. Eventually it became so difficult to keep lifting my legs out that I decided an army-crawl would be a better tactic. It was, but it came with the price of utterly covering me in mud and saturating my already heavy shirt. Worse than that, as we neared the end a splash of muddy water hit me square in the face from a competitor in front of me. I was wearing contact lenses, which helpfully decided to hold some of the mud underneath them and cause me a lot of pain and also meant that I was running through a fog of mud for the next couple of k. I was just beginning to think I might have to pull out and seek help, when suddenly they cleared and I was ok, just about.

This could have been pretty much anywhere on the course

At 6k in to the race I was blowing harder than I ever have in my life. I was beginning to find religion and was praying to any deity that would listen for this torture to end. My shoes AND socks were full of mud, gravel, rocks and god knows what else. Then mercifully there was a section that was on dry land. It was a heavy track, but still, no mud and water at least. I cruised along trying to recover on the hoof, and managed it to some extent. At some point I stopped and emptied out my right shoe. It didn't help much.

More mud, swamps and water and my feet were becoming a real problem. I could feel the rocks and gravel digging in to them from all angles. My arches were beginning to bruise and feel painful. I had no choice but to stop and empty out my shoes properly. I really wanted to carry on rather than stop as I was pretty far up the field and was on course to make my goal of a top ten finish, but my sensible voice spoke up and reminded me of my marathon training and that I couldn't afford to damage my feet. Emptying out my shoes and socks was a much more difficult task than I had anticipated. I need to squeeze them off and the socks needed to be flicked inside out as well as cleaning off the outside, so much debris had worked their way in to them. I probably should have just discarded the socks in hindsight. I had trouble getting my soaking wet feet back in the shoes and by the time I started running again at least 3 minutes had elapsed and annoyingly at least 10 guys had passed me. However, my feet now felt comfortable again and I set off to try to chase down the people who had passed me. I managed to catch a couple before the end of the race, but I was so shattered at this point that it was as much as I could manage.

Full on monkey-gurn mode

Then it started to finally become fun. We entered a tunnel that I think passed under an old railway line. It would have been stupid to run through it as it was too dark to see my footing and the roof got lower and lower as I neared the end. A lot of spectators, including children, had positioned themselves at the end of the tunnel and I could hear them screaming as soon as I entered the tunnel. It was a great feeling being cheered though the tunnel then bursting out in to the forest with the kids going wild and lots of shouts of encouragement. I got a small cheer for springing up on to the bank and off I went again.

The course zig-zagged through the forest and then spat us out in to the biggest mud patch of the lot. It was just about shallow enough that I was able to force my legs through it instead of having to army-crawl. The presence of children was the only thing stopping me screaming out a constant commentary of foul and disgusting language.
I had no idea how far I had still to go. My GPS watch had lost signal on a couple of occasions (Something it has never done before) and was telling me I had at least a kilometre left. So imagine my relief when I rounded the final corner and found myself staring down the finishing straight. "This one is shattered" I heard someone comment in the crowd. Not having that, I thought. I summoned up my last reserves of strength, put on my war face, and sprinted to the finish.

Doing my best to sprint impressively through the finishing line

I crossed the line in 1:05:14, 19th position. Only 3 people out of about 340 went under an hour- that's how hard it was. In the last pain barrier they'd run in Parkwood, the winner had done 43:06, the Frickley course was at least 5 points higher on the evil-psychopathic- genius scale. I was gutted to have finished outside the top 10, which is, of course, a ridiculous emotion for my first (and probably only) mud run. Having to empty my shoes cost me, but then, everyone else was dealing with the same problems, maybe they just ran on with shoes full of gravel?

The leader board.

Stig of the dump, or possibly me, not entirely sure.

After I crossed the line the MC pushed a microphone in my face. It took a minute for me to catch my breath and indulge in some "witty" banter. I waffled something about having sunbathed for 20 minutes half way round and regrettably cracked the obvious and almost certainly oft-repeated mud-being-good-for-the-skin-"joke" . Afterwards I was sorry I hadn't thought to accuse the organisers of breaking the Geneva convention.

The mud pack at the spa I had booked left a little to be desired

Lessons I learned from this race:

1) Check out what I have let myself into BEFORE I turn up.
2) Train for the race. Road running does not prepare you for this kind of insanity.
3) Football socks, tied at the top would have been a much better idea than the shoes liners I was wearing
4) Sod vanity, next time, a short-sleeved and unflattering compression top is favourite!
5) It's amazing how much you want to punch people when they shout things like "It's not called the pain barrier for nothing" 6k into the run when you are totally shattered. Luckily enough, even if I were so inclined, I wouldn't have had the strength to commit the ABH I would have liked to at that point.
6) £100 pairs of Saloman goretex trail trainers are not much help in these situations. That said, they stayed on in the face of extreme provocation and never felt like they were about to be lost in the mud.
7) Running wicking athletic gear such as lyrca shorts and compressions tops under a shower whilst constantly squeezing and massaging them for half an hour will not remove this sort of mud, in fact, it didn't seem to help much at all, the water coming out of them was still dark brown.

After the race I spent quite a lot of time saying how I would never enter another event like this, that it was too much and I would rather do pure obstacle races in between my road and trail races. But predictably, I now feel like having a crack at another and trying to get in to the top 10 with some more specific training.

The event on the whole was very well organised. There was no queuing when I registered around an hour before kick-off. The car parking was well organised and very close to the start. I felt a few more port-a-loos could have been provided, but it didn't take long to get in one. The MC did a good job and kept up the energy well before the race. I was a little disappointed that there was no beer tent, but I did leave fairly quickly after the run so I am not sure if the registration tent started serving later. The medal and tech t-shirt are very nice designs and felt like suitable winnings at the end.

Damage report:

Thighs quite sore for about 3 days afterwards. Ankles felt like they had been battered with a cricket bat. Cuts to the back of both ankles. I am still picking splinters out of my hand 5 days later. Thankfully, little else!

All in all a well run and enjoyable (in a sort of masochistic way) race. This was a very serious challenge and the name "The Pain Barrier" is very well deserved. Would I recommend it? Hell, yes, if you're as big a nutter as I am.