Sunday 30 November 2014

Famous Grouse ~5m ~1,200'

My first time running this route, having done parts of it many times during training runs round and about. At £2 you get what you pay for - get yourself to the top of the hill, down, up again then FAST back down, then bugger off home. What more do you really need? Water at the end was from a big old metal kettle, filled by dunking it into a bin full of water. Helped wash away the taste of blood in my mouth after pelting down the final stretch!

(image courtesy http://www.t42.org.uk/hayfield/)




Monday 10 November 2014

Lore of Running


According to Kobasa et al (1982) there are three characteristics of the hardy personality:

Control: hardy individuals see themselves as being in charge of their environment
Commitment: hardy individuals get involved and tackle problems head on

Challenge: hardy individuals see change as a challenge rather than as a threat

Some parallels here with running....

Saturday 26 July 2014

Ingleborough Mountain Race


Quite a grand title but this is officially a mountain. I don’t think the organisers fancied the prospect of 125 wayward runners dicking around in the fog, so the CP at the top was moved from its normal location in the middle of the plateau to just over the lip of the summit.

Conditions were extremely humid – my mate and I finished the race drenched with sweat/rain but were able to sit around having our tea and cake in our vests without being cold at all.


A nice little event for £4 and my best ever position/grading in a fell race – 44 / 125 so just outside the top 1/3.

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Boar’s Head




2 minutes faster than last year – 1 hour 1 minute. Found it very hard. Didn’t walk, apart from some of the uphill – there is 1,600’ of it though so that’s my excuse! Tim Ruck beat me, after promising to do so at the start – I think he was still sore after me beating him at Herod Farm back in April J 

Took the path along the edge this time, as opposed to cutting across the tussocks. I think the tussocks are easier, if you can find a good line. This course is very runnable but the distance combined with the climb makes it very painful too! The pint in the Boar’s Head afterwards was very welcome. 

Saturday 26 April 2014

Fellsman ~62 miles ~11,000'


I’m not going to bang on about this too much as it really should remain something that people find out about and do for themselves.

This is what the Grindleford Gallop, Haworth Hobble and Edale Skyline were building up to. Plus some time in the gym working on core strength.

I bumped into Nick Ham coming out of Stonehouses (26 miles done, 34 to go) and he announced he was in ‘survival mode’ – this really brought home the scale of the event – not even halfway through and it had already knocked us both for six. There was nothing to do but crack on with the task in hand – think about it too much and I would have been done in.


Luckily on the Fellsman the CP’s are quite close together, on average every 3 miles there are alternately (and generally) clip points and food stops so it feels like you are making constant progress, if only to get one more clip on your wheel-shaped tally closer to the finish.


Dib Dib
Finish - yes I did; this one is more about completing than competing (personally) - I'll be back for more.

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Herod Farm Hill Race

Renamed for 2014 as it was registered under Scottish Hill Runners rules & regulations. 


3 minutes faster than last year, 4th time running this event. Hopefully the Fellsman training is paying off and this is a sign of things to come…

Sunday 23 March 2014

Edale Skyline ~24miles ~4,000'


Second time lucky on this one after DNF’ing 2 years ago… someone had given me some hypotonic energy gels which I was planning on using....

After a great run over Win Hill and down to the road near Hope, I took my first gel ready for the climb up to Lose Hill ridge, and waited for it to kick in. Suffice to say it never kicked in (neither did the second one) and this, coupled with the undulating, exposed ridge meant I started to struggle. I got to Mam Nick with 11 of the ~24 miles done, and about 3,000’ in the bag but, as anyone will tell you, this race gets started properly after Mam Nick!

Route profile (courtesy http://www.t42.org.uk/hayfield/)


I plodded my way over Brown Knoll and was really struggling, so I was more than happy to hear Steve Grace coming up behind me with his trusty bag of trail mix. Some of this real food soon kick started my metabolism and I was soon going again. 

It might be the toughest bit but the second part really is my favourite half of this race – around the Woolpacks where you dink onto the Kinder plateau it really is like being on another planet (or at least not like being in Derbyshire). The run in from there is deceptively far but we got each other round, boulder and stream hopping as we made our way back down Ringing Roger to finish in 4h44. 

Not the best of finish times but great training and the last of my long runs in preparation for the Fellsman.



Saturday 15 March 2014

How to spot a turnip at 30 paces – and other Haworth Hobblings


If you don’t know your Mankinholes from your Lumbutts (one of those involves a shot of Jura and a doughnut), then this is the race for you.
As this is ostensibly a walking event (aka the Wuthering Hike), our start time was 8am, which necessitated a 5.45 pick up to make our way over to God’s own country. Four of us packed into Stefan’s car for the journey.
As our respective metabolisms warmed up (and the car windows went down), the ice was well and truly broken between us. Conversations around crystal meth and corporate fraud soon followed and before we knew it we were in Haworth, where we arrived just after 7.20 to find the queue for registration stretching out into the car park. It would be a late start.
Featuring the most robust safety pins I have seen in a competitive event, registration was almost as brief as the starter’s orders “well I hope you all know the way – off you go” as went ran up the cobbled main street.
Ian Wolfendale and I had decided to run together before the event; the weather conditions were fair and navigation seemed fairly straightforward so our maps remained in our bags for most of the race, save for a couple of checks.
The first couple of miles took us out of Haworth and up onto the moors, near the Stanbury Splash route and up to Top Withins. The terrain for much of the day was to be farm tracks and paved paths over the fells, with the odd section of road thrown in as we made brief forays into civilisation.
We made our way across the moorland and over the wall of Walshaw Dean reservoir, whose surface was a foreboding mass of tall, dark waves. It was at this stage Ian kindly said that he would stand me a pint if I got him round the course. His answer to my question as to whether if I took him round twice I would get two pints, was not so kindly put.
The first checkpoint loomed into view, with bags of broken biscuits on offer – I opted for a stem ginger number and ran to catch Ian up.
Without going into a blow by blow account of the full seven hours we were out there, we had a great race, the terrain was pretty runnable with a couple of major climbs – up Stoodley Pike and out of Hebden Bridge. The race organisers seemed to have bought a job lot of doughnuts and hot cross buns as this is what we were fed on throughout the race, along with broken biscuits at a couple of CP’s and hot dogs at another.
One interesting bit was coming down off Stoodley Pike. Having had Wendy Dodds in our sight for most of the race, it was at this point we were passed  by Nicky Spinks and a couple of her pals. ‘Not doing too bad after all!’ we said to ourselves. I’m sure they were thinking along the same lines:
“Hey, there’s that Crawshaw fella – didn’t he once do a sub-21 minute Parkrun?”

Shortly afterwards we ran past a farmyard that was full of what looked like yellow, round pebbles – Ian reliably informed me that these were turnips to feed the sheep. You learn something new every day!

Saturday 8 March 2014

Grindleford Gallop - 20 miles, 3,000'





Race 1 of 3 long ones to get me ready for the Fellsman. I did this with mrs t.o.r. and we had a great time. The route was nice and varied with a mix of trail, track, road and fell, and some spectacular views over the Chatsworth Estate and Froggat Edge near the end. 

The feed stations were amazing too – mrs t.o.r. even broke her self-imposed cake ban just outside Bakewell and was absolutely flying!

Sunday 19 January 2014

Trigger 2014 ~22 miles ~4,500'


I love this race. I am still new to long distance fell running but the variety and challenge it contains make it really interesting and a great day out. Conditions started off warm and I was conscious of not overheating by going off too fast on the run past the reservoirs on the early stretch – which I did last year.

I got that bit right and on the climb up to Black Hill the wind soon got up and the temperature dropped correspondingly. Good job I brought spare gloves as no soon as I’d put my first pair on, than I fell over in exactly the same spot as the year before, and they were soaked through.

I was running with Ian Wolfendale at this point and we were making good progress down into Crowden, which is about a third of the way into the race. The next step is to decide whether to go straight up Lawrence Edge or up Wildboarclough… we took the second option and it seemed like better going than last year’s LE route.

Having topped out on Bleaklow it’s always tough after climbing around 1000 feet, coupled with knee deep snow, old friend Mr Cramp decided to stick his head round the corner and bid me good day. I managed a shuffle and managed to string along until we hit the Pennine Way, which gave the chance for a faster trot along a better defined path.

When we got to Shelf Stones the wind was up and it was decidedly chilly, so time to put a coat on. We could see Kinder in the distance with its top in the mist, but that was a mere hint of what was to come!

To quote Pat Barry on the Pennine forum, setting out onto the Kinder plateau was ‘like entering Hell’. Albeit a chilly Hell. I was strung out at this point after picking a very bad line up Withins Clough and going up to my nuts in a freezing bog, meaning the waterproof trousers were on. The Kinder crossing was done in near-zero visibility, with driving wind and ankle deep snow making going difficult. The river was iced over too, and the surface gave way occasionally resulting in an icy dip for the toes, which by this time were like blocks of ice. I did this section with a Dark Peak runner and we convinced each other of various twists and turns through the groughs to appear on the edge path just above Crowden Brook – job done, same as last year. 

Finally made it to the finish line 5 hours and 45 minutes after setting off – a great day out.