"Peris Horseshoe" Mountain Race Snowdonia

"Peris Horseshoe" Mountain Race  Snowdonia

Category: AL
Distance: 28km / 17.5miles
Ascent: 2,600m / 8,500ft
"Peris Horseshoe" Race Details by Fell Running Routes.
Following on from Ian's great write-up of Snowdonia's Peris Horseshoe (Peris the thought), I thought I would add my tuppence worth. Part of the attraction to these long races is investigating the “sneaky routes”. Snowdonia is too far away so any investigation I could do would be by looking at maps, trolling the forums and blogs and chatting to people with “the knowledge” (Geoff a veteran with a whole one Peris Horseshoe to his name). The navigation would become more important in the second half as up to Pen Y Pas the field would still be close enough to play follow the leader. The research" proved to be mixed result with some successes and failures. The biggest failure, trying to cut the corner to the Snowdon Ranger path probably counteracted all the successes!
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
Less than optimum route choice!

I opted for the early start (1/2 hr before the main field, which is a great idea). The race started as it means to carry on - "brutally"! From Llanberis a 2700 ft climb through the disused quarry then continue up to Elidir Fawr. Scramble over a load of rocks then some contouring and another climb up to Foel goch. A nice descent than another climb up Y garn. Another long descent before a real slog up to Glyder Fawr. 
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
We gained height very quickly right from the start - looking back down to the start field.
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
Looking back down into the quarry we have just been through.
It is by the lake before starting this climb that the leaders started to overtake me. After that turn South-East to try and find a good line off Glyder Fawr down to Pen Y Pass. I took my time in the glorious sunshine in the first half and got to Pen Y Pass (which is the end of the Half Paris) in 2:30 where the "mars bar" man commented that I was looking very fresh.

The hardest bit was then then the run up the gradual climb of  the miners track to the turn off to Lliwedd, I could not be seen walking by the tourist so heart and lungs screaming I kept running up the slight incline! It was to some considerable relief that I cut off the main path and headed up the trail towards Y Lliwedd. I loved the “easyish” scrambling over Lliwedd and the east ridge and because of my early start I had loads of people around me. I would never have found/done the east ridge on my own as it was pretty claggy over the Lliwedd ridge and Snowdon.
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
Looking back at Lliwedd from the "East Ridge"
Once at the top of the East Ridge we are once again reunited with the masses. A lot of whom have gone up on the train and get in the way even more than the walkers.  Follow the train tracks down to the standing stone that marks the top of the Range path and then straight  down to the col before Moel Cynghorion. The dire warnings about the climb up (and decent from) did not materialize. I actually done too good a job of “keeping something back” so I found it was a nice steady climb up.
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
 About to leave the "Ranger Path" to start the last climb up Moel Cynghorion.
Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
The summit of Moel Cynghorion is not the most exciting place in the world (but at least it is downhill from here)
Shouted out my number, over the style and then "that" decent where I got over-taken by a couple of people who gained a couple of hundred meters on me. They were off to my right and looked to have taken a better line as it looked less steep, something to lookout for next time! After the checkpoint I set my target to reel them in (more than likely pointless as I was probably half an hour behind them because of the early start!) I caught them and another woman with a dog who I did recognise because I nearly tripped over the bloody thing a number of times climbing Elidir Fawr. Crossed the railway line then join the road. As I was bombing down the hill a guy out side  the building (pub?) on the bend  having a fag shouts out the other runners went that way pointing to a gate behind the building. I could have kissed him I do not want to imagine how I would have felt if I went wrong a few hundred metres from the end of a 17 mile race. A bit of a windy track through the wood to arrive at a very low key finish line to meet a fellow Pennine Fell Runner who was hanging around to welcome us home.
I could have pushed it a bit more in the first half, with better lines and pacing I reckon I could easily have taken 15 minutes off my 5:31 time, but still pretty happy with it as I love Snowdonia and it was by far my biggest Mountain Races. The Peris Horseshoe is a fantastic race and I am at a loss to know why it is not more popular. I think sheep and lake land classics come to mind! In 2013 the Peris Horseshoe is a British Champship race so it will be considerably busier hopefully I will be there again!

Peris Horseshoe Mountain Fell Race Snowdonia September Pennine Fell Runners
Very early - climbing Elidir-Fawr Pic from "Picasawab Alastair Tye's Gallery"

The Ups and the Downs of Fell Running!

Now that road racing is behind me (for ever?) I have to seriously concentrate on "The Trigger". I had a window on Saturday morning until 09:30 to get a run in before the usually chauffeuring duties started. Six AM alarm call was followed by getting out at 06:20 to head over to Cobden Cross for a few reps. I had intended on doing six but time was against me so had to settle for five. Counting contour lines on the OS map reckons it is about 200 metres over about 1.75 Km. It is a bit of a brute of a climb as it is not constant with the  gradient at its steepest between 1 and 1.5 Km.

 I have created a Strava Segment for this climb  that puts it at 1.7 Km and (184 metres) The actual climb is a couple of minutes longer than the distance (and climb) covered by the segment. My PB for this segment is 12:38 with Marple's own Mr Iron-Man JohnE  holding the record at 10:47. When doing reps on it it tends to take about 31 minutes (17 minutes up and 14 down). I don't try very hard on the downhill! It would be considerably slower on a dark winter's morning with the soft ground and leaf cover. All my best times would be during the summer.

Got  out again on Sunday Morning at 6:15 for a 16ish Km run. I say "ish" as Strava said 18Km but it went mad 2 or 3 times and put in a few non-existent detoures. Got to see  a shooting star and a specular sunrise from "5 Ways" looking south-east towards Mount Famine. This is the best the rubbish camera on my phone could manage.

Stockport 10 Road Race 2013

Another year another Stockport 10. This is the 3rd year(and last time) I have done it. Perfect conditions this year, could even argue it was a bit on the  warm side (in December!) They bumped the numbers up this year allowing 1200 to enter, with 960 bothering to actually turn up on the day. I was not expecting too much this year as I have been struggling with lower abdominal muscle strain for about three months now. I have not really been enjoying my running during this time as I have a constant low level pain. This on top of changing over to forefoot running with the Inov8 bare 180s, which I am convinced are slower than my thick soled New Balance shoes. In fact I was in two minds about using the minimalist shoes because of the route change that will involve a mile on a pretty rough track which is exactly not what the bare 180s are designed for with their thin flat soles.

Race day!

 And They're Off

I turned down the volume on the phone as it is a bit embarrassing when the Strava woman starts announcing the details for the last Km. My tactics consisted of running as fast as I could from the start and try keep it up. It is a bit of a messy first few Km to this race as there are a lot of zig/zags through the park and housing estates, it was a relief to get to the Marple Rd and then down the rough track to start that great climb up from the river at Chadkirk. Being a fell runner I felt duty bound to show off a bit on this climb so I really pushed it and overtook loads of people Nearing the top of this climb I spied a lady in a Pennine top in front of me, that was a target, I caught her eventually only to be overtaken by her (and a load of other people) on the (rough) descent through the section I was concerned about. She got out of sight after that. This race finishes with a challenging climb at about 8.5 miles. I spied Holly in front of me again so yet again I tried to reel her in again to eventually finish 20 seconds ahead of her. She was telling me afterwards that she knew I was coming up behind here as my shoes have a very distinctive sound. The bare 180s have a very hard sole so they make a very loud "slapping" sound when running. I was convinced I was doing something wrong and even booked in with a forefoot (Pose running) coach. Basically my style was not too bad, not getting the right "forward lean", it is those particular shoes that are very "slappy". This photo below is just before starting the New Zeland Rd. climb, which is very late in the race. No wonder she looks tired.

I look better that that woman beside me but I do look like I am leaning back which could not be more wrong

They have a clock mounted just at the entrance to the park with is about 1/2 Km from the end. It showed that I was in and around the same time as last year, which I was delighted to see. That gave me extra motivation to push to the end to come home in 1:13:21. The EXACT same time as the 2012 race. I was very happy with this as the new route had to have been a few seconds slower due to that mile on the rough track. In fact looking at my Strava splits my three slowest kilometres are the two long climbs and then that rough section (which was downhill).

Nearly finished my 3rd Stockport 10

The 2012 and 2013 races had the same winner (Mohammed Abu Rezeq) with 14 seconds difference (2013 faster) in his two times.  Andi Jones  was 3rd in 2012 and second in 2013 despite being 17 seconds slower. Even though I had the same time I finished about 60 places lower in position 276. Have to mention the amazing effort by Pennine's AndyH. He smashed his 65 minute target with a 1:01:38.

I say it is my last year doing this and it probably will. I would not have entered this year only my wife had a deferred entry from last year that I took. I really fancy have a go at the Long Tour Of Pendle, which is only a couple of weeks before Stockport and I could not do both.

Technoloy and Fell Running - The Trigger Reccie

Two years, two Triggers, entered again for the 2014 running.  I was reasonably happy with last year's Trigger run but I knew that lots of small errors/lack of knowlege of optimum lines would have cost me time contributing to only gaining 2 of my target 10 minute reduction in the previous years time. This race is pretty much a set route from Marsden to Crowden. It is therefore the Bleaklow and Kinder Crossing that time can be gained/lost on this race. There was a bit of banter on the forum a couple of years ago between IanDarkPeak and myself following a farcical attempt to reccie from Crowden to Higher Shelf Stones. Ian commented he did not see our footsteps in the snow on the "Racing Line" to Bleaklow head. After the climb up from Crowden it is pretty rough ground over to Wild Boar Clough. In Last year's Trigger I was doing it when I saw a grough over to my left so I veered over to it to see if it made for easier going to find a nice trod that led me over to Wild Boar. I was using Strava and by exporting my Strava plot into Bing Maps I could view it on the OS 25,000 maps I was able to identify what grough it was. I have another addition to my phone with the installation of Alpine Trek and a selection of OS maps. With this I can see exactly where I am as it uses Android's satellite technology to position the map at my current position with a little pointer "you are here!".  Using this I was able to find the trod and got to Wild Boar Clough quite easy. That is all well on good but I won't be doing that on race day so I need to know the way without having to rely on the phone or map. There were lots of back and forts to identify landmarks to guide my way on race day.
I had just intended on just going to Bleaklow head and back but it was a nice morning (dispite being a bit claggy) so I pushed onto Highter Shelf Stones before attempting to retrace my steps, which is easier said than done. The meanderings on the Strava plot below are are combination of the attempts to identify landmarks and going completly wrong a couple of times on the return leg.

German Holiday Running and a Bob Graham assist.

With a view to having a go at a Bob Graham sometime in the future, I have offered my services for an attempt on September 20.  With this in mind I  was concious that I wanted to do some running while on holiday in Germany. I got four runs in, two of them on the road and two off road.

Climb through the vine yards.

The first run involved a savage 270 mtr climb up through the vine yards to the Niederwalddenkmal Monument. It's massive - the Germania statue at the top is over 3 mtrs high! The climb was followed by lots of meandering through the woods behind it. I was glad I had the compass as the direction I was sure was back to the statue was 180 degrees different to what the compass reckoned it was. The compass was right!

Niederwalddenkmal Monument Rüdesheim am Rhein Germany

One of the road runs was actually quite nice getting onto the small lanes east of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. It involved heading generally east through the apple orchards, getting totally lost then after a 90 minutes try to use the sun to head back west. It actually worked very well. The other road run was a bit of a non-descript out-and-back along the lake shore.

The best of the German runs was a 1100 metre climb up Rubihorn - Oberstdorf (1957mtr). It involved a very early morning start with a 2 Km bike ride to the start point I had identified the previous evening.

Lockup the bike then off.

Then a 1:45 climb (including photo stops) to reach the summit at 08:45, needless to say I met nobody on the way up. The climb passed through the spectacular Unterer Gaisalpsee - Hanging Valley at 1500 mtrs.

 

Unterer Gaisalpsee

Safety foot plates and cables!

A few sections of the climb were  alongside a fast flowing stream with some serious drops in places. The Germany had helpfully put in place steel cables to grab onto, they were much appreciated.

  There were some great photo opportunities with the clouds rolling in behind me but unfortunately  it mean that by the time I reached the summit it was covered in clouds so I missed an opportunity to get some shots of Alpine Peaks. Apparently The south of Germany is a very Catholic area, there were crosses everwhere including the mountain summits.

Summit Log at Rubihorn Summit

 

Clouds rolling in.

Back in the UK and it’s three weeks to the Bob Graham so that means two weeks of intense training then a week of cutting back. I am now 10 days into the intense period and I have done 9 runs covering 129 Km and 5000 mtrs of climbing. I have really focused on the climbing so I have done numerous reps of the Goyte to Cobden cross climb (about 220 mtrs). Fitting the training around parental duties has resulted in two 3 hr+ runs finishing after midnight.  All going well I am hoping to do three legs of the Bob Graham, I am currently scheduled to do 4 and 5 but I would like to do Leg 1 as well.

Rubihorn Summit Cross

DazH Memorial Race Buttermere

Loweswater Village Hall
Distance: 21.2 miles. Ascent: 9100 ft Strava Plot

At the AGM it was decided to dedicate the most improved trophy in Daz’s name. However some of us felt that this was not enough and that a race would be a true tribute to his memory. Thanks to Dan’s involvement in the idea of reintroducing the old Buttermere Horseshoe and many months of hard work by Paul et,al at  Cumberland Fell Runners the Darren Holloway Memorial Race 2013 was officially on the FRA calendar. My two main aims this year was to help out on another BG after the amazing adventure with AndyG last summer and to do one of the Lakeland Classics, which would probably be Wasdale because it’s the hardest and I want to get my money’s worth.

The ridge to Whiteless Pike

With Daz’s race confirmed Wasdale was out the window.
I was very happy with my performance on Paul’s BG attempt a couple of months ago and I knew I was in just as good shape for this one. I was guessing 6 hrs based on my 4:37 at Peris but chatting to Geoff and DaveW who were predicting 6 and 5 hrs respectively, I had to adjust my guestimate to closer to 7 hours. Reccies for this race were totally out of the question so the reccies consisted of picking up snippets of information from the race thread on the FRA forum. This proved very useful as people mentioned that different parts of the race share common ground with the Teenager with Altitude and Ennerdale. A bit of downloading of race routes from Strava and uploading to Bing maps where I can view them on the OS 25,000 maps showed me some of the more important lines namely the Haystacks and Seat bypass. Come race day I was ready with my photocopied map in its plastic sheet. Part of me was actually half hoping that it would be a bit claggy then I would have to do a bit of navigating.

On Friday night we started to arrive in the camp site in Buttermere and Pennine’s finest (Dan, Robin and myself) stood there discussing the race route. “Are we doing all these?” “Were do we start?” “Don’t know” “Do we go up that one?” “Don’t know” “Is that Haystacks?” “It looks a long way”, “I think I might be getting nervous now”. A million midge bites later Dan was getting bored and the midges were driving us mad so I was glad to head off to the Fish for a drink.

Relaxing before the start

Finally race day arrived and Dan gets volunteered into being the designated driver so Robin, Hano and myself pile into his car to be ferried right up to the church hall, nothing is too good for us. The usually milling around and meeting Daz’s family.

Then a few words from Daz’s cousin (Neil) and we were off. Very quickly I was in last place while everybody went haring off down the road. I though to myself what’s the point? There were a few members of Pennine manning some gates in the early stages and I started to feel a bit embarrassed, with all of the shouts of encouragement, and me in last place so I had to do a little sprint to get into second-last place, much better.

A few words from Neil and then we were "off"

The first climb of the day was Whiteside, being 11 am the sun had yet to dry out the rocks and the cloud base was still a bit low. It all combined to make the rock on Whiteside and the crossing over to the  checkpoint at Hopegill Head pretty slippery, I believe KarenN had a bad fall in this area. There were numerous opportunities to pick safer/quicker line along this section that would have really worked to the advantage of people familiar with the route.  Following Hopegill we had the first lovely long descent of the day down to the col before below Eel Crag before starting the climb up to  Grasmoor.

The battle for second-last place

We were setting into the race now and I was starting to identify a few people that were travelling at about my pace. This was the beginning of a long day of Leap Frog. As people overtook me I just let them go as I was confident that I would be able be able to catch them later. If it was going to be  a game of attrition, I would win   Uneventful run over Wandope Moss then a little descent on Whiteless Edge where the wet rock got me and straight down. My right hand took the blow resulting in a lovely blood flow and the thought “have I broken my wrist”. Relieved that my pelvis had escaped, I just ignored it and kept going. Get to Whileless Pike then that massive descent to Newlands. I was a bit horrified by it when driving through it on Friday eventing but it was actually quite good fun.

Nice touch Robin with the cycling cap (credit Mark Sammon)

Through Newlands and a big thank you to all of the words of encouragement before the climb up to Buttermere moss. Some words for inspiring fell runners do not try to take compass bearings off a map while walking across a bog, especially Buttermere Moss, twice in a minute I tripped over a tussock and fell flat on my face. I mucked up on this section just being lazy I blindly followed  three women (who I had being seeing a lot of during the day) in front of me. They stayed too high while contouring around Robinson and it made for very slow going, while clambering over the rocks. I over took them eventually and saw much better ground lower down. I headed down to it and made better time to Littledale Edge with the women following me.

Climbing up to Buttermere Moss from Newlands

I did not remember the descent from Dale Head to Honister being so long but there are some nice grassy bits so made for easy running.

"that_fell_guy" and me reaching the top of yet another climb.

Now the climb to Inominate Tarn where I was looking forward to meeting Joe and Dan. Tricky enough area around there and I was glad to have somebody to follow to. Big hello and a fist full of Jelly Babies then my research paid off as I followed the  Ennerdale route to High Crag.  Made a mistake here as I stayed to the right of the main foot path which lead me into loose rock that slowed my progress allowing a couple to catch up with me.
By High Style the land really opens out and with the clear conditions I had not really being navigating all day so I was not totally sure of where I was without getting the map out and studying it properly. Much better to follow somebody and there were two ideal candidates a bit in front of me. I caught up with them and stuck with them around Red Pike and the descent down to Scale Beck. I don’t know what I was thinking but soon after joining the beck I thought I saw a foot path over on the other side and I assumed the two lads were intending on cutting over to it so I just broke off to have a drink in the stream and then join the footpath. When I got up to where it was, there wasn't one, it was just a little land slide. I felt a bit embarrassed to cross back again to start following the lads again so I decided to just head in a straight line to  Mellbreak. At first it was a nightmare as I was struggling through thick heather, but then I started to pick up bits of trods and the heather gave way to bracken and I was starting to realize that I had accidental made a master stroke as I could see the foot path beside Scale Beck continue downhill. Over the fence and then the long climb to Mellbreak. I noticed I was being followed by somebody in white I was curious as to where that person had come from as there was nobody close to us on the descent from High Style. After the race Hano was telling me that he and Wendy Dodds were following Scale Beck when Wendy saw me and straight away cut over to follow me. I was pretty flattered by that. The two lads I was with complemented me at the end on my line as I gained a lot of time on them. I felt like a fraud.

Dan's and Joe's checkpoint at Inominate Tarn

The end of this race is so like Peris with the steep descent and long run it. Like Peris I felt I had loads left in the tank and I was able to do a nice descent and steady run into the end. Great cheers from Stevie and Co in the pub and the shout to keep left to face that horrible little climb up the road at the end. I was always expecting to be the last Pennine home so was a bit alarmed when somebody asked where is Hano. I had not seen him all day and it was only with my bit of inspired navigation that I got past him without knowing. He arrived back in soon after me looking very tired and very happy in equal measures.

What can be said about the race it was a fantastic experience, (for my first Lake District race), amazing route in almost perfect conditions. The food was amazing, except that I had been eating sugary stuff all day so sweet cakes was the last thing I wanted, I had some anyway but I was chatting to one of Daz’s relatives telling her I was sick of sugar and would kill for a bacon sandwich, she said she would remember that for next year.

Lough Musky and Galteemore or (Galty More)

Back in Ireland for a few days and I decided to repeat the Galteemore race route again. This time I thought I knew where the start point was but yet again I went wrong trying to get there. Got to Bansha OK but I think I took a left turn afterwards that was a mistake. Yet again more driving around county lands (there are just too many "pokey" little roads in Ireland!), while recognising nothing. Finally I came across a sign for Lough Musky and thinking to myself that is in the foot hills of the Galtees so it will do. So at delayed 6:45 I was off up the forest road on a glorious morning. A 2 km steady climb up the forest road, passing a couple of dead sheep on the way, to the lock and when Galteemore came in sight I realised that I was a bit further away from it than I expected, no harm, I will just get to run along the ridge for further than intended. I broke right off the footpath to the Lock to begin the grassy climb up a spur onto the ridge.

Looking back to Lough Musky

It was not too bad as there were a lot of sheep trods about that, for a change, actually went in the correct direction. Up onto the ridge and a lovely grassy run to Galtee beag. I only had 3 hrs this morning so with the delayed start and extended approach I decided to contour around Galtee Beag and attack Galteemore directly. I must be getting fitter as I did not find the steep climb too bad this time and actually ran quite a bit of it. Got to the summit at 08:45 and needless to say I had it to myself.

Summit Cross on Galteemore

 In-fact beside the race day last year I have never met anybody in about ten visits to the summit. Glorious morning so time for a couple of photos and then keeping well to the right got a lovely descent to the col between Galteemore 'agus' Beag. The short climb to Galtee Beag and then that long steep descent down to the col between Galtee Beag and Cush.

The south face of Galteemore down to the corrie lake.

I was now on about 2:15 and I decided that talking in Cush would add 25 minutes to the run so I veered right around the flank of Cush to head for the gap between two forests. I passed another few sheep on the descent to the river crossing. I was surprised to see so many on a run. Down the gap between the two woods and to pick up an indistinct path for a couple of km back to the forest road leading back to the car. I must have passed at least 15 dead sheep along this couple of kilometres, which must have been over 30 in total. I had heard on Irish radio that the farm animals were suffering very badly and starving to death due to extended winter weather this year. The vast majority of sheep I passed were still relatively fresh so they would have been victims of that late winter. If I saw 30 odd on my 18 km run how many must there be on the entire mountain range that is 20 miles long? Have people experienced the same thing in the lakes or Snowdonia? I got back to the car, a bit after 10am, to meet a couple blokes preparing for their walk. Received a comment about my work being done for the day then back in the car feeling very satisfied about the morning's run.

Pennine Biannual Runner vs Bike

First of the Pennine Biannual runner vs bike. It is a great little fun handicap event with "social" runners heading off first, followed 5 minutes later by the "competitive" runners, who are then followed five minutes later by the bikes.  It's an excellent route taking in the 2.5 Km climb up the snake path to the shooting cabin. This climb gives the runners a good chance to put considerable distance between them and the bikes so it needs to be taken as hard as possible. There was about 4 bikes and 15 runners tonight. At about 7 pm somebody shouted go (which I missed) and the social runners group of about 7 were off. I tore off after them to hear a couple of people shout my name. I take it they did not think I should be in the "social" group, which I suppose I should be flattered about, but when I knew who was in it with ChrisL, Sevie, and Simon, no way I was going to head off with them, I would be last by a long way.

Snake Path to the Shooting cabin

After my slightly delayed start I had to catch the other runners and  soon I was in the lead. The snake climb is a regular run for us (plus a strava segment to give it extra impetus) I stretched my lead to about 40 metres by the shooting cabin turn (and set a PB on the segment to jump about 4 places in the strava league). It is now the long descent down to Car Meadow. My target tonight was to try to get to Car Meadow before the fast runners caught up with me. I was only 500m into the descent, having crossed the stream when I hear footsteps coming up behind me, then Simon shot past. I could not believe he had made five minutes up on me in 3km, that is absolutely incredible running. I was nearing the bridge over Hollingworth clough, when Sevie shot past and my fellow early starter Rosie also overtook me as I done my usual struggle on rough ground, which is a bit of a problem for a fell runner. I lost another place on the short section of road, before the long climb up to Lantern Pike where I regained my two places. I knew Rosie was a faster descender then me so I needed a good cushion before the long Sunny Side descent.

It is amazing how competitive I get in what should be a fun event! I really pushed myself to the limit to the top of the climb to be caught by another of the fast runners (Noel I think) out side Sunny Side. When I saw how fast he was going I just let go and bombed down the hill after him. There seems to be some debate about the best way back once we get to the bottom of the hill, some runners continue on down the Pennine Bridleway (the bikes have to go that way) while others turn left down the road and then cut down through the fields by Lower Cliff. Personally I think this way is faster and I actually got ahead of Noel again when I got onto the Sett Valley Trail. It is then a two Km run back to the finish, which hurts like hell! Running as fast as I could as I could see John in front and I set a target to to try to catch him. I finally overtook him very close to the bus station when one then two bikes overtook me. Another bike overtook me when crossing the bypass so that was pretty good handicapping to get us so close! I got home in 52:26 for the 9.7km which I am pretty happy with. The order of finish was Bike,Runner,Runner,The three bikes that overtook me, then me. So possibly I should have started with the faster runners.

So Relieved to see that gate at the end of the Sett Valley Trail

Overall a very enjoyable night in lovely conditions. The next novelty event will be the extremely popular Pennine Relay from Ladybower Dam back to Hayfield and then the runner vs bike Mk2 in September.

A Pennine Bob Graham Adventure

I had only been running with Pennine a few weeks when one Thursday night there was great excitement about some run in the lakes the previous weekend. I was not quite understanding what it was about but it sounded like a long race. Eventually one of the Lads explained to me that it was not a race but a personal challenge. I was still none the wiser about what the excitement was. Sometime later I got orders from my brother in Dublin to buy a book about fell running for him as it's suppose to be be good. You guessed it "Feet in the Clouds".  I suppose I better read it to make sure it is good - ah! Bob Graham that is what the lads were on about!

Over the next couple of years there were another couple of Pennine Bob Graham weekends with a mixture of successes and failures. I was a bit jealous since I could not get up as they seemed to be a great social occasion. Last summer I got up on a successful BG attempt with AndyG. He was not in Pennine long so it was not a typical Penning BG attempt as there were just the 3 Pennine members involved. He was very lucky with the weather and had a storming round to get back to the Moot hall in just under 21 hours. I ran legs 1,4 and 5 that day and loved it. So this year when the prospect of another Pennine BG attempt got raised, I booked my pass at home as I wanted to be involved.

PaulB is a very good runner having completed the UTMB last year in very difficult conditions, I had spoken to him a number of times in recent weeks and he was very confident. He had a very difficult time with his reccies as the snow was very late this year so while he had great weather conditions, it made for very difficult conditions under foot. Amazingly a couple of weeks before his attempt the average temperature shot up by about ten degrees with some rain that cleared away a lot of the snow. The weather forecast in the week before was pointing to almost perfect conditions for his Friday night/Saturday morning start. I was keen to do the two legs (two, three) that I had not done last year. Leg two (12.87 miles (20.71 km) 1,835m) would be similar difficulty to leg one. There are a lot more summits but, like leg one just the three long climbs. Leg three is the beast of the round at 15.20 miles (24.46 km), 2,024m.

Arrived at "the smithy" at 6pm ish  to find Margaret on her own. Over the next few hours the rest of the crew started to arrive. With my 04:00 start I stupidly tried to go to bed at about 8pm to spend 5 hrs looking at the ceiling and getting very little sleep. It was with some relief when the alarm went off just after 3am, so that we could get started. It was a short drive to the Cricket club at Threlkeld  during which we could see the head torches descending off Blencathra. The leg one crew arrived pretty much on time having had an enjoyable leg in perfect (but cold) conditions. After a slowish change over at 04:20  Paul and a group of six pacers were off  past the sewage works and up the road to begin the Clough Head climb.

Dawn on Great Dodd

We could just see the dawn break at the top of the climb and I spend a lot of the next few summits dropping off the back of the group due to talking frequent photography stops and talking it easy on the descents to protect my suspect left ankle.

Leg 2 Support Crew

In the perfect conditions it was a beautiful run over the three "Dodds" before starting the more significant climb up Raise. From Helvellyn we had the pleasure of an amazing temperature inversion over the Dunmail pass. From here is was more easy running to Dollywaggon where a moment of indecision delayed us before striking down to the fence post leading to the descent to Grizedale Tarn.

Temperature Inversions over Dunmail

Grizedale Tarn appears out of the mist.

After dumping the bags I got a blast of speed from somewhere and was first to Fairfield summit.  My worst fears then struck and the dickey left ankle once again gave out on me. I struggled on the descent back to Grizedale Tarn as the main group got away from me before the assent of Seat Sandal. On my own at what I through was  Seat Sandal summit, a good trod went off to the right so I followed it. But after 50m I was thinking why are there no mudclaw tracks? About turn and back to "the summit" - compass out to confirm I was heading north instead of west. Off in the correct westerly direction to get to Dunmail about 10 minutes after the contender at 08:40  (4:20 for the leg) 

Leg 3 Support Crew and doggies

A very quick bite to eat and water bottle refill then at 08:45 a quick chase after the three Penniners on the Steel Fell accent. I have been up the Langdales and Sca Fells many times but this crossing from Steel Fell was going to be completely new. Granted the conditions were perfect but GeoffB is just so experienced and he led us across to Calf Cragg and then onto Sergeant Man without a hitch, except Paul mentioned he had given his knee a wrench on a little jump. None of us took much notice of it as we just assumed he would be able to run it off. Geoff and IanW set a hot pace across the leg and I was petty much last the entire time as I had to work to keep up. Paul was loosing time on the leaders on the descents but was still generally moving well. We knocked off the  Langdales, OK then I found Rossett Pike hard and Bowfell is an absolute beast. It was funny crossing between the two as there were loads of walkers on the foot path to see these four lunatics descending the steep grassy slope from Rossett Pike, cross the foot path to head towards the crags leading up to Bowfell.

That assent to Bowfell

Eventually we reached the summit then loads of boulder hopping to get to Esk Pike from which I identified a sequence of snow fields that allowed for a lovely decent down to the coll below Great End.

The snowfields off Est Pike

 It was about the only time all day I was in the lead. I expected a harder climb to Great End but it was easy and then the  annoying diversions to claim Ill Crag and Broad Crag before summiting the highest point Scafell Pike (978 m). I find this sort of terrain very difficult in MudClaws as they give very little protection if your foot slips on the rock. Descended down to Mickledore from which Geoff had a rough idea of the climbers traverse route. This worked pretty well and saved on a considerable amount of descent and re-assent that would have resulted from the traditional Fox's Tarn route. Bagged the final summit of the leg and then the long descent to Wasdale Head. I had forgotten to print off the timing sheet so I had know idea how we were going. It was on this descent that IanW mentioned to me that it will be "touch and go" to succeed. This was the first time I had appreciated our situation. Following a slow decent to Wasdale as Paul was really starting to find the descents difficult we arrived at the changeover at 15:00, a bit under an hour down (6:15 for the leg). This was me done for the time being having been on the go for about ten hours and forty minutes. Paul headed up the hardest climb of the day, which is Yewbarrow, with his new support team of three.

Dave's Rolling support

A wash in the stream and the long drive around to Buttermere. The long night caught up to me as I kept nodding off on Geoffs shoulder and when they stopped at the pub I stayed in the camper van  to get a couple of hours sleep (while they had three pints and I missed it!) before heading up to Honister. We got there shortly after eight and I got changed into my running gear and proceed up to Grey knotts to meet Paul and crew in the semi darkness. Paul was really struggling and Hano had to give him a hand on the more difficult bits of the descent. I lead them back down to Honister and Helen shot ahead to tell them Paul, will not be stopping (not given a choice!). We departed Honister at 21:10. 70 minutes down but for a fit runner it was still very much on.

Paul,(in the middle) approaching Robinson Summit

He shot up to Dale Head so he could still move up hill quite well and we got to Hindscart after 45 minutes. The knee was getting worse but we arrived at Robinson at 10:40. 1:20 was doable but the descent off Robinson proved too much. Geoff waiting by the van was telling me he could see the torches all the way from the top of Robinson and could not believe how slow they were moving. We eventually arrived at the beginning of the 10km road section in  Littletown at 11:50 where we called it quits.

Back to the smithy where Paul fell asleep straight away and the rest of us reflected on the day with mixed emotions. It had been perfected conditions so we could have done nothing but enjoy the adventure, while gutted for Paul's misfortune that spoilt his attempt. At 0200 on my second bottle of beer I was falling asleep so called it quits for the night. The next morning awake at 0800 tried to get back to sleep again but gave up and was up before 9. Paul was very positive in the morning as three daft buggers prepared to do  the Langdale Horseshoe. It was horrible conditions for it with driving wind and rain. The assent was not too bad with the wind on our backs. We had a quite moment when we got to Daz's cairn then the difficult run out with the rain in our face and a pair of quads that did not want to go downhill.

In the second half of leg three (around about Bow Fell, I think) I remember thinking to myself I must be mad to even think about having a go at this. Time has a nice way of dulling pain as here I am a couple of weeks later thinking......

There are a few photos here.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.590481477631341.1073741826.100000084824850&type=1&l=4b3cd36883

March Snow

I remember hearing a phrase, as a kid about the March weather, "It comes in like a loin and goes out like a lamb".  Something has gone badly wrong this year as the early part of the month was very spring like but it has been back to January-like conditions the past ten days, especially the last five days with a  long-forecasted snowfall over the weekend. Up early on Saturday morning for my usual "Cobden Cross, Mellor Church" run. There was a bit of snow around the house but nothing serious. Down to the canal and then the climb up to "The Foxes". The fun really started on this climb.

Track up to Shaw Farm

The actual centimetres of snow fall was  not that much but it had been very windy so the snow had got blow into every "nook and cranny" possible and where better but sheltered bridleways.
There were some massive snow drifts on this climb and being out so early I was first so I had all of this pristine snow to trash through. It was hard work, very slow but great fun. Who says we can get too old to behave like a child! Whipping the phone out to take a few photos also did not help speed matters!

Road by "Three Chimneys", Cobden Cross

Eventually trashed my way to Cobden Cross (327 metres) to get an amazing view of Kinder

Kinder from Cobden Cross, with my snowdrift-filled bridleway on the left

Unfortunately coming over the crest of the hill at Cobden Cross mean I was facing directly into the wind. It was brutal stuff trying to protect myself from the snow flakes that were being driven into my face at a million miles an hour. The snow on the bridleway was so variable in places nothing, while in other places it was deep snow drifts. Trying to progress with my face down and eyes half open I managed to trip over a  small snow drift to get a painfull crash onto the rock hard ground.

Trying to protect my face from the driving snow

I was relieved to get to my left turn to "five ways" where the driving wind swung behind me. I was now at one of the highest points in the local area (about 300 metres) with a 1Km bridleway to the road. This bridle way is quite exposed so a lot of snow had been blow onto it to give some amazing snow formations (and more thrashing through snowdrifts)

Snow being driven by the wind

Got to the road that was in very poor conditions to meet a big tractor that was attempting to clear it a bit. He must have through I was mad to be out in those conditions (maybe I was!). Made my way to Mellor Church (222 metres) to meet a lady and gent out enjoying the conditions. From here I quickly lost height on the long decent down to the River Goyte. I was enjoying the run so much I dragged it out by a couple of miles at the end and even met a couple of runners down by the river.

I was out for about 2.5 hours so far from my fastest run.

Goyt Way back to the Railway Tunnel

When I got home and uploaded my strava plot I had a quick look on the FRA forum to find out the Edale Skyline Fell race had been canceled. Having experienced what I saw that morning I can't say I was suprised. This comment from the dissapointed race organiser sums up the conditions over in Edale

"I heard reports that Jude Jepson and Heather Marshal ran from the start of the route to Win Hill - they took 2 hours to do that! Which leads me to think that no one would have made the cut off at Mam Nic... It's almost a shame that we couldn't have had a Championship race where the ENTIRE field was timed out!"

IanFiz.

In last year Edale Skyline it took me 1:07 to get to Win Hill, Heather won the inaugural "The Trigger" so in a completly different league to me. I would guess 45 to 50 minutes would be a more typical time for sombody of her ability to reach Win Hill.

Cobden Cross Hill Reps - Runner Vs Bike!

Since "The Trigger" I have mainly being doing the Cobden Cross, Mellor Church route, which is about 16 Km (10 miles) with about 450 m of climbing. This is a 1:45ish run but I have being doing it quite regularly since January so my fitness levels are not too bad. I am due to help out PaulB on his Bog Graham in the second half of April so it is time I start to ramp up my mileage (and more importantly climbing). I enjoy the Mellor Church but there is not a large amount of climbing on it as once the initial climb to Cobden Cross is complete I more or less stay high until the decent after Mellor Church. The running around Marple would not be true fell running territory, it would be mainly trail running but they would be pretty challenging trails. The longest climb in the area would be about 200 m (over 1Km) of assent from the river Goyte up to Cobden Cross.

Last night I dropped off my daughter off at the Gang Show, went to the supermarket to get some coffee for my wife who has failed in her attempt to give the stuff up. Then at 19:20 off on a run,  with the head torch and  2:30 hours available to me before the post show pickup. I do not normally get out this early, it would often be after 9pm before I get out. I though being out earlier I might meet some mountain bikers as the Marple trails are popular MTB territory. Out of Marple and down the Roman Lakes road to meet a coupe of MTBs comming up and then further down a runner without a light. Obviously he was out a bit longer than intended as it was pretty much dark at this stage.

Overlooking Manchester from Cobden (Mellor) Cross

 I decided to try a few reps up to Cobden Cross. This is OK as are there are a number of routes up to it from the Goyte river valley.  I done my first "up and down" and on the second "up" from Shaw Farm I saw a runner coming towards me it turned out to be Pennine's GeoffB. I have been running these hills for four years and, despite a number of club mates living around the area, only once before have I met another Pennine runner. A little chat about the Edale Skyline then continue the climb. I got up to Cobden Cross four times so you can have a bit of fun trying to trace my route on the map below! The weather conditions were great and underfoot it was not too bad either so a very enjoyable run.

Up and Down from Cobden Cross

Passing Linnet Clough scout camp on the final decent to Marple I met a group of about ten mountain bikers resulting in a race down to Bottoms Hall. I threw caution to the wind struggling on the rocky decent as my batteries were getting a bit tired. I reached the bottom in about 7th place. They waited at the bottom for the stragglers to catch up and I kept going up to start the final climb up to "Strines Rec". They came after me but once on the climb they could not catch up with me as running up hill is faster than a bike.  Another one of my regular climbs is from Strines Station up to the Fox's pub. A couple of times on this I overtook MTBs on this climb. When I first started using Strava I accidental uploaded one of my runs as a bike ride and, I felt very proud, as the Strains Station up to the Fox's pub segment had me in 9th place out of 80. When I realised my mistake and changed it back to a run I was down to 3rd out of 4.
I waited at the top to have a chat and the leaders were a bit put out that I beat them to the top!

Manchester From Cobden Cross

In the end I done 20 Km with 840 metres of climbing so not a bad run.

A Blustry Night With Pennine

Another Thursday night another Pennine run. There were quite a few of us tonight, probably about 20. Little bit of drizzle in the carpark but not a bad night. The quick guys were around (DaveW, StevieK, Stefan, etc) so I though there is a change for a "quick one" tonight. My progress as a fell runner has been slow enough, plain and simply, when on my own, I do not push myself enough (or at all). Thursday night hanging onto the coat tails of the quick lads gives me an opportunity to inflict some pain on myself!

They decided on the "round the res" clockwise route, which is a route well know to us, despite the fact that I went wrong, when navigating it, last week. The route is on the map below, took a bit of work to get that map. I use Strava on my phone and from the Strava website I exported to GPX file and imported it into "My Routes" on Bing Maps. Bing Maps is great as it uses the OS 50,000 and 25,000 maps.

This route starts with the 1.5 Km climb up the Snake Path to the Shooting Cabin. The benine conditions in the car park were quickly blown away as we faced strong head winds and driving rain the whole way up. I am doing a lot of running these days as I try to get the weight down as part of the "Overweight to Race Weigh" thread on the FRA Forums. As part of this (and compition on Strava) on Monday night I done a 20 mile run on the Middlewood way to Macclesfield and back. I was a bit tired, as most of tonight I was in the bottom half of the group when usually I would be further up. It was Ok, the group kept together, as the fast lads kept stopping to allow the stragglers to catch up. We were rewarded for the hard climb into the head wind  when we crossed the bridge below Mermaids Pool. This bridge is followed by a climb and we never went up it as fast as we were literally blown up by the wind, great way of climbing! When I got to the gate below Kinder Low End, the lads were waiting to regroup before the decent down through Tunstead Fields. I saw some head torches continuing towards Swines Back as one of the lads shouted "go on Pat you know you want to!" So off I went trying to chase down the fastest runners in the club. When they got to Swines Back they saw me coming  behind them so waited and asked if they wanted me to wait for them I said no as I assumed they were just going to head down the bridle way and back. But no they turned left and headed over to Dimpus Clough, bloddy 'ell this is going to be hard they are going to head up to South Head. I kept them in sight by running my heart out and kept the gap down to about 50 metres. Crossed Dimpus and "now where are they going?" they kept low rather than the expected climb crossed a stream then started climbing. It went on forever and they were slowly drawing away from me. I had no idea where I was and this climb kept getting steeper . With the mist closing in I lost sight of them. Eventually I hit a trod and and I had no idea where I was. I choose to turn left and head down hill and quickly I hit a wide bridleway and still unsure of where I was but I could see street lights to my right so that had to be the way. Very quickly I hit a gate and knew exactly where I was. We had actually went directly from Dimpus Clough to Mountain Famine and I had hit the trod just below the summit. The other lads had turned right on the trod to go back via Mountain Famine and the Dragon's Back while I turned left to hit the Trans Pennine Bridleway and headed straight down that to get back. I had a great run down the bridle way and arrived in the car park where Stevie was just changing so they were not that far in front of me. Stevie was glad to see me as they did not like abandoning somebody in those conditions. He reckoned I picked a better route back as the Dragons Back was very difficult in the conditions.

Glad I done it as I pushed myself hard and got in a good 13 Km run.

A Kinder Meander

Another planned Pennine 3 hr run last night. Helen had two volunteers, PaulB and me. The intention was to do the Kinder Trog, but going up the Giggle Gaggle rather than the road via Sunny Side. Started off OK but Helen cried off at the top of the Giggle Gaggle as she was feeling ill so Paul and I continued on. It was a nice evening and we carried onto the top of William Clough OK. By now it was getting quite a bit colder and Paul was not dressed warm enough so was not keen on going over Kinder. I would have carried on but we decided to head down William Clough and then follow the res around to Kinder Low End.

Turn right to William Clough

William Clough Decent

 Now I have been around this numerous times,in both directions in both day light and night time. We were going OK got to the woods below Mermaids Pool, crossed the bridge, up the track, took the left fork, through the gate, down the steep hill, through the next gate crossed the stream, crossed the stream again (WHY!!!) I knew I should not be crossing two streams but there was a trod going that way. I just switched my brain off - if there is a trod it must be right! Continued up the steep climb having long since lost the trod and my confidence we were going in the correct direction was waining. We finally got to a small rocky outcrop and I knew this is wrong. We decided to abandon it at that stage so turned around and headed generally west as Hayfield had to be in that general direction.

While messing about we could see a number of head-torches on a hill above and were curious as to who they were. Apparently the main Pennine group had gone up the 3 Knolls path, followed the Pennine Way to Kinder low Trig Point. From there they headed off towards Kinder Low End to decend. After quite a bit of running in the mist they ended up at Kinder Low Trig for a second time. Like us they done a bit of brute force navigation and headed off on a westerly compass setting to get off the hill. We probably  saw them as they found their way off. Kinder is quite forgiving on that front as there are relativly few places where it would be difficult to get off the plateau.

Some excellent navigation by Pennine's best!

 Out compass bearing took us a lovely decent through a number of fields (no right of way) to end up a Hilltop houses, from which it was a straight forward return to hayfield. We ended up doing 10 miles in 2 hrs so a decent enough run, despite my dodgy navigation. The main group had just got back a few minutes before us as many of them were still in the carpark as we arrived back. I fell a bit better about it knowing somebody as experienced as GeoffB also went wrong :)

Paul got the plot up on Strava and we can see this lovely little out and back for 300 metres or so going in an easterly direction. The rocky outcrop we got to would have been in the three knolls path area.

Strava Plot here

Strava - Sandy Hays Segment

I have got sucked into the Strava club following a creation of a Pennine Fell Runners (http://app.strava.com/clubs/pennine-fell-runners)and FRA Forum club on the site. It is actually quite enjoyable seeing what other people are up to and how fast some of them are! Strava has a nice idea called segments which are marked routes that when you do that route you are automatically added to the league table containing others who have done that section. Went over to Hayfield last night specifically to do the Sandy Hays segment. Very cold night  and the underfoot conditions going up Sandy Hays were perfect. I thought I was going to get sick by the time I got to the Pennine way but I pushing as hard as I could to set a good time. It turned out that I am 8th (18:22) out of 16 people who have recorded completions on it. Quite a few familiar names from Pennine in the list, but not the leader at 14 odd minutes (amazing time).

Link to Strava - Sandy Hays Segment

From the top I traveled along the Pennine way to Red Brook then down the Three Knolls path. That was a challenge and there was loads of frozen snow that kept breaking under my feet. Lost the path a couple of times.
A couple of photos nicked from Google!

Looking back to Kinder Low End from Tunstead Fields

 It is very different being out on your own, cannot help but think of the safety issue as even a small accident would have you in a serious situation. I push myself so much harder on the Thursday club training runs knowing that I have people to help out if necessary.

Nearing the top of Sandy Hays