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No one, I "borrowed" it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by wharfeego
Oh and the word 'thee' was last used publicly in Yorkshire as far as I can remember in an episode of All Creatures Great and Small, probably in the second series, 1979. Jesus they don't even say 'thee' in Barnsley nowadays ;)
Eh...if tha's gunna use mi piccies then at least be nice ter me!
:D Bring yer bike roond toon tmorra night me ol'pedigree siberian 'amster and y'can buy'us a beer f'teking yon'piccie ov'us on Sunday. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by wharfeego
Mind...at least I was running when your took that one eh...:o
geet a better one of Stick in "full flight"; I'll try n up/down(wotever?:confused: )load it to a post....
wot's Jesus got to do wi' Jimmy 'Erriot n Barnsley?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
Race #4
8th March 2008 - Half Tour Of Pendle - 9.25 miles and 2250 ft of Climb
OS Explore Route
The race profile:
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/6...pendleeeg5.jpg
Milling around before the start in the car park in Barley yesterday morning, I was faced with a minor dilemma. As Hamlet might well have said, were he running:
"To bumbag or not to bumbag, that is the question".
The race required a windproof and fully body cover to be carried and, given that the weather forecast predicted that it would piss down, I eventually opted to run in my windproof and tights (that could themselves easily been worn for a performance of Hamlet :D) and jettison the bumbag, carrying my map and compass and car key in the pocket of my smock. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as the piss down never happened and it wasn't even proper Pendle windy on the tops.
Wearing as well my hat and gloves, I was certainly warm at the start and, going up the side of Pendle Hill, I had to take off my hat and unzip my top but still ended up sweating like a pig on a stick, as I tried valiantly to hold my place in the snake of runners running and fast walking up through the mud. I ran the initial track past the resevoirs and all through the first steep field but, soon after hitting the moorland part of the climb, I started to have real trouble getting enough air in to my wheezing lungs. Phil from Skipton AC who I usually run well (in training) against cruised past me here as did many others.
That said I ran on, despite my punctured lung ;) and sweat suit, and managed to hit a running stride of sorts, as the climb gradient became slighter and the ground less muddy, hitting the wall beyond the Big End trig at around the 28 minute mark. We then turned into a fierce wind at the start of the fantastic moorland crossing and, for a brief interlude here, I was glad of my windproof and even put my hat back on. It was brilliantly boggy too but I was starting to breath a little better now and was able to overtake a few runners with my 'superior' bog skills. Despite that, I managed a full frontal, splattering bog crash as the path fell down into the gulley before the stile.
After crossing the stile, the thin track then made overtaking more tricky and, despite following a girl who I probably should have tried to overtake, I didn't and managed to even reach the point of fully catching my breath and enjoying the run. Once the path towards the Nick of Pendle opened up, I speeded up again and managed to reel in a couple of three other runners before dropping down towards Churn Clough Resevoir, feeling in pretty good nick.
I reached the gate at the bottom of Spence Moor and glimpsed at my watch, showing me a running time of 56:48 which really impressed me, even if I say so myself. So up this second climb, feeling not nearly so bad as the first, but still finding it hard to run much at all until I reached the wall at the top. A few runners overtook me going up and along the wall but I managed to get a couple too, feeling good as I hit the Geronimo* descent. This I did really well, a real blast down with a fairly good line, some death defying leaps, a whole heap of luck and two bum slides over steep tussocky grass. This probably gained me half a dozen places I'm sure. I checked my time here again and..... it still said 56:48 - bugger!
Then a nice little climb out of the ravine and along the track, before seeing Barley and the finish just over the fields before me. I upped my pace as best I could to go over the now extremely muddy fields before dropping down to the finish. In the last field a CLM runner sprinted past, forcing me to race him on a relatively steep, frictionless slope but, all credit to him, he nosed in front, although we both overtook another chap before hitting the finish just beyond the gate.
I eventually found my time posted on the village hall wall at 1 hour 31:48 (weird as my watch made it 56:48 :D). Before the off I wanted to beat 1 hour 32 so I should have been pleased but Phil from Skipton AC did a stunning 1 hour 26 odd and Dave, who I work with, did a 1 hour 30. Drat, drat and double drat!
Results
*Geronimo is the name of the descent accoriding to my CLM sources, not 'ski Sunday'
Race #5
12th March 2008 - Embsay to Rylstone Cross Owl Run - 5.5 miles and maybe 1000 ft of Climb
Approximate OS Explore Route
First off what an absolutely awesome event, capping off brilliantly a sequence of three winter Wharfedale Owl runs I’ve thoroughly enjoyed tagging along on. The route this time was really tough, the ground was stupidly muddy, where the ground wasn’t stupidly muddy it was rocky and stupidly muddy, there was a good wind blowing and it was all in the dark – the only thing missing to have made it even more testing was probably driving rain.
Thanks to Grifter and Wharfedale Harriers for putting these ‘timed training runs’ on and for the marshalling – the chap standing about last night at Rylstone Cross in that wind is nothing short of a superstar.
Mind you, sat in the dark in my wind buffeted car before the off, I was having serious second thoughts. Everything looked so horribly bleak. Wind blown leafless trees? Check. Ominous dark grey clouds scudding across the sky? Check. A cold gusting wind? Check. A black lifeless ridge silhouetted against the northern horizon? Check. All that was really needed to set the scene completely was a werewolf howling in the background and forked lightening.
No werewolves were to be had though, but I think we had a collie and a small brown job - a hairy Jack Russell maybe - alongside the 20 of us who weren’t scaredy pants - naming no names but Trundler? Stick? Daleside? Hopey? - ready for the run. The ‘seriously injured’ Stick was there as a starter to be fair and had helpfully suggested that he thought the route would take me something in the low 50’s, him having recce’d on Monday. So I guessed my run time to be 51 minutes….. Hah!!
And then we were off, running down the lane beside Embsay Reservoir before crossing the stile at Crag Nook and immediately following the rocky path climbing towards Embsay Moor. And because the ‘field was so strong’ and there was a distinct lack of runners crapper than me, I was gradually being over taken (by those not already in front) all the way up. The route after this first steep climb was still a gradual climb with a few ups and downs all the way to the turning point at the Cross, with the trod fast becoming much narrower and much, much muddier.
I had never run up this way before and had no idea what to expect and when to expect it, making me run ‘that bit more cautiously’……… and having nothing at all to do with my lungs being at bursting point. Fortunately though, the track was so narrow that I managed to hold onto my position quite well for a while, with two or three others constantly breathing down my neck. Finally though these runners did pass me leaving only a couple of visible torch lights just behind, one of which I guessed was the race tail end Charlie sweeping for losers. And then these two overtook me too, the bastards ;), leaving me in the middle of the pitch black moor following a completely unknown track all on my tod as the new tail end Charlie!
By now I was probably 8/10ths of the way to the turn and, after one or two earlier small dips and climbs, the track now dropped down into a deep gully with a fast flowing beck at the bottom. Grifter at the start had warned us about this, with an expectation of having to wade across, but I managed to skilfully boulder hop over without getting my feet wet - that said my feet were mud soaked anyway.
The rest of the field were now coming back and passing me, going the other way, so I didn’t feel so completely isolated and I bashed on to reach the wind blasted turn and our lone marshal at Rylstone Cross after…… only 17 minutes. Huh? Yet again I’d stopped my stopwatch by bending my wrist or something, earlier in the run.
Turning into the run back, I felt good and up for a fastish return leg, albeit all on my own, but now with the merest glimpse of a torch light maybe 200 yards ahead of me. But then, of all things, two torch lights started to come towards me out of the gully; I wasn’t in last place and the sweeper hadn’t left me for dead after all :p .
This spurred me on some more and I fairly whizzed along now as I went back down to the beck, waded across this time and started climbing out again. Here the mud now became a complete morass and seemed that way pretty much all the way back. It did allow me to really enjoy the run back though, not really being able to risk pushing it what with the mud, the rocks and the small window of visibility allowed to me by the head torch.
At one stage I had hopes of catching one or t’other of the head torch lights that I’d catch site of on the black horizon from time to time but it never happened and I cruised in to finish in a time of 67 minutes and 17 seconds, some 16 minutes longer than the estimate Stick stitched me up with!
Stolly hurdles the last stile.... with style:
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/508...vent021vz0.jpg
Results - you can get a good impression of just how tough this run was by comparing pretty much everyone's predicted times to the actuals :)
15th March 2008 – Pen y Ghent, Plover Hill, Hull Pot and Long Mires – 12 miles and maybe 1850 ft of Climb
OS Explore Route
The last time I attempted this route at the beginning of February, there was a blizzard raging and deep snow drifts on the tops - it had been very hard hard work with one or two tricky problems on the navigation front :D. So running it yesterday in misty and surprisingly still conditions provided a real contrast. What? No wind? :eek:
I hoofed up through Brackenbottom to the trig at the top of Pen y Ghent without too much trouble, crossed over the wall and then (correctly this time) followed it, keeping it to my right, towards Plover Hill.
Getting to Plover Hill though was no mean feat, with the whole mile and three quarters utterly and completely bogged out; in fact this track to Plover Hill now has my nomination for "boggeration" of the year, comfortably knocking Edale (Lord's Seat to Brown Knoll) from its erstwhile I thought unassailable position. There’s sort of a trail but every twenty yards it just disappears into a dark peaty mire and, after a while, I just couldn't be arsed to keep trying to navigate round the bogs and just forged through them. I sort of have an eye nowadays that is pretty reliable for gauging bog depth and I only went knee deep a couple of times but, needless to say, running here was slow going........ but superb if you like mud. The mist was down though so unfortunately I didn't have any inspiring views of the moor land and Ribble valley that was below me to my left with maybe no more than 200 metres to be seen in any direction.
Once I got to the flat tussocky moorland bit that serves as the damp squib of a "summit" for Plover Hill, I did lose the main trail momentarily but soon picked it up after a quick recce, as it now followed a wall northerly and downwards. This allowed me to pick up some speed at long last without being hampered by black sucking bogs. I over cooked things on the speed front though and was suddenly faced with a 30 feet drop off directly in front, with my path sharply turning to my left to zig zag down over broken rubble, descending the steep northern edge of Plover Hill. I held just about held the corner (tyres squealling, eyes bulging) although drifted right to the edge in doing so before carrying on with was a pretty reckless descent.
After the steep bit, it was then down over very wet grass making running more of a "glide and slide", with a Drogba like goal celebration two knee 15 yard slide at one point, before my path flattened out and began to run parallel with Plover Hill in initially a west and then southerly direction. This part of the run too became extremely boggy in places as I followed the path all the way to Hull Pot.
Then it was my trusty (and boggy :rolleyes:) Miner's Path across a few smaller hills and dales to Long Mires before picking up the pennine way track for my return to Horton in Ribblesdale. Other than 3 or four walkers that I'd over taken going up PyG, until getting on this track, I'd been effectively swallowed up by the landscape not meeting a single soul or sausage. This track was a veritable motorway though with....oh I dunno.... half a dozen mountain bikers, three or four walkers and another couple of solitary runners all passing me going the other way. I'd fell over three times by now and was plastered in mud and I couldn't help but feel that some of these guys were giving me "weirdo" looks as I trotted past!
I've ruined a beautiful photo taken from the top of Whernside (on a clear day) by adding in a yellow line of my approximate running route:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2...rnside3ny1.jpg
My total time this time was 1 hour 54, some 20 minutes quicker than my snow run in February.
21st March 2008 - Settle, Jubilee Cave, Attermire and High Hill Loop - circa 6 miles and maybe 1300 ft of Climb
OS Explore Route
We were going away visiting friends on Friday for the weekend - which really really annoyingly cocked up my running :mad: – so I got up especially early Friday morning and set off for a shortish run in the hills above Settle to work up a thirst for the two nights serious drinking that I knew I would be obliged to put myself through :). It was just gone 6 am when I set off into a cold but bright morning, with the sun just starting to hit the tops of one or two or the surrounding hills.
I ran into the deserted ‘teeming metropolis’ that is Settle at this time of the morning before hacking up the track just off the main drag towards the hills to the east of the town centre. It hadn’t looked that cold (from indoors) and I’d chosen to wear just a short sleeved running top and shorts...... so hitting the bone crackingly cold wind as I now got higher and more exposed was an eye watering experience. Mind you, once I'd got acclimatised, it really did make a nice change to at long last be running without gloves and hats and leggings and windproofs.
The track I was following looped north keeping Settle and then Langcliffe to my left before slanting up towards Jubilee Cave. Pen y Ghent, when it came into view, was actually covered in a icy frost (or maybe even a slim dusting of snow) nicely reaffirming my stupid selection of running gear.
But it was a wonderful morning to be out running and, now with the sun out, everything looked simply stunning. I’m not religious or anything (although my wife thinks I’m a pagan) but sometimes running alone in the hills can be a really spiritual thing – you feel very much like the dot on the landscape that you of course really are and on Friday my particular landscape was absolutely glorious. Running alone like this I think kind of makes you a better person (if only fleetingly), and certainly more appreciative of your surroundings, of mother nature........ and of just how many frigging sheep there are in the Dales :D. It's sure good for the soul.
From Jubilee cave I cut south through Attermire Scar before dropping down into the dip and then choosing to take a direct line over maybe a mile of tussocky grass to the top of High Hill. There is no path here that I have found but it wasn’t too bad going and, before long, I hit the brink of the perilously steep drop off that is other side of High Hill and could see the whole of Settle (including my house) spread out far below me.
This is a reverse shot of High Hill from my back garden with the blue arrow showing more or less where I hit the crest before my descent.
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/4...seview3bk6.jpg
No time though for twatting about with views and I whizzed straight down the semi cliff face before hacking left up through the adjacent field, climbing a gate a following Lambert Lane, a farmers track really (part of the Pennine Bridleway), and finally zig zagging my way back down to civilisation again for my finish. 1 hour and 2 minutes and totally energised and up for for the weekend's drinking that awaited.
24th March 2008 – Settle to Malham to Settle Loop – 13 Miles and circa 1500 ft of climb
OS Explore Route
I first ran this route on Boxing Day last year (the first run in this running diary for what its worth) and yesterday morning, not having time to travel further a field and wanting to do a longish run, I opted to hack round it again. Settle was still just about above the snow line and what with the sun out (at 8 am) and no wind as far as I could tell, everything looked perfect for a good snow run. I gauged conditions to be ‘two toppable’ and, wearing a short sleeved top over my Helly, shorts and gloves, I briskly scooted over the fields crossing Brockhole (aka Watery) Lane, up the steep climb to Lodge Farm and then up the bridleway for a way, across High Hill Lane (the Settle to Airton/Malham road) and into Stockdale Lane.
This lane eventually leads to Stockdale Farm which has just the most completely idyllic location, set in its own little valley with the rolling ridge line including Rye Loaf Hill and Kirby Fell to the south and craggy hills, a continuation from Attermire Scar, to the north. And yesterday the farm looked stunning with the surrounding fields and hills well covered in deep sun lit snow.
After the farm, the lane stops and my path all goes off road, still gradually climbing though. The ground was now more or less totally snow covered; 3 to 4 inches worth with much deeper drifts in the dips. It was icy powdered snow (it would have been crap for snowballs) which made the running pretty hard going too. In the bright sun light, I was now getting a bit of a sweat on and almost thinking of getting the beginnings of this year’s tan on my face and legs, what with all the reflected sun glare and all.
I finally reached the very peak of my outward run after 50 minutes – all very nicely graduated climb apart from the steep start – crossing the snow blasted moor with an incredible 40 miles in every direction view of the Dales all around me. I then started dropping down through Ewe Moor, and stampeding a herd of Highland cattle in the process, towards by half way point on the road out of Malham above Malham Cove.
Suddenly though, as I now ran up the road, I was exposed to a wickedly cold and strong wind from the north west. I have now officially fcuking had it with running into cold wind – I seem to have been doing it all winter such that my legs and face now feel etched raw by it. Rained drenched summer running can’t come too soon ;)
After a while I turned off the road, headlong into the frigging wind, running towards Langcliffe, all the while getting higher again and of course increasingly exposed to the wind. After about a mile, I came even more into the open with a beautiful yet worrying view of the 3 peaks on my right hand horizon, with nothing much higher in between, and a howling wind whipping down from them and hammering into little ol’ me…. in my shorts. Not at all reassuringly I could see a copse of pine trees, maybe 3 totally exposed miles ahead, knowing that my turning point away from the wind was beyond that.
Anyway enough whinging; I gritted my teeth and ploughed on and eventually made it through the snow to my turn at Attermire Scar. I then gratefully ran back into these balmy, tropical, snowy wastes before turning for the last fast descent into Settle. On the last steep bank down to Settle I waved to a solitary fell runner lady just going up, the first person I’d bumped into since a farmer, seeing to his sheep on Lambert Lane, just after starting out. The sun had been glorious for all of my run but now, just as I was finishing, dark clouds were coming in and a few wisps of snow falling.
A grand and far from easy snow run then, maybe the last of the winter too. 2 hours and 6 minutes which was a tad slower than Boxing Day but in far tougher conditions.