Pendle fell race report 2/4/2022

 Pendle fell race 2/4/2022

If I'm honest, I'd really rather not

This weekend saw me take on another fell race for the first time, the Pendle "short race" For some reason I decided this wasn't hard enough and as the race didn't start until 2pm I set off at 08:25 to walk up to my local parkrun at the Chevin as a warm up. The walk up to the start involves a climb of a few hundred feet as does the parkrun itself. I intended to and managed to, bimble around it without tiring myself out but true to form I did manage some stupidity. I kicked a very small tree root and landed solidly on all fours. Luckily my gloves protected my hands so I didn't need to pick gravel out of them for the rest of the day, unlike my knees. I bounced back up and carried on running with the only real damage being a bit of stinging, which was obviously a lot of fun later in the shower.

A brunch of cheesy bacon sandwiches later and a tight squeeze in to my "shrinking" club vest and I headed off to the Barley hall. This is another race on my club's championship and the second on Pendle hill. There are bonus points up for grabs for running all 3 Pendle races and as I was the only one to do the first one, there's only me who can still get the bonus points. Turns out I was the only Fellandaler to do this race too. The last of the 3 races is the notorious Tour of Pendle. It's just shy of 17 miles and 5000ft of climb. I have done it twice and both times were a disaster. The first time my knee went very badly and I had to walk/limp the last 3 miles or so as every time I ran I had stabby pains. Both times the final of the 6 climbs that takes in Big End has been horrific. So you can imagine my joy at seeing that this race is based around Big End. Sheesh.

My genius plan of arriving in Barley an hour before the race and finding a parking spot recently vacated by a parent driving a chid in for the earlier junior race was a very bad one. The juniors hadn't left. I ended up parking right at the top of the hill nearly a mile away. Still, you generally have to park farther away if you're doing a big city road race, it's just us fell runners are a bit spoiled and expect to park quite close.

I had a browse around the Pete Bland van but when I heard my wallet screaming and crying I thought it best to go register instead of buying yet another pair of shoes. In the Barley hall I picked up the world's largest race number and pinned it on my chest/abdomen/thighs/face. The organisers had decided the required kit on the day was at "runner's discretion" Dangerous. I briefly considered a moped as my kit, but instead settled on most of the FRA kit in my bumbag minus map and emergency food. I knew there was no chance of my losing my way and if worst came to the worst I could mug another run for a gel if I really needed it.

In a return to the traditional, this particular race is a £5-only-entry-on-the-day jobby. My fear that this would be a bad idea proved unfounded as in the end there were only 198 finishers on the day. The Stan Bradshaw had been entry in advance and had sold out all 300 places in record time which had given me pause for though, but anyway, I was wrong.

This picture is me on a different day on a different race because I'm still waiting on the the photos that were taken yesterday, what you going to do, sue me?

Unlike my preparation before the Heptonstall race where I had spent 2 weeks being very careful about "the things wot I put in my mouth" this time my preparation had been sketchy and that's not even including the lack of skin on my knees. So I had no idea how I would fare. Still, as long as I finished it was full club champs points for me. Nom, nom, nom. 

The race organiser gave a speech before the race that none of us at the back could hear and I gained a slight snigger from those around me when I commented "Can anyone lip-read?" Then we set off up the hated tarmac section next to the Barley hall and I had edged very far towards the back. As we started climbing the first hill I realised that I had edged so far back that I wasn't far off being last. At least this did mean that I spent the whole race over-taking people again which is something I very much prefer whilst I am fatter and slower compared to previous years. 

You know where you can stick your big end

15 minutes later I was very pleased to see the trig point at the top of the climb appear. But NO! The chaotic evil that devised this route then plummeted us back down a very long and treacherous descent to take us back to the bottom of Big End and away from the trig to attack it from a different and far harder angle.
I call the descent treacherous because it's a heady mix of seemingly all possible terrains and unreasonably steep.  I over-took A LOT of pussy-footers down this section but my smugness was short lived as close to the bottom I managed to trip again. This time I somehow stayed up-right with a swiftly planted hand. Again I was lucky that my hand landed on soft ground and so I once again kept the skin on my palm. I endured the very quick, sharp stabby pain in my lower back that is my reward each time I trip and carried on to the bottom. 

And then up I looked at Big End. Urgh

It should be illegal for contour lines to be that close together

I imagined that Big End would somehow look easier at 2ish miles in to a race rather than the 15ish miles of the full Pendle tour route, but it didn't. This bugger is steep. According to the strava segment it is a 42.2% gradient. During the tour of Pendle this hill has broken me badly both times. A lot of the time it is so steep I have resorted to climbing it on all fours. During the tour I have had to adopt a tactic of  "5 steps rest, 5 steps rest" whilst gasping for breath and dripping sweat like a P&O executive.
I can't say I strode up Big End yesterday feeling great, but I was able to give it some power hiking for a lot of it and continued to over-take a few people. The thought that it was all down hill from the top of Big End kept me going and made it easier. Thank goodness for that "total accumulated climb" on my watch telling me that the climb was nearly over. According to strava it took me 8 minutes 44 seconds to climb Big End. I assure you, it felt like 8 hours 44 minutes.
 A quick "sling-shot" around the trig and it's all down hill back to the Barley hall. By this time I could feel my ham strings tightening and I spent some small amount of time pondering if I should slow down or walk to prevent them going twang. I didn't of course.

After going past a few more people I found myself running alone with a bit left in my legs to push a little faster along the horrible tarmac with the soles of my feet heating up to burning point by the time I went through the finish line. My time was 48.21 which was somewhat faster than the estimate I had given myself before the race. 

I spent some time patting and making a fuss off all the doggies milling around the Barley hall before trudging off back up the hill to my car.

No, I did not win either of these trophies for 123rd place and I didn't steal them either, although I am not sure why not.

Mental health note-

I felt shocking all day. It took a lot to drag myself out of bed and get up to the parkrun and I left quickly afterwards. Same with the fell race. I usually stay and watch the presentations with a cup of tea and a slice of cake from the Barley hall kitchen but I couldn't face it. I spent most of the day just looking forward to when I could settle down on my sofa with the excellent bottle of malbec that was waiting for me. The only positive I can take here is the fact that I am still manging to function and do the things I would normally do while I am feeling awful. That's something I suppose

Heptonstall fell race report 20/3/2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May as well get this over with...

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

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

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

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

It's different being slow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pasties, flapjacks and Guinness

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

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

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

Marshaling the Hardmoors 110/160

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When the industrious proprietor of the Hardmoors series of races, Jon Steele, put out a plea for marshals for his 110/160 mile events on facebook, I realised the date clashed with the 3 peaks. Then very late in the day when I knew I had to drop out of the 3 peaks, I offered Jon my services. Unsurprisingly with such a late offer of support, I was given a graveyard shift of 4am-9am Sunday morning shift at the check point at Lord Stones, a point 131 miles in to the 160 and 83 miles in to the 110. My mind boggled at the sights I may see!

I don't have a picture from Lordstones, so here's me dancing with Usain Bolt

I got out of bed at around 2:15am Sunday morning. "I'm off to a car park in the middle of nowhere!" I said to Sophia, in what my have been one of the dodgiest sentences of all time. Luckily, she knows me well. I downed a large cup of fresh-ground coffee and an hour and a half later I realised my sat nav was NOT taking me to Lord stones. Crap. Cue frenzied googling and hoping that I would get enough signal for it to direct me. 

I arrived at the check point at about 04:02 when I realised I had been stupid enough to forget my head torch.

The checkpoint was a tiny road crossing where Peter had parked his campervan and Karsten had set up a chair and a table filled with jelly babies, pork pies (which proved VERY popular) sausage rolls, flat coke and of course, water. 

Around 40 people started the 160 and about 150 started the 110. All told around 80 people reached the Lord Stones check point and it was remarkable what good spirits the majority of them were in, though almost all looked completely exhausted. As the runners made their way up the next hill, the gaits of some of the competitors was interesting to say the least, especially considering they had nigh on 30 miles to go. Some looked like they couldn't take another step, never mind cover more than a marathon, but each one shuffled off up the pretty sizeable hill with grim determination abundant. 

The most hilarious thing is that in true ultra runner style, often the runners showed concern for us, seeming to think that WE had a hard job! "So what time did you get here?" I answered 4am and the other 2, answered 2am. "Wow!" the runners said, "That's tough"

Everything is relative of course, but being a little bit cold as you stand around pouring out the odd drink and handing out the pork pie is not really hard work in anyone's book and especially not compared to people who had been in this race from 8am the previous morning in the case of the 110ers and 5pm 2 days previous for the 160ers!!!!!

Our shift was due to finish at 9am, but Jon Steele is nothing if not a vague bugger and we were still waiting for the tail runners at 10am.  We continued to chat about running between ourselves and Peter told me about many races but not least his Bob Graham round back in 1984. Karsten had done a few of the Hardmoors marathons and told me about his favourites. 

Eventually the last runner came in accompanied by the trail runners and the rain that had held off began to fall as we cleared away the detritus. 

It's impossible not to be inspired by these superheroes dressed in the guise of normal human beings, armed mostly with nothing more than pure determination to finish a truly herculean race. Yes, you think they are crazy, yes, you think they look total wrecks and yes, I wished I was them.

Driving home I was amazed to see the view that it had been too dark to see the night before. It was spectacular. The thought helped to keep me awake on the A1M motorway until I arrived back.

I still don't have a picture so here's a stormtrooper beating Usain Bolt

At home, I watched the Hardmoors facebook feed as the runners came home and a remarkable story unfolded. One guy, Frank Murphy, had arrived at a checkpoint with 15 minutes to spare before the cut off of the 160. He decided that rather than rushing himself to beat the cut off, he would have a sleep instead, knowing that it would disqualify him from the race. Not that he was dropping out, he was going to carry on, but with no check points open and no race support other than his own support team. He grimly carried on getting further and further behind the cut offs. The cut off for the entire race was 50 hours, he eventually came through in 71.5 hours! By that time he landed he had dozens of people cheering him on on facebook and a crowd had gathered to welcome him home (Think Simon Pegg in "Run fat boy run") including Jon and Shirley Steele, who, despite his official disqualification from the race, presented Frank with his finishers tshirt and medal. And that is the true Hardmoors spirit.  Do yourself a favour, and sign up for a hardmoors race today!

Great Whernside Fell Race: 25/10/14

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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

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.

The Washburn Valley Relay 18/7/14

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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

Dear, Sweet, Running Oblivion

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Dear, Sweet Running Oblivion 

Occasionally the dark clouds descend around me and I am chased by the Black Dog. Strangled metaphors aside, it is then I take solace in Dear, Sweet, Running Oblivion. The Black Dog may be fast, indiscriminate and vicious, but luckily, I can manage to out run him.

The inky night calls to me and I stand naked and alone in my quiet room. A calm begins to over take me as I don the uniform of my trade. It feels like winter, even if it isn't and thin, weak shafts of light pierce through the blinds like film noire. Between the slats I can see my arena of choice; the lamp-lit streets.

On goes the thick, long-sleeved top, the long running tights, the hat, the gloves, the buff and I am no longer me; clad in anonymous kit I will be a shadow, a flitting vision with no distinctive features as I pass strangers that are heavily covered in duck down and polyester. Out in to the cold and the dusk swallows me up. I am muscles and lungs, nothing else. My breath is visible; I can hear nothing but my long, slow exhalations and a bleep as the technology on my wrist is engaged and I begin the journey. I have no route or distance in mind. I will just go, somewhere, anywhere.

The whirl inside my head is spinning like a broken washing machine rocking on its foundations, but the rhythmic pounding of sole on pavement begins to steady it. The beauty of the run is that it stops the anger and frustration rising. I cannot be intense while I am moving. The problems of my day flit through my brain, but they cannot grab hold. I can't be mad at them. I may have felt the rising panic in my chest that day, struggled to control it, but I cannot panic when my focus shifts to the physical.

One foot in front of the other. Find the rhythm and the pace. Relaxing in to the movement, synchronising lungs and muscles, living in the pure movement . I search for fluidity, and if I am lucky I will begin to ooze through the streets. A primal instinct.

A bad day had begun much earlier. A rude awakening and slowly the weight had pressed down on me. Just the modern world, nothing tough. I'm not struggling for my life. I have food and a roof, I have nothing real to worry about. And for that I beat myself up more. I have no right to these feelings when others have it so much worse. My situation doesn't even register on the scale. And I wanted away from it all. I began to long for the run that I know is the solution.

The miles pass by, pavements flee from my feet, rows of houses silently move through my peripheral vision and I feel soothed. Maybe it is just tiredness, but the energy to be frustrated and angry has dissipated. And in fact, it's not tiredness, because I feel energised in most ways, despite the tired muscles.

Arriving home I wash the dirt and sweat away and feel cleansed in more ways than one. My mind is sated for now; reset button pressed.

I feel the quiet and enjoy it, until the next time.

Race Review: The Yorkshire Coast 10k, Scarborough. 3/11/13

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At the Spa,  Scarborough

The FSM's Own County

Last year the Scarborough "Yorkshire Coast" 10k battled it out with the Wetherby "A Cracking Little Yorkshire Run" 10k as my favourite race, so as you can imagine, I was really looking forward to this year. It never fails to amuse everyone to run a race sponsored by McCain. Yes, that McCain- as in frozen chips and you receive a money off coupon for them in your race pack. No, I am not joking.

Being from Yorkshire, Scarborough holds a special place in my heart. I have happy memories of family trips up the coast to sit in the old Ford Escort estate warming our freezing hands on cups of tea from a flask while we watched the rain lashing the windscreen. Then we'd wander up the front, huddled deep in to our waterproofs and stick £3 worth of 2p's in to a machine to win a plastic dinosaur and a Take That badge.
I fondly remember discovering the hologram museum on the front and being totally fascinated by it. Ahhhhh, more innocent times before iPads, blogs and playstations.

Scarborough is one of the proudest of Yorkshire towns, desperately clinging on to its former glory and it still retains plenty. Here's the Grade II listed Grand hotel under which we ran.

Although somewhat faded, it has a wonderful history and dominates the south bay. Moving along the front, the race route passes the grade II listed Rotunda museum of geology, and after the race we visited this little gem which has a couple of really amazing exhibits including a totally unique dinosaur skeleton!

But anyway, back to the race.

The race starts at the Spa, yet another grade II listed building and what a place to start! How many races can boast somewhere so luxurious to keep warm in before the kick off? The very efficient bag drop is also in the building along with free post and pre run massages.

And guess what? There are lots of toilets in the spa! Sadly, the main men's toilets had 2 of the 4 stalls out of order, but the queue didn't take too long and later I discovered another set of toilets that weren't busy at all.

Last year was the first year I had managed to run in Scarborough with a DNS the year before due to injury and I had really loved the experience of the race despite not running well. There is a large balcony area on top of the Spa where all the dignities gathered and also a band. I was beginning to think I dreamt  that the 2012 race was started by Perry Shakes-Drayton so I looked it up and thankfully all the blows I've taken to the head over the years haven't sent me totally wappy as she did. The band had been fantastic and warmed the crowd up better than any amount of bouncing about to dance music ever has at any other race. The top of the Spa looked like a really wonderful party.

This was at the end- You can tell by the yellow shirts

That's the balcony I mentioned- last year it was heaving with people having a great time.

This year the top of the Spa was a little more subdued and for some odd reason the band didn't really play much music. The bar had been set pretty high last year so although it was a slight disappointment, if you hadn't done last year's race you'd think it was perfect, but at least the sun was shining bright and the temperature couldn't have been better.

The race had expanded a little with 1500 signing up compared to 1200 last year which I think is the perfect amount. It's a very laid back affair so I was able to wander out only a few minutes before the hooter and still make my way very close to the start.

At the front the amazing paralympian Wondiye Fikre Indeldu was warming up. He has won a couple of the 10k's I have entered this year including York. I resisted the urge to try to get my photo taken with him as I didn't want to ruin his pre-race ritual.

Oddly, it felt like a long time since I had run in a 10k race, even though it was actually less than 2 months ago. The week after was the Great North run, then the Oslo marathon, then two weeks after that the Ian Hodgson mountain relay in which I suffered the injuries I am still battling with. My knee has not been right since and I have only been running once or twice a week for the last month. Still, I didn't think I would have lost much fitness so was going out aiming to break my 10k PB and come in under 39 minutes.

To start the race there was a countdown, then the mayor of Scarborough -no less- set us off and I went out fast. Maybe too fast.

If you'd been standing at the Rotunda with this view at race time you'd have seen the field running through here.

Suffering From Terrible Wind

The first kilometre went by at under 38 minute pace which I held until the 3rd k when it started to go wrong. We knew the wind was going to be a factor this year and it proved to be a big factor. As we left the south bay and rounded the headland we hit the cobbled stretch and were blasted in the face by the wind. At this point my lungs started to give me problems feeling like they were being scrubbed with a pan scourer. At times I had a metallic taste in my mouth. Not good.
Heading towards the north bay it felt good that I could still see the leaders not too far in front, but the gusting wind, although not gale force by any means, was sapping in strength and spirit. Still, I consoled myself with the thought that it would be at our backs on the way back. Little did I know....

By the time we hit the turn off for the little loop around the park, I was struggling and my pace was dropping off. The turnaround point is a little over halfway and I was really looking forward to some wind at my back, but bizarrely, it never materialised. At the point where the wind had been strongest on the way out at our faces, on the return leg....... it was at our faces again. I am at a loss to explain this! We got all of about 30 seconds with a gentle breeze at our backs the whole way despite the out-and-back route. Just before we turned off for the park the leaders flew past and I gave them a cheer and a clap.
As we made our way back to the start line I watched my pace slowing. I already knew there was going to be no PB on the day, so I focussed on keeping under 40 minutes, but by the time the headland came up again and the wind started to push me back, I knew even that was gone.

The race passed back through the busiest area of the seafront again and the crowds cheering gave a real boost, but not enough to make me go faster. Last year I had finished the final k pretty quickly but this year I had nothing in me. I plodded in with my slowest kilometre of the day not even bothering with a push towards the end; the PB was gone and even the sub 40 was gone by a long way. I had finished about 30 seconds quicker than last year, but I had thought myself in much better shape, and in wetherby I had gone 2.5 minutes quicker on a multi terrain race. So not a great time at all. Ah well, there's much more to the Scarborough 10k than a fast, flat PB course.

Crossing the line I suddenly felt nauseous as I had done at the same race last year. Maybe it's something to do with sea air?

Afterwards I really enjoyed what the race has to offer. The band were banging out what I believe the kids these days are calling "Cracking choons" and they launched into Fleetward Mac's "The chain" soon after I finished. (That's the formula one song if you don't know) I picked up my bottle of water and banana that helped take away the nausea and meant that I didn't have the indignity of heaving over the sea front.
We also managed to catch the last few people making their way down the finishing straight.

There's no medal for the race but you do receive a pen, and the best hi-viz shirt I've ever received, which isn't a huge compliment given my hatred of hi-viz, but I do like this shirt. Foot prints in the sand- perfect for Scarborough.

Now the delights of Scarborough lay before us to recover in. So we headed off to the calf vegan cafe as Rebecca has a bit of a thing for cows and is also a lapsed vegetarian.

 After a delicious meal we headed off to the Rotunda before crossing the Spa bridge to finish off a perfect racing day.