Thanks WD and sorry Andy for my ant sized memoryOriginally 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!
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, 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:
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"
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
Last edited by Stolly; 28-04-2008 at 11:52 PM.
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
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
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 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
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.
Last edited by Stolly; 21-12-2008 at 06:44 PM.
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:
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.
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
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
A disappointing 1 hour and 46 minutes, albeit including a good ten minutes of fannying about finding my way.
Last edited by Stolly; 16-03-2008 at 09:44 AM.
2nd March 2008 - Half Tour Of Pendle (again) - 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
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
Anyway another good blow out, but taking 2 hours and 2 minutes running with 'baggage'.
Last edited by Stolly; 02-03-2008 at 06:14 PM.
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
I will be sliding down on Saturday snow or no snow. It saved me a few minutes last year!
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 thenI will be sliding down on Saturday snow or no snow. It saved me a few minutes last year!
Good sliding weather!
Re: Stolly's Running Adventure
re Race 3
so that's wot thee looks like; "just like that!"
'oo gave thee permission to use that photo?
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