Trigger Happy

Nicky's Black Hill Trigger Diversion

 By my standards I had a very good result last year (70th out of 170ish finishers). There was no way I was going to miss it this year so the entry was in good and early. The past twelve months went very well so I knew that I had a massive challenge on my hands to even match last years result. My prediction was down in writing, which was improved time but finish lower down the field. Before the race I had not really thought about how much the time improvement  would be, but ten minutes seemed a reasonable target. Generally I took reasonably good lines last year with it being the inaugural event many runners had yet to identify the best routes over Bleaklow and Kinder. Before last years event IanW  and I went on a reccie that thought me a lot and really stood to me on race day leading to my vertigo inducing finish position. I  have done a reasonable amount of work for this years race but generally my advantage will have been seriously eroded this year leading to the prediction of finishing lower down the field.
A successful reccie day on Bleaklow  identified the route via Lawrence Edge, Bleaklow Head, Wain Stones and onto the checkpoint at Higher Shelf Stones. Another three days sorted out the  Kinder crossing. After last year’s race it was mentioned on the forum that Oli Johnson had “gone much further along the path and crossed via the plane wreck” That got me thinking so I brought up Google Earth and found a possible candidate for the “plane wreck”. That looks interesting, it is probably a bit longer that going via Within Clough or following the quad bike tracks over Featherbead Top but worth having a look at. A couple of reccies identified it as a very viable route it is more runnable than Featherbead or Within Clough with burnt heather and trods up to the plane wreck. It  was decided that would be the race day route.
Last year my Kinder crossing involved going via Crowden Tower. This is not a particular good route as the grough is quite hard going (especially last year with the ice) and it is not as short as the more direct routes.  More “Google Earthing” identified a couple of large rocky outcrops on kinder in the Crowden Head area which would aid navigation and make for easier running. So basically the route involves following the river Kinder to the two “Christmas Trees” and then head directly East from there. The conservation work in the Crowden Head area involves damming up the groughs which is making the area incredibly wet. However it is quite a short stretch so worth it.
Finally into the final week before race day and incredibly the weather forecast is predicting freezing temperature by the weekend. The general consensus was that it would be too-little-too-late and the freezing temperatures would not have time to make a significant change to the very soft underfoot conditions we were experiencing on our reccies. This consensus was to prove wrong as in reality the conditions were actually pretty good. Not as much ice as last year on the flagged paths but still the peat was considerably stiffer that expected.

Frosty Morning for "The Trigger 2013"

The Trigger Race Day

Two happy "Penniners" before going on to have  fantastic results

5 am rise on a frosty race day to drive to Mellor to pick up  Stefan and Mark then off to Edale to meet the “Grabba Cabba”. Back to Hayfield to pick up the Pennine late risers and off to Marsden. Descending the long hill into Marsden the bus driver shouts out does anybody know where the sports center is? Some off the cuff navigation by me based on having briefly looked at the new race start at the Cricket Club got us to the start without any issues.

Last year we had to stand around in the freezing cold for an hour waiting to get going, this year was not as cold and we had a lovely bar we could relax in while going through kit check and registration then down to the entrance for the pep talk and then “the off”. We had about 100 metres down the road then a right turn to join the path to cross the dam wall to rejoin the traditional route. I was at the back and did not realize it but apparently quite a few of the leaders missed the right turn and and had to do an about turn. This led to many comments on the forum about nobody reccing the start.

The paved path to Black Hill

 This race does not really start until Crowden (about 10 miles in). Up to that point the field is quite close together and it is pretty much an established route, so just a case of follow the leader. The really horrible bit, of this section, is the final decent into Crowden before entering the woods. It is an incredibly rocky track, I found out in the pub afterwards that there is an alternative to that, which I must get over to have a look at. Like last year I choose to do Lawrence Edge where we got spoken to (rightly so) by a lady for climbing over the wall by the old railway line. Got up onto the plateau OK (via an easier final accent than last year) and headed across the moor on a, southerly compass bearing. I somehow displayed a complete inability to keep a straight line possible caused by the two blokes ahead of me who were veering to the west. It was right tussock hopping stuff and then I saw a grough just to my left so I veered over to it to find a lovely trod that brought me to Wild Boar. I overtook the two bloke in front of me so they dropped in behind and followed me the whole way to Bleaklow Head.

Black Dyke Crossing on the way to Black Hill

Approaching the summit of Black Hill

Went a little wrong between Wain Stones and Hern Stones as the trod I picked up veered too much to the right so I had to cut back across some wet ground (involving a bad fall as I put my foot into a deep hole) to got to Hern Stones to pick up the trod to Higher Shelf Stones.
Now I am not sure if I am doing the right thing here. There are two trods from Higher Shelf Stones to the Crooked Clough path. The right hand one is shorter but involves a little bit of re-accent. That is the one I use but I do not know if it is faster or slower.

Snake Top to Kinder West

River Kinder (grinah.org)

Now the homework comes to fruition off down the flags to Moss Castle with nobody following me as everybody else was heading down Within Clough. Then strike directly south. It went very well, totally runnable the whole way and the two streams were much lower than when I reccied it so up the plane wreck and the accent up to the plateau. The accent onto the plateau was probably 80 odd metres to the right of the boxing glove and this give a slightly more difficult line to Kinder West as the ground was just a bit softer. Nice to have the radio mast to home in on!
The crossing to Grindslow was to have been directly east from the “Christmas Trees” To get there I had to turn left at the second cairn. But somehow I missed the first one so when I got to the second I was not sure if it  was the first or second. I thought to continue is the safer option because if was the second then I would just take the more southerly route across the plateau.  Pretty quickly after passing it I knew it was the second one, I was not going back so down the first left hand grough  to catch up with a bloke who had just climbed out and seemed a bit unsure of where he was going. Another couple of blokes were heading south. I just headed directly east towards a rock formation that looked like stubby fingers.

Unintended Kinder Crossing to Grindslow

 Looking over my shoulder a few times I noticed I had developed quite a tail as I picked up bits of trods across. Got to the stones and I had no idea where I was as they were not the stones I thought they might be. Best thing was to veer a bit to the right and I would hit the edge path eventually. My tail followed me the whole way so they did not have a clue either. As it turned out looking at the satellite trace it was not a bad line as I hit the edge path not far from Grindslow Knoll. My watch was telling me that I was cutting it close to beat last years time, I  would probably be OK but I had to keep pushing. My tail finally caught me and overtook me rounding Grindslow and then the decent to Edale. I had reccied cutting the corner from the rocky descent path from Grindslow so going down the extremely steep descent through the heather  I overtook one of them and had to keep pushing hard to the finish to ensure he did not catch me again. It was a small victory and I came home 3 minutes faster than last year.
How do I feel about it? Well none of the reccing produced perfect results, with family commitments I just cannot get  get over to the Pennines to do enough work. So lots of small errors that would have added numerous odd minutes to my time.  If I had got ten minutes off last years time I would have been ecstatic so with three minutes I am reasonably “Trigger Happy”. Tighter lines without being any faster would probably easily have gained those extra seven minutes. So it goes to show the importance of route finding in this race.
Splits
I had my phone running RunKeeper with me on both the 2012 and 2013 race (about 200 metres difference in length) so it was possible to use the runkeeper website to compare splits for the two years. Overall I was faster up to Crowden in 2013 but slower for the remainder of the race. I was 40 seconds slower from Crowden to Higher Shelf Stones which was surprising as I know I went wrong before Bleaklow Head last year. I was disappointed to see that my kinder crossing from Kinder West Trig was actually 2.5 minutes slower in 2013 as the section along the river Kinder was very difficult in 2012 because of the ice and visiting Crowden Tower is a longer route. Likewise the split from Snake Top to Kinder West was also 2 minutes slower in 2013. Obviously I had tired more than I had realized. Maybe that is no surprise as last year I actually done a couple of 4 1/2 hr training runs. This year I done quite a few 3 to 3 1/2 hr runs so being out for 4 3/4 hours is considerably more than what I had done in training.

Even though the route via the plane wreck was two minutes slower than Featherbed Top, I still think it is a better option to pass down to the west of Within Clough. Possibly leave the paved path a bit earlier.