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Tuesday 2 December 2014

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















Sunday 19 October 2014

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Oh the humanity!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are my race splits....if you hadn't guessed. And if you hadn't guessed, get off my blog, you're drunk
After what seemed like days the contouring finally finished and I filled the bottle again at the stream in the bottom of the valley, before I looked up at the next horrific slope. My mind began to rebel "OH HELL NO! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE CRAZY!!"I looked around me. There had to be a way out. Where was the nearest road? Maybe I could flag down a truck driver?
As I trudged up this slope my thighs screamed and screamed. Several times I sat down and looked back on the field. I could see 20 or so runners. So many had passed me at this point that I began to wonder if I was looking at the back of the field. There was still at least 6 miles to go and I was utterly exhausted. I could only climb so many steps before needing to stop. I resorted to moments of walking on all fours, more than once I dropped to my knees and shuffled along for a few "steps" People were now starting to ask if I was alright, such was my obvious distress. "Yeah, just dying"
I decided I would drag out my packet of clif shot bloks. I far prefer them to energy gels as clif bloks taste like wine gums as opposed to liquid sugar. One lady of, let's say, advancing years, passed me looking like she was on a nice pleasant day out in the countryside rather than the middle of Hades as we clearly were. I decided to offer her a clif blok which she gratefully accepted and I felt good for a brief moment. But I knew I had to carry on at some point.
I managed to have a chat to a guy next to me who had given me some words of encouragement. Turns out he had done the lakeland 50 only a couple of weeks before and it heartened me to think I had kept up with him for a long way in this race.
As is traditional in fell racing, the route is in the shape of a noose.....

I haven't yet mentioned how wet we all were at this point. It's all very well wearing fancy, expensive raceshell running jackets, but nothing stops rain like that getting in and "breathable" material, isn't breathable, not really. Sweat soaks the inside and a lot of the time I was moving so slowly that I was getting cold.
Three times during the race I had to stop and empty an entire bog full of mud out of my shoes as well as enough gravel to cover a decent sized driveway. Each time I sat down I got soggier and soggier to the point my mind invented a new condition- Trench-bottom- and I wondered if you could die from it. It certainly felt like I was well on the way anyway.

Mummy, Mummy, please make it stop

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

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

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





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

The painful ending

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

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

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




Sunday 10 August 2014

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.

Sunday 20 July 2014

Race Review: The Ingleborough Fell Race 19/7/14

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All running pictures reproduced by kind permission of Debi Nicholson
The Ingleton Gala Field

Ingleborough, Baby

Only a few short years ago, before I took running up again, I was a walker/rambler/hiker/fashion-criminal (Have you SEEN walking get-up?) On several occasions during that time I was half-way up some FSM-forsaken mountain, covered head-to-toe in goretex, shivering from the cold, when a bunch of nutters would come running past us in shorts and vests. Slack-jawed, us walkers would gape at them as they sweated and grunted past and we would reflect on these seemingly mentally deranged people. A few years before that I had decided out of the blue that I would climb the highest mountain in England, Scafell pike. I set off with no gear and no idea, especially if the weather turned bad. As I toiled to the top in scorching weather I watched a young guy as he ran up to the top, back down and up again in the time I managed to reach about half-way up. When I mentioned the "nutter" to some other walkers also climbing the mountain, they said he was their mate and that he was a "fell runner". I instantly forgot the term and wouldn't hear it again for many more years until I started looking for an off-road running club.


Fast forward many years and I arrived at the Ingleton gala for the classic fell race up Ingleborough. Although I have done quite a few fell races since I joined Fellandale last year, Ingleborough is one of the big ones. I have walked up and down this mountain many times, and I know that it is not to be taken lightly, in fact, the last time I climbed it, the cloud came in very close leaving visibility at a minimum despite it being perfectly clear at the bottom. I then spent quite some time circling the summit before I found the right path down again. So I knew this would be tough, I knew this was a real fell race at nearly 7 miles in length and 2000ft to climb. I was actually nervous.

A Gala Atmosphere

I arrived a couple of hours early so I could enjoy the excellent Ingleton gala. Sadly the weather forecast was bad and I needed to don a waterproof jacket as I wandered around the stalls with Debi. The poor forecast no doubt was effecting the attendance at the gala, but everyone there was determined to have a good time. The MC was giving an hilariously Yorkshire commentary telling people to "get their hand out of their pockets and get spendin'" The highlight of the stalls for me was the raptors complete with all sorts of large and small owls.
I decided to forego an attempted at wanging a welly, although I was very tempted.
Unexpectedly I bumped in to Simon from Fellandale. I say it was unexpected as he was supposed to be with his other half in the lake district doing a mini-mountain orienteering challenge. Turns out they'd blown it off due to lack of sleep. I called him a few choice names as it seriously damaged my chances of full Runner of the Year (ROTY) points and closing the gap in the race for the trophy. My chances had already been badly dented by so many months of injury.
The route- Straight up then back down again. 
Back at the gala there was an amazing trial bike display by Ben Slinger which I thoroughly enjoyed and by the time the mountain race was due to start, bizarrely, it was held up by sheep dogs herding geese. You can't make this stuff up. Wish I'd taken a photo because I am not entirely sure I didn't dream it. 

As an AM race, the new FRA rules state that emergency kit had to be carried; the first time I have ever had to during a race. Cue much furtling around in bags and cupboards to ensure I had a full waterproof layer, compass, whistle, hat and gloves. Luckily I had already bought a bum bag to carry it in. Stupidly, I had never run in the bag before and had no idea how it would effect me. At least all my kit fitted comfortable in it and the bag has adjusters to pull it tight to eliminate any bounce.  I looked around at how the other runners were dealing with the kit issue and saw all sorts of different solutions, but the most popular one seemed to be the one I had adopted. Phew. On the shoe issue, however, I didn't seem to be with the consensus. I know the paths on Ingleborough pretty well, although not from the Ingleton side, so I was a little concerned to see so many runners in really aggressively-soled fell shoes when I had plumped for my Adidas kanadias. I wondered if this would prove a mistake.

A hot dog from the local badminton club and a cup of tea from the WI later and I was ready to start.



My first mistake was to be far too casual at the start and set off right at the back of the field. Although this did mean I got to have fun over-taking people rather than being over-taken.
Out of the gala field and there is a short run through the village until you hit the lower slopes of Ingleborough.
A little way along the road, I over-took Simon and  jokingly shouted, "Full runner of the year points for me!"
I meant this entirely as a joke as Simon has been much faster than me for quite a while now and I definitely didn't expect to finish in front of him.


In it for the Long Haul

As we hit the lower slopes I had a chance to consider the bag that I was wearing like a weird victorian bushel. It felt pretty comfortable. No bounce and it felt light - the super-light Innov8 racing jacket in there hadn't been cheap, the over trousers, however, were cheap as deep-fried potato slices, but it all felt ok.

I was smart enough to know that this race would be very far from a sprint, so I tip-toed the fine line between keeping moving swiftly and preserving energy for the tougher, upper slopes. A lot of other people obviously didn't have my strategy though as I began to pass a lot of people who I can only assume had gone off too fast.
Simon had over-taken me pretty soon after I had passed him, but to my surprise I moved back in front of him not too far in to the lower slopes.

As the gentle inclines became something a little more challenging the field began to spread out. Before long, almost everyone was walking. Oddly, this is where I have an advantage, I can hike up hill as fast as a lot of the runners can run up hill and can go faster than the people walking. I only mean this about the people running at around my speed, not the winners who obviously run the whole thing much quicker than me and don't stop to walk much, if at all. 
I had been expecting the burning, scouring feeling in my lungs that I was used to, but it wasn't happening. Although I felt tired I actually felt fine. The night before at the Washburn relay, 80% of my missing fitness suddenly came back like flicking a switch after months of tough training plodding along at a crawling pace. My newly rediscovered pace seemed to be continuing here. 

Amazingly, this graph shows that I went slowly up hill, then quite fast down hill. I know, I was shocked too
The path got steeper and steeper and my left gluteus maximus (arse muscle) felt like it had grown a full set of adult teeth and each and every one of them had tooth ache. I inched up the mountain bracing my self with my hands on my thighs. Before long the leaders came flying past us but I still had a fair way to go to the top before I'd have the sweet relief of the descent (although I was fully aware the relief wouldn't last too long before the descent would start to hurt too)


The path was now steps that were treacherously slippy and they began to feel like they would never end, but at last, I saw the marshal at the top next to a tiny cairn. I didn't have time to admire the view from the top before I plunged back down. This was in part due to the fact the visibility at the top was pretty poor from the drizzling rain.


Going Down

Descending the steps was tough; I was desperately trying to keep my feet whilst moving swiftly, but I felt like I was crawling along. In a couple of places there were grippy grass slopes that I manage to get some speed up on. We came up to a section of dark gravel that looked like a cinder path, only very steep. The leaders had flown down this section as I was coming up the steps next to it. I remembered thinking there was no way I would be doing that on the way down, but as I reached it, it felt like a much better plan than the steps so down I went. It actually turned out to be a good move and not too difficult to manoeuvre on. 
A couple of times I found some good routes and really felt like I was flying. It was all I could do not to give out a war cry or two, next time I probably will!

Getting back to the lower slopes the steepness evened out and I settled in for the path home. I actually felt pretty good, well until my nipples started to seriously complain about the heavy, wet club vest I was wearing and my thighs began to complain about all the down hill.
Many thanks to racingsnakes for this image and the last one


Eventually we popped back in to the village and I could see the runner in front of me. I was still feeling pretty good, sore nipples, thighs and feet aside, and I felt that I could move a lot faster. I debated for a while as to whether it was worth chasing the guy in front down, after all, it was only one place and I was in no danger of a high finish. But what the hell, I'm nothing if not competitive. I caught him at the edge of a car park and I could see the gala field. Simon had warned me about the steep, sharp slope that brings the runners back in to the field for the finish, thank goodness. 
I always find pulling a monkey-face helps when descending
I managed to negotiate the slope without making a tit of myself and even managed to sprint to the finish. 


Not too long afterwards Simon and Carl crossed the line.

It would be ungentlemanly of me to point out that Simon was beaten by his girlfriend. Again. So I won't.

Carl managed a fine sprint to out-run a much younger adversary
Afterwards, as ever, we enjoyed de-constructing our races in a way that would thoroughly bore anyone not seriously in to running. Then the prize giving gave out so many prizes down the positions that we began to wonder if we would get one, but that didn't quite happen. 
It had stopped raining a little way before I got to the bottom of the mountain and by the time I was tucking in to junk food the sun was shining gloriously. I bought a burger from the local cricket club and basked in my *cough*glory*cough*

Damage Report

Getting in to the shower after the race on the evening the water felt like acid as it hit my nipples. Too much info?
My feet had begun to feel mashed by the end of the race, pretty much like they had been stood on, but the next day they are fine, only a little soreness remains, much the same as my thighs.

So, I survived. Bring on the next one







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







Wednesday 16 July 2014

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

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All pictures reproduced by kind permission of Debi Nicholson
The start of the 2014 race. Photo courtesy of Debi Nicholson. (You can just spot me in my green Fellandale vest)

Cantering to Baildon

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

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

A Quick Catch-Up

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

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

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

Your Starter For 10

There really weren't that many more of us than 10 but at least the 46 runners were nearly twice as many as last year, apparently. 
A tiny megaphone wielded by a tiny lady set us off and we cantered around the sports field. I heard a couple of people mention that there were some narrow bits early on that you could get stuck at so I decided to go reasonably hard at the beginning to ensure I didn't get stuck.
Shortly we came to a road that marshals were holding the traffic back from and we got our first look upwards to the trig point on Hope Hill at 282m. Whilst it didn't appear to be any sort of a walk in the park, it wasn't intimidatingly high and I formulated my master plan: Take it easy(ish) and try to make it to the top still running. Masterful eh?
In front of me I could see the long steady climb across Baildon moor and I forced myself to be sensible as I was passed by a lady in a Pudsey vest and not chase her. The race bimbled along on a gentle incline and I continued to preserve energy for the climb.

As the path turned from gradual incline to something a little more energy-sapping I began to reel in a few runners and the Pudsey runner soon disappeared behind me. For no real reason I suddenly became determined to make it to the top without walking. I tried to adjust my pace accordingly for this new target and when the path flattened out again I dared to dream I would achieve my goal. The path took us around to the back of the peak of the hill and we looked up to the summit, it really wasn't very far, but it was pretty steep. 
As I made my way up it my legs began to feel the burn and I slowed to a fast hike. Damn it. At least my hike was as fast as the people around me that were still running. 
At the top of Hope hill a small party of marshals had gathered for their summer solstice festival and I assume that after the race had passed within half an hour they would be naked and sacrificing a hi-viz vest to the Gods of the fells, but don't quote me on that.

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

Being Beaten by a Girl

I had reached the top of the climb in a reasonable shape and now I could enjoy (Sort of) the descent. I generally descend more quickly that the people around me running a similar pace so I had reasonable hope of a good finish. After all, these were mainly road runners, surely I could get down a hill quicker than them, right?
Well, yes and no. I did mange to catch a few runners, especially the ones descending with no real confidence, those ones I flew past, but all the while I could hear a runner behind me, catching me up. I felt ok, but I knew that I didn't really have enough in me for a big finish so was pretty much resigned to the fact I would be over taken by who ever it was.
As it turned out it was the second placed lady, Emma Stoney from Baildon runners and she was catching me at a rate of knots. I decided I would try a tactic on her that has worked once or twice- wait until there are a couple of hundred metres left, suddenly sprint and see if she would give up. 
Yeah, it didn't really happen. As we entered the final field to complete the race by running two sides of it, she put on her sprint first, I tried to respond knowing I wouldn't be able to keep up that sprint for the 150 or so metres left, she'd have to give for me to beat her. In the end, just as we turned the final corner and looked towards the finish, she came flying past me travelling at about twice my speed, I couldn't help but laugh out loud and I immediately gave up and slowed down- the only way I would have beaten her is if I'd tripped her up. My giving up had a very strange impact on the crowd though- they gave me a big boo!! Which just made me laugh all the more. 
Photo by Debi Nicholson

Above is Emma already a fair way in front of me despite having only just passed me. Her sprint finish was truly impressive.
So in I trotted in 14th place out of 46 runners. Looking at the winning time I felt a little pang of regret knowing that in September last year I would have been pretty close to that time. Ah well, there is always next year.

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

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