Stolly's Running Adventures

[Al Fowler]

1st November 2008 – Fountains Fell Loop – 9.25 miles and around 1,500 ft of ascent

OS Explore Route

Like a bobble-hatted train spotter, beardy bird watcher or spotty pokemon playing herbert, over the last couple of years I’ve been gradually trying to 'collect them all' by running all the hills, peaks, ridges, beauty spots and whatevers that appear on the southern and western Yorkshire Dales ordnance survey map. So far I’ve <takes deep breath> nabbed:

Beamsley Beacon, Carncliffe Crag, Simon’s Seat, pretty much every inch of the river Wharfe from Bolton Abbey to Grassington, High Bradley Moor, Skipton Moor, Carlton Moor, the disused railway line from Elswick to Skipton, Skipton Woods, Embsay Crag, Embsay Moor, Rylstone Cross, Rylstone Fell, Sharp Haw, Rough Haw and Flasby Fell, Calton Moor, the Dales Way from Grassington to Kettlewell, Hawswick Moor, High Cote Moor, the Monks Path out of Arncliffe, Mastiles Lane, Weets Top, every inch of ground between Malham, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove, Kirkby Fell, Rye Loaf Hill, every blade of grass between Settle, Stainforth, Langcliffe and Malham, Attermire Scar, Warrendale Knotts, Langcliffe Scar, Giggleswick Scar and Smearsett Scar, Feizor Wood, Long Scar and Moughton overlooking Helwith Bridge (where I fcuked up my knee), Pen y Ghent left, right and sideways, Plover Hill, Hull Pot, Black Dubb Moss, Foxup Moor, Littondale, Eller Carr, Langstrothdale, Ingleborough from Horton, Ingleborough from Austwick, Ingleborough from Clapham, Ingle-bleeding-borough from Newby, Ingleborough from Ingleton, Ingleborough from Chapel le Dale, Ingleton Falls, the whole Whernside ridge top to bottom, the top half of Kingsdale and finally…. Great Coum and Dentdale.

.

Excuse my lack of knowledge of the southern and western Yorkshire Dales, but are you yet to run up any others?

[Stolly]

Excuse my lack of knowledge of the southern and western Yorkshire Dales, but are you yet to run up any others?

Yep still a few to go

[Stolly]

8th November 2008 - Settle Hills Fell Race Route - 7.5 miles and 1,750 ft

OS Explore Route or more detailed Race Map

A jolly spiffing run yesterday morning starting straight from my front door on a lovely overcast Autumnal morning. Nothing much to report other than, as usual, the long grassy, tussock filled and ankle death trap riddled, with occasional hidden limestone cracked slabs thrown in for good measure, field at the highest point of the run (just before the turn towards Jubilee Cave) pushed me too far left of the line I needed - it doesn't matter how far right you run here, you always get to the other side too far left!

15 minutes in and the first steep climb behind me looking towards Rye Loaf Hill and Stockdale:



The nightmarishly steep descent off of High Hill was 'fun' as you'd expect but was excellent practise what with Geronimo coming up next Saturday. The view back up having safely got to the bottom - the tiny red spec top left is a walker that kindly ambled into picture just in time to give me some scale:



Going down the bridleway I turned a corner only for a farmer with a shot gun to shout out a warning - not to me but to half a dozen shotgun toting friends in the field all of whom were facing me locked and loaded! I said "thanks, you saved my life" to the farmer who laughed and said it was a good job I was wearing orange (my windproof)!! A lucky escape or otherwise stolly's running adventures would have come to a premature, although I'm sure much deserved, end .

Then I dropped down the sharpish final descent and was just faced with a trot through to the now flat fields with home and Settle in sight:



1 hour 24.

[Stolly]

Race #15

15th November 2008 - The Full Tour of Pendle - 16.8 miles and 4,830 ft up/down

After barely surviving last year's race I was back again this year looking to finish with a little more style and panache and alot less er.... begdraggled trainwreck survivor. I can't find the link anymore to the <cough> 'excellent' CleM race map so have devised my own incomprehensible OS Explore Route. The great thing about this incredibly convoluted route is that, if you get to the end, you've pretty much not left a stone (or bog) on Pendle untouched.

I met many of the usual suspects at the start (Ady, Emmi, Stan, Manhar, Man from Del Monte, Darth, Big Compass, Merrylegs and Mrs Stagger) and slightly worryingly two or three others who I didn't know but recognised me from this running diary - a quick aside on that note; one of my younger daughter's teachers must have read this diary and then (without thinking obviously) only frigging mentioned it to my daughter who, in turn, of course found it all stupidly funny and has since told all sorts of people that I'd prefer to have kept it secret from (my wife for example)!

Anyway back to the race. The weather was pretty much as perfect as could be hoped for at this time of year which gave me a bit of a wardrobe choice dilemma. I froze in the second half of last year's race and it was a bit chilly at the start down in Barley so I chose to run in my orange windproof over a helly. This was a mistake though and a third of the way into the race, sweating like a pig on a stick, I had to take it off and tie it round my waste (and probably ruin it as its now on its third wash trying to remove all the mud stains).

I as is mostly the case on the first climb up to Big End couldn't find the energy or will power to run much beyond the style at Ogden Clough and, with everyone around me also choosing to walk, I was psychologically dragged down to their level and had to walk with them. As nearly everyone can walk up climbs much faster than me this led to mucho being over taken. Once things flattened out a bit nearer the trig I did start running again and managed to get one or two places back by checkpoint one and the turn at the wall. This year due to soil erosion the route had to stick to this wall (although a few Clem runners presumably in the know chose to double back on themselves and follow the main footpath to the style crossing) which made for some fantastic bog hopping and plunging and the first of many falls for me into said bogs.

After a really enjoyable run down to the Nick and the climb over Spence Moor I followed a really good line to the right to be able to zoom down Geronimo into Ogden Clough. About half way down I launched myself into one of Swoops trademark lie on your back slides in a couple of places and one chap following accidentally dislodged a large boulder which proceeded to whiz past my head a matter of centermeters away - he shouted a warning but by the time I'd heard the boulder was zinging past. I then waded through the beck



.. before climbing up onto Ogden Moor and then running the brilliantly fast descent down to checkpoint 5.

Having run last year's race I now knew that there was just the small matter of three humungous back to back climbs - I'd guess 250m up to Mearly Moor and down the other side, 270m up to Stile and down and then the cramp inducing 250m up the sheer side of Big End. It was made a bit more enjoyable as for a little while I was following Daleside up and down and almost slid on top of her in the mudslide at checkpoint 9 but for the most part it wasn't what I'd call enjoyable at all. Finally at the top of Big End I could get my legs moving again into a sort of running gait, grit out some really painful twists of cramp, and once past the marshalls with their little tent on Big End trig, I actually started to pick up speed again. This open moor run now through tufty grass and heather was really quite pleasant compared to the survival horror that I went through last year and before I knew it I was on the main drag at the bottom and passing the resevoir and hitting the finish at 3 hours 25, a couple of minutes behind Daleside. Given that I did 3:23 last year on the face of it this wasn't the result I was looking for but the course was a little longer because of having to stick to the wall at checkpoint one and was massively boggier than last year too.

The soup in the village hall and then the two pints of Pride of Pendle in the pub after that went down a treat. The piece de la resistance though was the huge slab of cake that Emmi gave me in the carpark which I devoured caveman style with dried mud. blood and grime all over my hands. Talking of Emmi, here she is in the beck just after Geronimo:



Anyway a fabulous race and a grand day out.

Could be a couple more pictures to follow

[Stolly]

22nd November 2008 - Pen y Ghent and Plover Hill from Horton - 8.5 miles and 1800 ft of climb

OS Explore Route

I have run this route probably 10 times since being able to run again following my knee injury in May. The first time ever was at the end of July when, still pretty much a cripple, I ran it in 1 hour 48. Since then my times have improved to a pb of 1:33 (and 22 seconds) but with many ups and downs along the way. My last outing which I 'chose' not to record on here was 1:37 ish and that was only maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago.

Of course I've been able to explain all my piss poor attempts with a long list of excuses; starting with the knee injury, moving onto the the extreme mud on the ridge, no studds on my Walshes, strong head winds, knackered legs from a run the day before, hangovers, leaves on the track, wrong kind of snow etc etc but the real reason is...... that I just didn't run fast enough.

In recent weeks though I have been finally getting a bit more speed into my legs (although not seemingly at Pendle last weekend ) and have purposely been trying to run shorter and faster routes in my mid week training runs. Added to that I've been on an eat fruit not cake diet and have so far been able to shift half a stone in weight.

Yesterday too the weather conditions were probably as good as they get - the ground on the tops was frozen so the mud run from the Pen y Ghent trig to the top of Plover Hill was solid (ish)..... maybe for the first time in living memory. There was a wind and a nightmare windchill but I was only really exposed to the full brunt off that for maybe half a mile dropping down into Foxup Moor. And I could hammer the descents because I had grip.

Anyway no excuses were available and starting from Horton car park, I set off with serious intent to smash my previous personal best and ended up running the following splits:

Pen y Ghent trig -------------> 34 mins 38 secs
Plover Hill stile ---------------> 49 mins 50 secs
Hull Pot stile -----------------> 1 hour 12 mins 20 secs
Horton car park --------------> 1 hour 26 mins 39 secs

Almost a 7 minute pb and 22 minutes faster than my first pitiful run in late July

A couple of pictures en route. The first is Fountains Fell viewed from the steep shoulder of Pen y Ghent and the second is Plover Hill from just after the PyG trig.

[Stolly]

23rd November 2008 - Malham, Janet's Foss, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove Loop - 9.25 miles and approx 1000 ft up/down

OS Explore Route

This run is a bit of a nostalgia trip for me. Although I haven't run it at all so far this year, it is a route that I must have run every other weekend for about 5 years previously and I know it back to front and sideways. As a fell run its really not that testing to be honest and it includes a fair stretch of road to run too (imagine me doing a spit the dog impression here) but it is quite a fast run and regardless of the road and the relatively small climb (mostly up Gordale Scar itself) its really enjoyable.

The route tracks past a series of must see tourist attractions too - Janet's Foss, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove - and the snow and ice this morning made it that much more fun.

Janet's Foss:



Gordale Scar and the lower waterfall from below:



The snowy landscape on the moor above Gordale:



Back down at Malham level the now sunny and non-snowy view of Malham Cove:



Fabulous run and a fantastic morning - 1 hour 29 minutes and 13 seconds.

[socks]

Stolley - very jealous. That looked gorgeous!

[Derby Tup]

23rd November 2008 - Malham, Janet's Foss, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove Loop - 9.25 miles and approx 1000 ft up/down

OS Explore Route

This run is a bit of a nostalgia trip for me. Although I haven't run it at all so far this year, it is a route that I must have run every other weekend for about 5 years and I know it back to front and sideways. As a fell run its really not that testing to be honest and it includes a fair stretch of road to run too (imagine me doing a spit the dog impression here) but it is quite a fast run and regardless of the road and the relatively small climb (mostly up Gordale Scar itself) its really enjoyable.

The route tracks past a series of must see tourist attractions too - Janet's Foss, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove - and the snow and ice this morning made it that much more fun.

Jamet's Foss:



Gordale Scar and the lower waterfall from below:



The snowy landscape on the moor above Gordale:



Back down at Malham level the now sunny and non-snowy view of Mlaham Cove:



Fabulous run and a fantastic morning - 1 hour 29 minutes and 13 seconds.

Another real Dales' classic route Stolly - made me feel a bit homesick

[Stolly]

Stolly - very jealous. That looked gorgeous!

Yes it was stunning - one more picture that I couldn't fit in on my previous post. Looking back down into the pit of Gordale Scar from the top of the waterfall:

[Ady In Accy]

Another real Dales' classic route Stolly - made me feel a bit homesick

HOMESICK thas only been gone 2 days