You are three Skyrac runners at a fellrace you have never run before (Barnoldswick Weets) and since it is sheeting down with rain on a mid-summer June evening you are sheltering in the car discussing 20:20 cricket. It is 5 minutes to the start and you suddenly notice every one has disappeared so you all leap out of the car and half a mile away on the top of a hill you can see runners. You sprint off in their general direction but do not really know how to get near them. You choose the wrong lane and start powering up a steep hill and then realise you are on the wrong track so with some guilt you clamber over two dry stone walls after running through wet, knee high, grass and panting you finally reach the runners to be calmly told the start line is at the bottom of the hill you have just raced up and just a few hundred yards from where you chose the wrong lane.

You race down the hill to see every other entrant on the start line raring to go. You start to take excess clothing off and tie your shoe laces while the starter explains to the gathered crowd that somehow even after 20+ years of fell running you are "new to the game" and he then shouts "Go!". You have had your adrenaline surge in getting to the line in panic and so you now experience the consequential dip as runners surge past you.

It is pouring with rain and you find yourself near the back of the field with runners who have never beaten you in their lives thinking that Christmas has come early. You dig in and haul them back one by one crushing their dreams but then find your hastily tied shoe lace has come undone so you plod to the line trying not to trip over your flailing shoe lace while runners re-pass you.

You finish and then have a good laugh with your chums. Fellrunning? There is nothing like it. After all, it isn't cricket.