Stolly's Running Adventures

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Originally Posted by lantern rouge

How do you find the solo, headtorch experience?

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I really enjoy running at night on my own - I'm not worried about the dark, or missing a turn and getting lost (obviously I tend to go on runs I know like the back of my hand anyway) but there is one thing I'm very wary of......

frigging cows.

At night cows seem to be annoyingly (scaryly) inquisitive and seeing 20 green eyed cows trotting after to you as you run through 'their' field is a bit disconcerting. I think night runners in the Lakes have it easy to be honest; if they start their run at the fell gate then they can be almost certainly sure that their run will be cowless - not the case in these here parts though :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Derby Tup

An absolute Dales' classic route. There's free car parking by the cricket club by Bolton Bridge and you then get to approach the priory ruins by running along the river. I love the Strid Woods - great for hilly interval running

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Yep - quite agree; a classic run! :) There's also free parking just on the other side of Barden tower/bridge (...though in Summer and nice day's you need to get there early - mind has added advantage there's an ice cream van there during summer weekends!)

My variant on your route starts from Barden, follows your same route up to Simon's, down through Valley of Des but when you get to gate just above Bolton abbey/Cavendish, turn right, don't cross river, stay on rhs; there's a undulating (!...some Undulates are quite steep!) path this side of the river too; follow all way back to Barden Bridge.

Great route description Stolly - pictures are excellent! :)

Just used your pic of Simon' Seat as by desktop background - great shot!
Next run for me up the Dales will be Fri 8th Feb - give us a shout if you are out for a trot.

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Originally Posted by Ady In Accy

Just used your pic of Simon' Seat as by desktop background - great shot!
Next run for me up the Dales will be Fri 8th Feb - give us a shout if you are out for a trot.

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Its not my shot :) - instead I spend ages scouring the internet for supporting pictures. Running with a camera will make the whole thing far too professional and would in any event cock up my runs. And of course I'd sooner or later bust the camera.

I'm pretty sure I can't make that day Ady as I'm Edale Skyline recceing on the following Friday and am up to my neck in muck and bullets at work.

30th January 2008 – Attermire Scar Cave ‘Bat’ Run – 4 miles and maybe 650 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

After using my guaranteed, never let me down yet, frozen bag of peas cure all on my left knee for the past two evenings while slumped watching TV, I woke up this morning and felt like I and my knee were up for a run. So at twenty past six, I donned my head lamp, went out the front door, into Settle market square and straight up the main hillside towards Attermire Scar. The weather was coldish, clear and completely perfect.

Once up on the ridge I followed the path towards what we (me and my daughter) call the ‘cave of doom’, just before Attermire Scar I guess. The rock formations up here are really weird and wonderous but that said it was completely dark and I couldn’t make out anything other than dark, ominous shadows looming over me. It sure is lonely up there in the dark at this time of morning and, after a while, my ears started playing tricks on me. My footfalls seemed to have an echo at times and, although the ground was quite grassy, I seemed to be hearing mud squelching noises too such that once or twice I actually stopped and panned my light around me….. just in case :rolleyes: . Running past the cave (of doooooom), my turn point, didn’t make me feel much better either nor the scuffling hoof thumping sounds coming from the other side of a dry stone wall (a sheep maybe?).

You have to laugh though; I guess having restricted vision enhances all the sounds around you and then your imagination just takes over. I did feel very brave though as I trotted back into town, totally uneaten by monsters. About 35 minutes there and back and a great kick start to the day.

2nd February 2008 – Pen y Ghent, Plover Hill, Hull Pot and Long Mires – 12 miles and maybe 1850 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route (well if things had gone to plan)

Saturday morning at 8:30, looking out the back window at home and it was just like a scene from a Christmas card; the back garden had a good dusting of snow, as did all the hills, and a fair waft of snow was slowly spiralling down. Bish, bosh and I was out of the door and on my way to Horton to do a new route over Pen y Ghent.

I planned to run up the right hand side of PyG and then (a bit I’d never done before) continue north to Plover Hill, down the other side, back round south westerly eventually to Hull Pot before scooting off at a tangent on the Miner’s path in the direction of Ribblehead and then, when I reached the Pennine way at Long Mires, turn sharp left and follow that back to Horton. It should have been a sinch……. but of course didn't turn out that way!

To give the run an edge, I had ‘memorised’ my map for the Plover Hill ‘new bit’ rather than take it along with me – this might sound daft in the cold light of day but all I had to do was follow a wall – I mean how hard can it be….. in the snow…..in what turned out to be blizzard conditions?

Anyway off I trotted from Horton car park with the scene so beautiful on the lane to Brackenbottom that I just had to stop, get out my paint, brushes and easel and rattle off a picture:

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/l...wintersday.jpg

It was still snowing strongly for much of the climb to the final style up PyG but did finally stop, with the sun even popping out, just before I got to the stile. This is just below the two shoulders of PyG and, on going over the stile the wind, which had been nothing much at all until this point, suddenly turned into a jetstream with the powdered snow blowing about to almost whiteout proportions. I don’t think it was actually snowing but it was hard to tell..... with all the snow blowing about!

Where the snow had only been 3 or 4 inches deep before, it was suddenly double that here and even deeper in drifts. Near the top of the second shoulder the boulders were totally frosted with ice, 'well hung' with icicles and under the snowy track there was a lot of covered ice too, spookily cracking and creaking as I pounded over. Anyway I chugged up to the PyG trig point after 40 minutes (in normal conditions I can get there in 33.5) and disappeared into the gloom in the direction of Plover Hill. Never to be seen again?

Plover Hill is about a mile and three-quarters north east of the Pen y Ghent summit and, from my yellow (crusty old) OS Outdoor Leisure 2 map, the path I needed followed the wall on my left. Unfortunately I couldn’t see any path beside the wall, where the ground was totally covered in 3 feet deep snow drifts, but I could vaguely make out a farmer’s quad bike track sort of going in the right direction, albeit away from the wall. I followed this for a while until it led me to a gate in another wall crossing my path – there was a gate but this was strangely bolted which didn’t seem right. My quad bike trail now went further to my right, further away from my guiding wall and which soon fell completely out of sight in the clag and wind blown snow. And then my quad bike track chose to come to an abrupt end too – presumably at the point that the farmer was beamed up by aliens!

I couldn't see far enough to get any bearings but the ground was gradually rising so I guessed that I was going up a hill…… and the only hill it could be was Plover Hill, so I bashed on through increasingly deep snow. The ground was tussocky grass and heather although really only the tips were visible above the snow. It became bloody difficult to run on and in places all I could do was wade through the snow which came up to my knees. Eventually I gave up wading through snow in the open fell and turned to my left, found my wall after 300 yards or so, and waded through even deeper snow beside that :rolleyes: . After much longer than I was expecting, I finally hit a wall I was hoping to find, putting a T on the top of the flipping wall I’d been following. But oddly here there was no gap in the wall where there was supposed to be. Huh? On the other side though there was a stile for a path heading to my left.

This path, assuming of course it was the right one, I remembered had appeared on my OS map and was my ‘opt out’ if things got tricky but why the heck was it the other side of the wall and why did my (non-existent) path not go through the wall to get to it? Anyway, after recceing further to my right for a bit, I returned and decided to hop over the wall and take my opt out route down the side of the hill (feeling slightly hopeful that I was actually where I thought I was). Immediately I crossed the wall I was open to the jetstream wind again, it was suddenly snowing very heavily and straight into me head on, like being blasted with ice pellets. I wasn’t cold or anything (in fact I was hot from my exertions) but running into this blizzard completely covered the front of me in sticky snow, really hurt my face and eyes and made seeing anything much at all quite difficult.

All the same after a while, and after dropping down out of the worst of the conditions, I realised I was on the right path and eventually hit the track I wanted coming from the right at the bottom of this steepish descent. It didn’t come from the exact direction I'd expected so I recce’d to my right to make certain before cutting back and following this path, which I now knew would take me to Hull Pot. An old wooden sign saying “CAUTION DEEP BOGS” reassured me that I was going in the right direction :D.

I soon hit Hull Pot and, although I’d earlier been contemplating taking the direct route from here back to Horton, providing I managed to survive, I was feeling on top of my game again and stuck to my original plan and headed off towards Long Mires. There was alot of snow and ice, and ice covered bog, but the path was now easy to follow and I reached the Pennine Way at Long Mires before long and started following that back. It was here that I met the only other souls out and about, a couple running with their black Labrador, and I followed their tracks all the way back to Horton to finish after 2 hours and 14 minutes. The sun now came out and it felt almost alpine on this last run down into Horton, with a fabulous view of the patchwork of white undulating fields in Ribblesdale spread out before me - mind you Pen y Ghent was still only just visible with what looked like a snow cloud crawling up and over its right hand shoulder. A great run then wth a dodgy moment or two to add some spice to it. I was also incredibly slow when you compare it to my 68 minute 10 miler road run on Thursday night! Just shows what a few hills, a bit of snow and wind added to over confident navigation 'skills' can do.

Oh and when I got home I found out where I went wrong on Plover Hill – the path I needed was actually on the left of the wall not the right. Doh! That said this was not at all obvious on my 1:25,000 scale map but was on another, an Altos 7 Explorer ‘The Three Peaks’ 1:50,000 map, which of course I hadn’t looked at prior to the off!

I cannot believe I've waded through 5 pages of Stolly's thread, but still no shots of his daughters!!.. :-P

Good one Stolly, the oils did well not to run given the conditions :)
I have a route planned over Plover hill I am hoping to get in within the next few weeks, takes you over to Halton Gill in Littondale, Beckermonds in Langsrothdale, then follows the track/path through Greenfield and down past Sell gill and down to Horton in Ribblesdale. Around 17 miles ish.

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Originally Posted by AllanT

I cannot believe I've waded through 5 pages of Stolly's thread, but still no shots of his daughters!!.. :-P

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Don't think I've ever used the term LOL on the forum but today it's appropriate! Allan T you made me laugh out loud:D

...This is more like it as I found it an interesting and amusing read. I will use a little more time to take it all in...

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Originally Posted by AllanT

I cannot believe I've waded through 5 pages of Stolly's thread, but still no shots of his daughters!!.. :-P

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Edited - you were right, my original reply was a big mistake!

LOL your reply had me in stitches - I was expecting some sort of warning away!!

Eldest.. Wow, what can I say!!! Gorgeous!!

Youngest - I see she is getting her full on fell gurning training! Does she take after her Dad? Doing well at the running I hope??

Enjoying the thread too, and some great photographs (I meant of the fells and not just your eldest!! :D

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Originally Posted by AllanT

LOL your reply had me in stitches - I was expecting some sort of warning away!!

Eldest.. Wow, what can I say!!! Gorgeous!!

Youngest - I see she is getting her full on fell gurning training! Does she take after her Dad? Doing well at the running I hope??

Enjoying the thread too, and some great photographs (I meant of the fells and not just your eldest!! :D

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Nice comeback Stolly, seen pictures of you at Old Lang Syne, your daughters don't get their good looks off you, lets see your wife, or mistress;)

11th February 2008 - Ingleborough and Whernside from Ingleton - 15.25 miles and 3500 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

This week our best cat 'in the world' Sam was run over and killed, leaving me completely and utterly heartbroken. So come Saturday morning I really needed to good run to lift my soul and get back my cheery outlook on life. And this run on such a beautiful day really, really helped.

At 8:30 I parked outside the Wheatsheaf pub in Ingleton - a pub I once feinted from heat exhaustion in after a 'really educational' first run ever of the 3P on a boiling hot day, culminating in a wrong turn off Ingleborough and an infamous Ingleton finish - and was off up the lane towards Ingleborough. I soon branched off of what is the Hawes road out of Ingleton and was hacking up the main track. This is a good start to a run in that its straight away steep and it soon got me puffing and warmed up, on what was a chilly but sunny day. The view of Ingleborough before me:

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7...boroughpo3.jpg

The ascent is all runnable right to the top, although I was running sort of on all fours as I crested onto the plateau after 45 minutes. Once up here though an absolutely stunning panorama opened up around me. To my right I could see Pen y Ghent and Plover Hill, backed and slightly silhouetted by a low sun, and then, panning round to my left over what seemed liked endless rolling hills disappearing into the horizon before me, my view passed over a tiny Ribblehead Viaduct in the distance, looking like a brilliant accessory to a giant's train set, and then Whernside with the big ridge behind that with trig points called Gragoreth (how Lord of the Rings is that?) and Great Coum.

After that it was down the other side of Ingleborough towards Whernside; the steep drop off was pretty impossible to run due to the jagged steps there but I was soon running quite fast over the slabbed path and the boggy ground beside it heading down to Chapel le Dale.

From there it all became up hill again with a great ascent all the way to the trig point and wind shelter on the top of Whernside, again all runnable...... just. Amazingly there was still some snow up here with the windshelter itself filled with a 3 foot deep, icey snow drift. I hit this second peak, now just over 8 miles into my run, after 1 hour and 54 minutes and could be forgiven for thinking the hard bit was over; I now just needed to follow the wall back to Ewes Top, zip down past Beezely Falls and that side of the Ingleton Waterfall Walk and Robert's your father's brother.

But this wall is the longest wall in Christendom and following it became a never ending, undulating bog fest and no matter how far I had travelled I could still see the wall continuing endlessly before me. After maybe 2 or 3 miles the wall was still going on (and on) but the grassy moor around me now had large glacier deposited (I guess) boulders parked here and there, almost like standing stones of some ancient religeous cult; on a claggy, mizzlely day they would have been downright spooky. After another mile or two, with the wall still going strong :rolleyes: the ground turned into a badly laid limestrone pavement (kind of similar to the one on the top of Malham Cove) which made running and hopping a bit more dicey. Looking back to Whernside:

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/3...ernsidean8.jpg

Anyway I eventually hit Ewes Top after running parallel to 'that wall' for getting on for 4.5 miles and dropped down towards Beezely Falls. This is the Ingleton Waterfall Walk which, if you park in the official car park and pay the official £4.50, comes out of Ingleton following Kingsdale Beck, past on the right day some brilliant waterfalls including Thornton Force, cuts across the top to Beezely Falls following the River Doe and it's waterfalls back down. Very scenic but very touristofied, with concrete steps and (with kids in tow) much needed safety rails and whatnot.

I finally chugged, now quite wearily, into Ingleton and up to the Wheatsheaf for a finish, taking 3 hours and 2 minutes to get round. A completely awesome run though.

Good route descriptions and photos on this thread Stolly. But I can't believe you've indulged Alan T with photos of your daughter!! He's probably on the boat right now trying to seek her out!!

Don't give out her address for God's sake.

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Originally Posted by Also Ran

Good route descriptions and photos on this thread Stolly. But I can't believe you've indulged Alan T with photos of your daughter!! He's probably on the boat right now trying to seek her out!!

Don't give out her address for God's sake.

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Point taken Also Ran

You need to read some of Alan T's previous post's re his exploits - you will note that David has never posted pictures of his nearest and dearest.

Actual Races!

In case you’re wondering whether I’m actually running any races at all this year, my somewhat picky race season kicks off with the Half Tour of Pendle in March. I went through my highlighted FRA calendar this morning and reckon on running:

March: Half tour of Pendle and Edale Skyline
April: Coniston 14 (road :eek: ) and 3 Peaks
May: Fairfield Horseshoe and maybe Helvellyn
June: Pen y Ghent (or Wharfedale offroad marathon) and Settle Hills
July: Skiddaw and Stirton
August: Borrowdale
September: Ben Nevis and Three Shires
October: Langdale Horseshoe
November: Full Tour of Pendle
December: Auld Lang Syne

July and August I’ll mainly have to play by ear because our holiday plans haven’t yet been sorted but, either way, I should be running 16 races or so.

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Originally Posted by Also Ran

You need to read some of Alan T's previous post's re his exploits - you will note that David has never posted pictures of his nearest and dearest.

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Old spoilsport!!!...

Don't worry, I am too busy chasing someone else a little bit geographically closer at the moment though!!.. :-P

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Originally Posted by Also Ran

You need to read some of Alan T's previous post's re his exploits - you will note that David has never posted pictures of his nearest and dearest.

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Too right :D.

Well, this has to be one of the best threads going and must take a bit of time to keep updated... good on yer.

After your recommendation, tried the headtorch for the first time this morning (left the house at 6) and did a few miles before it was what you could call light. It's certainly a different view on terrain that you are otherwise familiar with.

Is it just my wonky eyes, or do things look a bit 2 dimensional?

Had a few stumbles, but generally very enjoyable and had Macc Forest (plus the Wildboarclough side of Shutlingsloe) all to myself.

I'd arranged to take next door's black labarador (my usual running partner), and it was a bit weird helping myself to her knowing they were all still in bed. I had arranged it beforehand, but it is still a bit odd.:eek:

Thoroughly recommend it though... the place gradually getting lighter is as beautiful as it is as it gets dark:D

Keep up the log Stolly.

15th February 2008 - Edale Skyline Recce - 19.5 miles and 3700 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

So at 9:30 yesterday morning the recce crew of me, Colin, Paul, Linda, Helen and Hilary meet at Mam Nick car park just below the summit of Mam Tor for our Edale Skyline circuit. I'd arrived early and had already driven over the ridge and into the Edale valley, which is really stunning even on an overcast chilly morning.

Although the actual Skyline race starts with an ascent of Ringing Roger out of Edale itself, we were starting at the race half way point at Mam Nick; this provided a nice advantage of starting from pretty high up the ridge. It also meant that we could recce what turned out to be the least navigation friendly part of the course first. I didn't want to damage my pristine Edale lakesrunner map so I just totally depended on the others to get me round; Colin (Swoop) and Hilary in particular seemed to know each rock, track, trod and foible of the route extremely well with the others more than familiar too so I was in safe hands.

I've knocked up a Stolly Map (patent pending) of the route to help me describe where we went:

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4918/edalemapxi5.jpg

PM me if you want to buy a copy; I'm sure it will satisfy the race organisers on the day :D.

Sector A - Bog Corner

We started off at Mam Nick running clockwise almost on the ridge line from the off and, to begin with, the path was easy going and straightforward. Beyond Lord's Seat though there is supposedly a short cut and Linda and I set off following a trod which we thought might be it, whilst the others set off in what seemed a huge tangent to our left. They soon disappeared from our view..... as did inevitably the trod we were following. After persevering over tussocky grass and heather in what we guessed was the right direction, our small 'short cut' party decided to cut our losses and find the others which thankfully we managed to do by hacking off to our left.

From here on the ground became incredibly boggy in places; fantastically so in fact. I imagine that in the race itself the field will be quite spread out by this point and, if the bogs are still in fine fettle, all sorts of carnage will ensue. It was here that Helen got stuck in a bog with just Swoop hanging onto to her, a bit like (well not at all like actually) Sylvester Stallone gripping onto the doomed girl at the start of Cliffhanger! Fortunately Swoop's grip held fast and we didn't lose Helen. When we got to the trig at Brown Knoll, the trig point itself was surrounded by a sucking bog although I did make it across to touch it, as you have to with all trig points and cairns.... for it to count :rolleyes:

Sector B

It was still boggy here too but the terrain became more rocky with the paths sometimes easy to follow and at other times not. We looped round, turning into a now biting wind, to the summit of Grindslow Knoll and then cut back on ourselves north to continue following the ridge line. Swoop sniffed out a little short cut here just beyond crossing a small gulley which was well worth knowing and we headed on towards Ringing Roger.

Sector C

After Ringing Roger summit, Helen, Linda and Hilary buggered off down to Edale to eat cake (having only been with us for the lightweights tour) leaving us three men to forge on. The ground here is very broken and slightly down hill making for one or two dodgy moments but nothing to worry about on the bog front. Paul took a nose dive (literally) along here but luckily landed on his head! Actually he cut his top gum pretty badly with some real blood pouring from his mouth but it all added to the fun and occasion. We eventually dropped down from the moorland into pleasant fields, fast running beside a wooded hillside and what had been to this point a tricky route to follow all opened up with some stunning views over the Edale Valley to our right:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/1...toedaleen8.jpg

Sector D

A nice run into the wind to the top of Win Hill before dropping down a great descent all the way to the valley floor into Hope with now the biggest climb of the route before us up cleverly named Lose Hill. Once on the top, all that was left to do was a fabulous finish, running the ridge line or just below it all the way to Mam Tor - from the other side of the valley this ridge had looked challenging but in actual fact it was really good going, apart from the face freezing head on wind going up the last half mile onto Mam Tor. Then down to the car park for the finish. 19.5 miles and 4 hours 52. I'm none the wiser as to how fast I will run the race itself - I'm guessing 4 hours 20 as a target - but I'm damn glad I came on the recce as there are just so many places to go wrong, all in the part of the race where you're most likely to be spread out or alone too.

Thanks very much for the company too fellow recce-ers, with speacial thanks to Colin and his incredibly detailed insights to the route.

16th February 2008 - Settle, Attermire Scar and around the top of Langcliffe Loop - 6 Miles and about 950 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

Well after Friday's Edale run, my left knee ballooned up and my right achilles ached too and it was frozen pea bags all round on Friday evening. I awoke a couple of times in the night too and both my knee and achilles really hurt trying to stagger down stairs to get a drink. Anyway so long as I didn't run on Saturday they'd be fine............

Accept that Saturday afternoon my bleeding elder daughter turns up, out of the blue, with her running stuff and demands a run! Another troubling sign was that she has been triathlon training alot in the last couple of months and looked set up to try and run me into the ground :( .

The run we went on is my standard Sunday morninger and, sure enough, in the fields crossing over to Brockhole Lane and then on the climb up towards Lodge Farm, Kelly stormed ahead while I was left in the dust, trying vainly to get my legs going. I eventually caught up with her going up the Pennine Bridleway but that may have been her feeling sorry for me, rather than anything else. The climb though had done me good and my legs were starting to feel in working order again despite the aches and pains.

When we reached High Hill Lane, we climbed the gate opposite and followed the path to our right, skirting the right hand flank of High Hill itself and then to the left of a little hillock, Sugar Loaf Hill, before dropping down to the bottom of Attermire Scar. I trounced Kelly on this descent and started to make her now struggle in turn on the track through the scar, up towards Jubilee Cave. We then had a quick breather while I showed her the tourist non-event that is Jubilee Cave before crossing down through the field opposite in the direction of Langcliffe.

From this field on such a lovely sunny day you get the most perfect view of Pen y Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside altogether in the one shot. In fact short of standing on the summit of one of them, I don't know of another vantage point where you can see all three on the same horizon. Anyway, enough of that, there was a race on and, again on this descent, I stormed ahead. At the bottom here all that was left to do was traverse around the side of the hill for a mile or so, following the footpath before dropping down into Settle. It was all getting very competitive now but my superior fell shoe grip was winning the day and I added salt to the wound on the descent into Settle. Eat dirt, loser :cool:

Kelly then proceeded to change up a couple of gears on the road and flat, cruise past me and got to the finish at a sprint, with me chugging in a couple of hundred yards behind her :mad:

On the positive side it removed all my aches and pains and my legs feel fine now. 1 hour and 3 minutes on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

From this field on such a lovely sunny day you get the most perfect view of Pen y Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside altogether in the one shot. In fact short of standing on the summit of one of them, I don't know of another vantage point where you can see all three on the same horizon.

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On a clear day I can see all three nestling beyond Pendle on my regular runs over Bull Hill in Rossendale but my favourite view of them is from the summit of Buckden Pike.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

From this field on such a lovely sunny day you get the most perfect view of Pen y Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside altogether in the one shot. In fact short of standing on the summit of one of them, I don't know of another vantage point where you can see all three on the same horizon. .

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Coming down off Tatham fell to Bentham gives you (IMO) the best view of the fells all lined up - Casterton, Leck, Gragareth, Whernside, Ingleborough & Pen-Y-Ghent.

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Originally Posted by Ady In Accy

Coming down off Tatham fell to Bentham gives you (IMO) the best view of the fells all lined up - Casterton, Leck, Gragareth, Whernside, Ingleborough & Pen-Y-Ghent.

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Yeah thinking about it Ady you'd get fantastic views from that side of the A65; bear with me as I've never run there (yet) and have only driven that way once or twice.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

15th February 2008 - Edale Skyline Recce - 19.5 miles and 3700 ft of Climb
After Ringing Roger summit, Helen, Linda and Hilary buggered off down to Edale to eat cake (having only been with us for the lightweights tour) leaving us three men to forge on.

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And mighty fine cake it was too :D :D

Forgot to say I read this thread - normally at work (like now) whilst wishing I was out running. Love the pics :)

20th February 2008 - Half Tour of Pendle Bat Run - 9.25 miles and 2250 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

So tonight 5 of us, including myself, Trundler, Hopey and Wheezing Donkey from the forum and another bod (whoops I've had a temporary memory failure and forgotten his name :o ), set off on a headtorch recce of the Half Tour of Pendle race route. To be honest to call it a recce is misleading in that I won't remember it for the race itself at all...... unless of course its very, very dark on race day. It was a really enjoyable run all the same.

As is usual for me, all of the others were miles more familiar with Pendle than I was, with Trundler and Wheezing Donkey pretty much knowing every rock, bog and tussock.

We set off taking it nice and steady for the first two miles, climbing up the side of Pendle to the trig point above Big End and then on a further 300 yards to our turning point at the wall. We then took a slight detour from the usual race route and followed the wall south westerly rather the boggier and harder to find racing line - our trod was icey in places and, although it wasn't that muddy, Wheezing Donkey kindly located a deepish bog for the team to avoid....by running head long into it :D.

All in all this next four miles were really comfortable going, particularly in a recce 'troupe', with an easyish path to follow and it all being gradually down hill. Trundler as pathfinder here also set a cracking pace for us all to keep up with. We eventually hit the Nick of Pendle and turned easterly down to Churn Clough Resevoir before climbing again up to Spence Moor. Then along the top before reaching the super 400 feet, steep (well almost vertical) descent that we all took nice and sensible in the dark. Three of us got to the bottom well before the other two and it was really weird to look back up the hill and see their headtorch lights gradually coming down the slope towards us.

After that the final mile and a half zoomed by, with a small climb followed by a fast run in through several grassy and/or muddy fields to our finish in Barley. No records set with a total run time of around 2 hours 20 but a really good chilled out run in the dark.

The route profile

I had to dash off at the end, while the others made for the pub, largely because I hadn't accurately communicated with my wife that a) I was going for a run b) that it would be up Pendle and c) that it would take so long. Needless to say I met a Nora Batty version of the Missus when I got home.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

I had to dash off at the end, while the others made for the pub, largely because I hadn't accurately communicated with my wife that a) I was going for a run b) that it would be up Pendle and c) that it would take so long. Needless to say I met a Nora Batty version of the Missus when I got home.

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That cracked me up, genius :D :D

Stolly, No. 5 was Andy Farmer - Fiendsdale Race organiser. My better half made me wash out my 3/4 tights, by hand, before she would allow them in her precious machine. They were totally covered in very wet peat - I went in right up to the waist!:rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wheezing donkey

Stolly, No. 5 was Andy Farmer - Fiendsdale Race organiser. My better half made me wash out my 3/4 tights, by hand, before she would allow them in her precious machine. They were totally covered in very wet peat - I went in right up to the waist!:rolleyes:

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Thanks WD and sorry Andy for my ant sized memory :)

23rd February 2008 - the 3 Peaks - 24.8 miles and 5200 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

Having run around the 3 peaks in January in crap weather, what better than to run around in February in even crapper weather :D , albeit this time with some company, Will (Mudlugger from the forum). Will is in the race for April, but hadn't been round the route before, so recce-ing on such a god awful day could have gone one or two ways - either giving him a near death experience and utterly draining his enthusiasm for the race........... or giving him a near death experience and motivating him, having survived ("it can't be as bad as this next time") ;)

When we started off the weather wasn't too bad - it was just raining with Pen y Ghent completely invisible in the low cloud. We ran up to Brackenbottom and then commenced our first climb up through the fields, taking it steady away from the start. Nearing the top stile, before the shoulders of PyG, as usual the wind kicked in big style, blowing the clag in swirls around us but not clearing it; pretty soon the vibility was awful, the rain driving and the wind ferocious as we fought our way up and over the shoulders and ran, with the wind now side on to us, for the trig point at 40 minutes. There's nothing like feeling already weather mangled, knowing that, if you can hack it, you still have in excess of 4 hours of this to go with two mountains in between!

Crossing the wall, the wind then became head on and worse, if that is possible, as we commenced our descent, thinking that maybe if we can just get lower down the wind will drop and the clag dissipate a little. The descent was fantastic though, regardless of the weather, with plenty of mud and water to trash through all the way down to Hull Pot:

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7...ghent04io0.jpg

Well it was a bit like that accept that Hull Pot Beck was pouring a huge waterfall into it and there was no other bugger, apart from us, about.

Then we continued our moor and bog crossing more or less in the direction of High Birkwith, all the time hoping that the weather would leave us alone; the wind was still strong and the clag all around and it wasn't a day to not know where you were going. God knows what Will was thinking, putting his trust in me (of all people), navigating through bogs and mires and never being able to see more than 50 metres in any direction. The mud was so horrendous too... but brilliant at the same time.

Anyway we finally hit the bog standard 3 peaks route, having left the moor behind, and started to over take walkers as we crossed the farmland now with (had we been able to see anything) Ribblehead and Whernside ahead. We were now much lower but the wind and rain had followed us down and showed no inclination to stop either, even when we hit the road and trotted over to Ribblehead. Here I pointed out where checkpoint 2 would be on the day, something like 12 miles into the race, which we reached in 1 hour 56 minutes. Ribblehead was our first 'bottle it' point of the day but, after a quick (and chilling) food stop we continued on. We didn't follow the completely vertical race route up the side of Whernside but instead took the steady (but 2 mile longer) walking path that looped around.

Where our path took us over a bridge, itself overlooking the Settle to Carlisle railway, we came across the chap stood patiently (in the wind driven rain) with his tripod set up presumably to get a cloud and mist obscured photo of the next train coming down the line; never mind Darwin Dashers and their extreme ironing - the was the real McCoy "Extreme Trainspotting" :D

Our path now was ultra exposed to the elements but we forged on, hoping that the wall that runs along the Whernside summit would offer some protection as we ran parallel to it when we got up there. Again it was socked in clag, rain and wind all the way up and, no, the wall didn't offer any protection at all. It would have needed to be 7 feet tall (well probably 5 ft 7 actually) to stop what was now a howling right to left wind (with the cliff like drop off on our left) and it wasn't. We sensibly decided not to stop at the trig at all and just bash on.

The descent to Chapel le Dale went without too much trouble and although the wind didn't let up, we did eventually get below the clag which was something. We both felt in pretty good nick too with no cramp so it was straight up Ingleborough, which I thought we did in fine style. The wind, clag and visibility was awful of course but we wouldn't have had it any other way by now and we were starting to feel in reach of the finish.

That said we still had a five mile run in to Horton, a run in I'd never ever previously enjoyed one bit. But for whatever reason it was fantastic and I'd never felt so good going down it. We positively skipped over the boulders that litter the first two miles and splashed through the mud and limestone slabs of the last three to finish in Horton car park in 4 hours and 59 minutes. A great, great run............. in fcuking rough weather.

Thanks for the great company Will - its a shame that we didn't see a glimpse of any of the peaks as we ran up them but maybe things will be better (they couldn't be worse) on race day.

Our split times:

Pen Y Ghent: 40 minutes
Ribblehead: 1 hour 56
Whernside: 2 hours 56
Chapel le Dale: 3 hours 28
Ingleborough: 4 hours 11
Horton: 4 hours 59

First time I have looked at this site - I'm sure we all like reading about what we like doing - great pictures as well although you admit none of them are yours;) Keep up the good work.

Also like looking at IanR's blog (or and his other half) for the great pics too link below.

http://sarzmountainrun.blogspot.com/

Race #3

27th February 2008 – Sharp Haw Owl Race – 4.75 miles and 1000 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

Arriving for my second Wharfedale Harriers ‘bat' race (whoops, sorry ‘owl’ race) and it already felt such a normal thing to be doing - my first night race up Beamsley Beacon in January had felt like a slightly stupid, whacky adventure but suddenly, this second time round, it was totally normal :) . To be fair to Wharfedale, they do sort of play down the racing aspect of their owl races but, from a competitor’s point of view, I’m sure that most everybody ran this pretty full on..... and full on in the dark isn't normal!

And you can just see this sort of race becoming the next big thing, especially for winter running. As sure as eggs is eggs (whatever that means) it will be a huge growth area on the FRA calendar in the next year or so and, before you know it, there’ll be bat championships, all in the dark, maybe mid-week and likely as not in hellish weather, in the winter. This might mean that long races won’t feature much (who the hell would want to be a marshall, let alone a competitor?) but, at the short up and downer end of things, surely its going to be really popular?

Anyway, this time it was an all too fast (for me) blast up Sharp Haw and Rough Haw from Tarn House, above Stirton just outside Skipton. We all registered in the bar, with the barman looking on totally bewildered as a bunch of lean and mean fell runners and fell runneresses (and two or three fell runner-roos) registered and guessed at their times for the run ahead. I guessed 42 minutes for what it was worth. Then we were all herded to the starting point, half way up Bog Lane.

If I have a good distance, I can safely say 4.75 miles isn’t it – I usually struggle for the first 4 miles before hitting my stride :) – and all my running for the past month has been a montage of long runs and recces, and being injured while I was at it for the most part. (Right, there’s all my excuses on the table, up front and out of the way).

And then we were off, zig zagging up the lane before going through the gate and up the track onto the moors. There was a car parked at this gate, in a favourite local courting spot, although I didn’t see any one in it (maybe the windows were steamed up?) – god knows what they thought though if there was a couple inside, with a herd of torched up runners passing a couple of feet to one side of their canoodlings.

As soon as we left the farm track and got onto the trod up Sharp Haw, the ground turned to mud – to be fair it was rarely deep mud but it was always there, making the climb feel as if you were always going the wrong way up a down escalator. And running at night, with no view of the track before you other than the first 5 yards, its very hard to look for solid ground beside the path without risking taking the completely wrong line – it kind of forced me anyway to keep to the muddiest line to be on the safe side.

I’d started nearish to the front and was therefore being consistently over taken by a fair chunk of the field going up – this is probably more down to me not running often enough with such a good bunch of fell runners but I definitely felt amateurishly slow set against this lot. All the same I held my pace okay and hit the trig point on the crest of Sharp Haw maybe somewhere in the middle of the pack. Then it was a drop into the valley between Sharp Haw and Rough Haw, which of course had to be done at a suicidal pace over rough and boggy ground, that in the dark was only visible for a split second or two before you ran over it. All part of the fun though.

Then another climb up Rough Haw with me taking I think the worst (left sided) path up to the cairn of rocks at the top and sodding well losing some more ground against my fellow competitors, including at least two of the teenage runners, godamit.

I then dropped back down the much quicker line and lung burstingly ran back up the slope to hit the Sharp Haw trig for the second time. I glanced at my watch here to see I’d been running for 29 minutes.

Now for a fantastic descent and the chance to breath a little more easily and maybe claw back a couple of places, although worryingly the nearest guy ahead had maybe 100 yards or so on me. On the plus side I’ve been up and around Sharp Haw many times before and felt confident enough to give it a real push going down.

Sure enough I gradually started to reel in the runner in front and, shortly after hitting Bog Lane again, I overtook him and then the girl in front of him too, with still yet another runner in front of her set firmly in my sights. Fortunately this chap nearly missed the stile into the field that cuts through to Tarn House from the lane and then slipped off the stile climbing it; this allowed me to a) see clearly where this hidden style actually was and b) catch up with him and almost catch him in my arms as he slipped. We then ran neck and neck through the field with him passing onto the lane up to Tarn House just in front of me. Bloody hell, I had a race on, was pretty much at my gasping for oxygen limit, there was still 200 yards to go and it was fecking up hill too!

Anyway I clawed what I thought was a sprint finish from somewhere, nudged ahead and over took this last chap to hit the finish in something like 43 minutes 20, feeling completely and utterly sick - and probably rightly so for this length of race. Which is a nice reminder to remember to avoid sub 5 milers in the future – strike sub 5 milers and make that sub 7, no 8 or maybe even 9 milers :D.

Bugger I really need to do some speed training, even though I’ve been poo pooing doing exactly that – words and humble pie duly eaten.

1st March 2008 - Half Tour Of Pendle solo recce - 9.25 miles and 2250 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

Given that the race is loomimg and I've only been around this route (and up Pendle one way or the other) once in the dark and once as the opening bit of the full tour last November, I was keen to get up there and suss it out better. In fact given that Pendle is so near to where I live I'm kind of ashamed for not running up there much, much more anyway.

When I got up, it looked like the weather had cleared after the horrendous winds and rain on Friday and I even decided to run in my shorts and not take any gloves, as I got in the car to drive to Barley. Somewhat ominously though, as Pendle came into sight on the road between Gisburn and Blacko, the hill was shrouded in dark clouds. Not a bit like this then:

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2...pendlehxj6.jpg

That darn hill I'm sure is like some kind of weather magnet and suddenly things didn't look so promising for a jolly trot round. Fortunately I had my wind proof and running hat with me - I didn't for one minute expect there not to be any wind on the top of Pendle, come rain or shine.

So off I trotted out of Barley, on the lane towards Ogden Resevoir, desperately trying to remember the route coming up and some of Trundlers navigational tips from our recent bat run. I don't have the ordinance survey map of Pendle but, there again, I'm not sure that some of the race trods would actually appear on it anyway. The first 30 minute climb up to the wall beyond the Big End trig point went nice and easily, although it was very muddy and slippy with a lot of water trickling down after the rain. Once on the top of course, I was exposed to a hard left to right wind which became full on in my face for a short while, as I turned south west to follow the race trod, and then hard right to left with little respite, even when I dropped down into the gulley. And it then started horizontally raining :rolleyes:.

The race route that I was following now went through some brilliant boggy areas, which will be complete morasses on race day, before dropping down into a gully, crossing a stile and then following the gully on a parallel muddy track to the right. This part of the run is great fun, given that its slightly down hill for 2 miles or so but, when eventually the gully starts to become deeper and turns off to the left (to appear again as the 'ski sunday' ravine later in the run) the race route starts to follow the ridge to the right and navigation becomes much more difficult.

On the way up Pendle, I could see that I wasn't the first runner out that morning doing a Pendle recce. With my 'expert' tracking skills, I'd noticed the footprints of another runner, with big feet, perhaps wearing new Inov8's (Mudclaw 330's at a guess) going before me. Following 'Big Foot' therefore seemed a good navigational aid and, to be fair, he did help me out at a couple of forks in the trail. I was trying to head towards the Nick of Pendle and two or three ridges ahead of me obscured my view of exactly where that might be, although the main track (from which I knew I had to vere off left at some point) carried on towards the right hand ridge. This track therefore looked good to go...... except that all of a sudden there were no Bigfoot prints! Where'd he go?

I carried on up my obvious trail for another couple of hundred yards but still no Bigfoot and still no obvious view of the Nick of Pendle so, just to be sure, I left my track and recce'd 3 or 400 hundreds yards to my left over the tussocky grass just in case I'd missed a trail going towards the tip of the left ridge. This was really annoying in that I'd wanted to record a reasonable running time; it did however get me to a point where I thought I could see the Nick of Pendle beyond the near ridges and realise that my track had been the right one all along. Doh! So much for following Big Foot..... the useless bastard :D

As I headed back into the wind to get back on track, the horizontal rain turned into thigh stinging horizontal hail and the ridge now all the way to the Nick was very exposed. I managed to recall some of Trundlers pathfinding tips here though and did get to where the race checkpoint overlooks the road at the Nick of Pendle without too much trouble (other than a trip and full frontal body slide for 15 yards in the mud). I then cut down to Churn Clough Resevoir to pick up the track leading to the gate before the climb up to Spence Moor. And what do you know, I picked up Bigfoot again going up this peat bog of a climb - god knows where he'd been but he was back.

What's more, having finally crested this second climb, and run over the moor, Bigfoot helped me with two trod selections which he got absolutely right.... so maybe he's not such a useless bastard after all. Then it was straight down the steep descent which, according to Trundler and others is called 'ski sunday' (why was that again?) - its definitely steep, thats for sure, but it was sliding, gripless, peaty mud I had to worry about, not snow.

After that it was a case of following the wall to the right, up out of the ravine, with the path finally going through fields all the way down to Barley. The final field at the finish was slick with water over mud and gave me my second tumble of the day. It was brilliant though to wander into the carpark again, absolutely plastered in mud and grime, and scare a group of hill walkers just starting out with horror stories about the conditions on the tops :D

A disappointing 1 hour and 46 minutes, albeit including a good ten minutes of fannying about finding my way.

2nd March 2008 - Half Tour Of Pendle (again :cool: ) - 9.25 miles and 2250 ft of Climb

OS Explore Route

My elder daughter was supposed to come along yesterday morning but due to many convoluted reasons and rubbish excuses.... she couldn't be arsed :D . However she did want to do the run this morning so off we went.

The weather was kinder this morning with no rain or hail and the wind on the tops was about one mile per hour slower but, other than that, it was just as muddy as yesterday and just as much fun. This time I made no navigational errors either but unfortunately I was running with a 'gripless wonder' in her (now wrecked :) ) New Balance road running shoes who also found the hill climbs, the steep descent and the terrain really knackering - coming down the ski sunday descent she even had the temerity to call it boring! Boring? Jesus I got bored waiting for her at the style at the bottom, while she carefully and painstakingly meandered down. It hurt her feet and knees and "bones" apparently :D

Anyway another good blow out, but taking 2 hours and 2 minutes running with 'baggage'.

Quote "straight down the steep descent which, according to Trundler and others is called 'ski sunday' (why was that again?)"

The name was coined back in the late 80s by Tony Quinn of Chorley Harriers (now an ex-runner) when the race was held in snowy weather. That descent into Ogden Clough was "like Ski Sunday", with people sliding down with varying degrees of success.

Before all the current satellite and cable sports channels, the Ski Sunday programme was virtually the only skiing on TV so it was well known, and the name for the descent just seemed to stick. I heard Clayton members using it after the Full Tour many years later to describe that part of the route :D

I will be sliding down on Saturday snow or no snow. It saved me a few minutes last year!:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swoop

I will be sliding down on Saturday snow or no snow. It saved me a few minutes last year!:)

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The weather forecast for Saturday is 6 degrees, heavy rain and a 15 mph wind from the south west. Translated into Pendle-ese that means minus 5 degrees, torrential rain and a 50 mph wind then :rolleyes:

Good sliding weather!

re Race 3

so that's wot thee looks like; "just like that!"

'oo gave thee permission to use that photo?