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

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.

Tales from the Dark Side - Stockport 10

This is a road race so stop now if not interested.  My wife done this a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Last year I entered to give here moral support for her second attempt. I would not have entered only there are two considerable hills in the race both in the second half at 6 miles and cruelty 8.5 miles to give a total assent of about 550 feet, which is a lot for a road race. Last year I done no training for the Stockport 10. Probably 3 years(ish) since I done that distance on the road and I done a five hour reccie for "The Trigger" the Thursday before. So I was pretty chuffed to come in 1:16 in position 268ish out of 780ish finishers. Twelve months later my wife wanted to do it again. I knew entries were open but I was not bothered about it so for a few days I did not mention it hoping it would fill up. Finally I decided I had better mention it is open so ended up paying 17 quid each to enter (ouch!). Soon after entering she got injured and just too busy with the new job so she cried off and deferred the entry until next year, which was nice by the organisers. So here I was doing it on my own. This year I actually done a hand full of 4 mile sprints around Marple thinking I should at least try for the Stockport race this year. But then on the Thursday before the long distance coordinator at Pennine scheduled her 3 hr training run for that night. I was not missing that! It turned out to be a horrible night with driving rain and sleet so it got cut back to 2 hours which suited me.

Up on Saturday morning and it was horrible oh well what do you expect in December. Got to Woodbank Stadium in Woodbank Park to retrieve my number.
It was a nice touch having my name on it, but caused some confusion during the race as a couple of time people called out "come-on Patrick" and I was looking at them trying to work out who they are as they must know me and I have no idea who they are!!.  The race number also had a little chip bonded to the back for the automated chip timing.

Puma Stockport 10 - Come-on Patrick!

The conditions actually improved by the time the race started we had one heavy shower within the first couple of miles but after that conditions just continued to improve. Actually turned out to be a perfect day for running. There were so many people who were over dressed for it with long running leggins and/or jackets. Some people are such whimps at the beginning of a race and do not appreciate how much they will warm up once it gets started. Early in the race I recognised a Glossopdale vest in front of me, I pulled along side and commented it was nice to see another Fell Runner to be informed that this was actually on the Glossopdale club championship and there are 14 of them out. We would have a riot in Pennine if they tried to put a road race in our championship.

The first down downhill,which was on  a rough track

The two big climbs are both in the second half. Despite this my split for the second 5 miles, the previous year, was a couple of seconds faster that the first five. At the start of the first climb I said to myself Pat you are a fell runner lets show them what you can do so I started to push up the hill overtaking quite a few people and just kept it up for the rest of the race. Done the same this year and near the top of the climb I caught site of my club-mate "Barnaby". Now there was a target. Every so slowly I was pulling him in. Until we got to the big decent at about 7 miles and he was just faster than me on the downhill. He ended up finishing 15 places (50 seconds) ahead of me. The real sting in this race is the 1  mile climb up New Zeeland Road at 8.5 miles. It suits me as everybody is knackered at that stage and I was able to gain a hand full of places.

Stockport 10 relief map

I dropped my phone in the first mile and it turned itself off when it hit the ground so I had no idea how I was going so on re-entering the park I was ecstatic to see the clock just turn 1:09 with a Km to go. I had a great opportunity to get below the 1:15 that I was hoping for so doing something resembling a sprint.

Competition!

I had just overtaken this bloke in the white tee shirt,  he was not having it we had 200 m to go on the track and he over took me again I had nothing left to hold him off.
 I got home in 1:13:21 to give me position 204. There were 749 starters so just outside the top quarter.
The overall winner came home in 49:55 and my category winner (MV 45) was 55:53, 9th overall!
I am amazed by how few finishers there were. The race was full at 1000 what happened to the other 251. I suppose there would be a few DNFs but the vast majority probably just did not turn up! Nearly quarter of the field that is appalling.

Within  a couple of minutes of finishing I received a text message congratulating me on finishing the Stockport 10 in a time of 1:09:21 eh? Apparently it was the same for most people having 4 minutes taken off their time.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I do it again? I don't know!

Run The Line 6th October 2012

Back in Ireland for a family reunion when in the pub on Thursday night my twin informs me of a Trail Race (Run the Line) through the Dublin Mountains on Saturday in aid of Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue.  It is a 28 Km (17.5 mile) long linear race starting in the Dublin suburb of Tallaght and heading generally south east around South Dublin to finish near Glencullen, close to the well known pub, Johnnie Fox's. This place has been around since 1798 and claims to be the highest pub in Ireland but apparently it is not! With a few pints of Guinness down 36 hrs notice is more than enough time to get my head around doing a 28 Km run. Luckily I had a pair of trainers and running trousers (but no waterproofs of any kind so just hope the weather will be OK). Short run Friday then an unholy early start on Saturday morning to drive to Dublin for the race start. Join the queue to get a shock when asked for 37 euro my brother somehow thought it was 20. Well we are here now and it is a good cause so just pay up.

It was a glorious morning and approximately 60 real man (and ladies) were ready for the off on the full "Run the Line". Another 60 odd lightweights were getting ready to board a bus to be ferried to the half way point for the start of the 14 km race. A bit of banter as my identical twin brother is a regular at IMRA events so I had a number of complete strangers come chatting to as if I was a close friend - weird.

The Wicked Witch of the East and her ugly sister

Just before the race I realised that the I had left my water bottle in the car, well too late to worry about it now just have to rely on the water station, risky as it was a warm morning and it will only get hotter. Eventually called to order given some safety instructions as the early stage of the race is on public roads. then we were off.

And we are "off" to Run the Line

The first few Km were pretty flat initially along public then private roads to get to the reservoir at Bohernabreena. As so often happens I went off pretty fast with Runkeeper on my phone informing me how fast I was going. After 3 km I decided I was going too fast and slowed up quite a bit. This allowed another runner to slowly catch up with me and as he came along side we started chatting and ended up staying together for the next few Km. The run along Bohernabreena reservoir was amazing with the autumn trees in the morning sunshine.

Bohernabreena Reservoir

At 6 Km got to the end of the first reservoir cross the dam then the first climb of the day up to the second reservoir. RunKeeper was now telling me I was going even faster but I felt OK so, "why not" -  lets see what I am capable of?

The Upper Reservoir, Bohernabreena waterworks

We pulled in and passed quite a few runners until the climbing started to get more serious. My companion was training for the Dublin Marathon later in October so while a decent runner on the flat he did not have it for the long climbs on the road. I could see quite a few runners scattered along the hill in front of me and feeling like a bit of a "Show Off" Fell Runner I put the pressure on to drop my companion and overtake quite a few runners on that long climb. Eventually arrive at the water station, at 14 Km, to down a few cups of water and grabbed a couple of handfuls of Jelly Babies. Then off down the Forest trails.

A lot of work has been done in the Dublin mountains to build very good quality walking routes for people who would not be confident in true mountain terrain. For the most part from this point on the race followed forestry roads and these good quality foot paths. Caught up with another runner who was not enjoying the descending, I passed on a hint to try to stop his stride getting too long on the decents to protect his knees. Dropped him on the next climb, not expecting to see him again. By this stage I was running on my own as the 60 odd runners were pretty well scattered along the course and I had yet to begin to catch up the the back-markers  in the "1/2" "Run the Line" race. A long decent down the forest trail to Killakee car park and the bloke from earlier comes bombing past me. He shouts out his thanks for passing on the down hill running advice. Last time I pass on useful info during a race. I was now starting to catch the 14 Km back-markers, which helped massively in setting a target to reel them in. As the race progressed  the frequency of catching them increased considerably. One of the nicest parts of the race was now coming up as we left the road after 16 Km to enter Cruagh Wood. A nice foot path and climb to cross a style then a long section with a narrow path through dense woodland and a forest road to Tibradden car-park at 20 Km.

 Cruagh Wood

Into the car park and an unexpected surprise a water station that had bottles he could give out. "I will have one of those, thanks" and then probably the longest climb of the day including the dreaded "boneshaker" to the summit of Two Rock Mountain, more commonly known as “Fairy Castle”, at 22 Km. This is the highest point of the Dublin Mountains at  536 m/1,759 ft. Just 6 Km to go now and in theory it is all down hill :)

The "boneshaker" is a popular mountain bike challenge

 Approaching "Fairy Castle" - the summit of Tibradden Mountain

The remains of the chambered cairn at the summit of Tibradden Mountain

We were unlucky and did not see anything but on some days, fairies can be seen dancing around the pile of stones which covers an old megalithic tomb.  According to a popular belief, fairies live among the old stones of prehistoric tombs and this is why the mountain was given its name.

Initially the decent from  Tibradden along the board walks and well maintained foot path was pretty easy but as we passed "Three Rocks" the foot path deteriorated considerably. At this stage I was in the thick of the 14 Km runners and hill walkers. It is very difficult to plan a safe decent over rough ground when there are so many people close by.  I ended up following a bloke who had a nice descending technique, so I stuck in behind him as he weaved his way between, the walkers/runners/rocks/etc. down the hill.

Descending from Tibradden Mountain via the Board Walks

Eventually get to yet another unexpected water station at "Three Rocks" (26 Km) that I passed by as I was OK and only 2 to 3 Km to go. This was a long decent on a forestry trail containing a couple of small re-assents that felt like I was climbing Everest. I was really hoovering up the "struggling" back markers from the shorter race at this stage so it was a real motivator to keep pushing.

Late in the race and a tired looking heel strike! with my "roll your own" 3/4 running trousers. 

Looking  Better!

Little sting in the tail near the end as we had to leave the forest trail to run along a very muddy footpath through the woods for a couple of hundred meters to break out onto another trail for the final half Km to the finish.  Rounded a bend to see a large "blow up" finish arc. It's done "I ran the Line"

This is the End

My finish time was 2:47 to give me  24th place out of 60 odd runners. Beat the brother by 15 minutes or so. Then a 1Km walk down the road to a very welcome pint (or two, or three...)

"Run the Line" RunKeeper Race Route

This was the inaugural (and low key) running of the "Run the Line" event so on the organization front it did not exactly all go to plan. At the finish line we had to give in our race numbers so they would have hard evidence of who arrived back OK. After a rest and drink, off to bag drop to retrieve our bags that were all identical brown paper bags identified by (you guessed it) race numbers. Now who actually remembers their race number once it is finished? We had loads of people peeping into each bag to try to identify which bag was theirs. There was also the issue of a rather impatient bus driver that left loads of us in the pub. Usually having to stay in a pub for another 90 minutes is not the worst thing in the world but we had a family dinner to get to - appreciated the lift in the Mountain Rescue Land Rover. The results published by the organisers were not presented that well so I hacked them  together a bit better here.

http://www.imra.ie/forum/topic/id/3193/

Hopefully it will be back next year and if in the country I would do it again.

Full "Run the Line" Men's Winner (02:03) approaching Tibradden

Full "Run the Line" Ladies Winner (and 7th overall, 02:20) descending from Tibradden

What I would do for a Tee-Shirt! but I enjoyed the couple of pints as well!!

The watering hole - Johnnie Fox's Pub, Glencullen

What it was all about

Training Comments 2013

PFR Run 12/12/13

GeoffB suggested a great run last night. Dragons Back, South Head, then Kinder Trog in reverse to Edale Cross to pickup the Kinder Downfall route back to Hayfield. Amazing the difference to this time last year. It was very mild last night misty and a slight drizzle. Really enjoyable evening.
Back to the Trigger.

This year I actually done some work for the Stockport 10 road race so each Tuesday I have been doing a 7 mile route on similar accent to the race itself. Now that is out of the way I have to start concentrating on the Trigger. Got out last night for 1:30 and done a couple of assents of Cobden Cross. Met two groups of Mountain Bikers, I always like meeting them, makes it less lonely when out in the dark. Pity I was not a couple of minutes further up the hill as I could have caught and overtook them. They were too close to the top road so I only passed one and met the rest of them on the road as they waited for the tailender. A quick good evening then the climb (for me) gets to the really serious section through "the banks" before the final road section up to Cobden Cross. Repeated the climb again before returning back to the Guide Hut for the pickup. There needs to be a lot more Cobden Cross reps done over the next five weeks.

All ready for the BG weekend.

Up at 5 am on Saturday morning for another 6 reps up to Cobden Cross. Went very well got the whole lot done in under 3 hrs. I even set my second fastest time for the hill climb segment. That is it now a couple of handy runs this week then upto the Lakes on Fraiday Afternoon.  Lets hope we are lucky with the weather and Stolly has not taken September's quoto of good conditions. Stolly was very lucky as 24 hr later the conditions were horrendus.

The Summer is Over

 Since getting back from Germany I have been working pretty hard in preperation for helping out with a Bob Graham attempt later on in September. Quite a few of the runs have been with the Head Torch. I also had to use it for the last 15 minutes of Pennines run last Thursday and I was sorry I did not bring it with me when running over in Hayfield on Monday while waiting for Cadets to finish. I has been a good summer both on the weather front and the running went well. A long six months of headtorch running now.


Thursday, July 18, 2013
Usually Thursday night Pennine get together. It was a lovely evening in the Car park and on the spur of the moment I suggest to AndyH would he be interested in a long run tonight? I suggested 2 hours and when I explained the route Wardy commented that it would be more than two hours, which did not really surprise me.

Kinder Clockwise Circuit Team.

I ended up getting a group of 5 so we headed off to the base of Sandy Heys  to have a very difficult climb in the sweltering heat. From there we headed directly north-east to hit the northern edge path round-about  Red Brook then followed that path around to Fairbrook Naze and onto Seal Stones. From there we took Tanky's famous five-minute-crossing to the south edge above Edale. It took us about six minutes! Done the reverse of the Edale Skyline around to Grindsbrook Clough and as it was now over two hours I decided that we would head straight across the platue to get over to the River Kinder. I did not have a map so I just tried to keep heading west using the compass when in reality I should have been heading more North-West. We ended up at the trig point at Crowden Head, I had never been there before and it was a surprise to meet two young lads that had a big bag of sweets so I helped my self to a crunchy bar! We continued west and eventually hit the edge path by Pym Chair which is further south than I intended but OK. Straight forward return from there by following the Kinder Downfall route back. It was starting to get a bit dark across Tunstead Fields but the running is pretty good underfoot along that stretch so no problem. We finished at about 10:30 so nearly 3 1/2 hours. Very enjoyable evening.

July 15th. 2013
Back to my usual assault on the Snake Path and Sandy Heys. I felt I was going pretty well going up Sandy Heys in sweltering heat while running in "Luv Shack" mode. Got home and uploaded the strava plot to get a time of 16:24 (my PB is 15:45 so it was my 3rd fastest.). That PB has stood a while now and the closest I have got to it is 15 seconds. Tonight I even check it to make sure there was nothing odd about it in case it was a mistake but it looks OK so I genuinely done 15:45.

July 10th. 2013

Another fantastic evening last night on the Pennine Relay from Ladybower reservoir to Hayfield. Trashed myself on Leg 2(Mam Tor) to give Stevie a chance on the last leg. It worked we WON
by 23 seconds in 2:08, 3 minutes outside the course record.  I am particularly chuffed with my 15:04 for the Loose Hill climb segment giving me 8th place out of 68 in the Strava League.

June 4rd. 2013
I have been concentrating on hill climbing lately in preparation for DazH's race later in June. The longest hill I have is the river Goyte upto Cobden Cross (about 210 metres climb). It is a quite a wooded track and on six reps of it on Saturday this is the resulting Strava Plot.

I done four reps last night and I was expecting the worse as I was assuming the trees were the cause of the poor sat. lock. but this was last night, pretty much perfect (with some illegal descending through the golf course between 10pm and midnight). I held the phone pretty much the same place on both runs and weather conditions were the same. Many times I have had it go a bit mad but never as bad as on Saturday.

June 3rd. 2013
Just an excuse to put up a photo from my phone (pity it is not better quality). Went up Three Knolls, last night. Went onto Kinder Low then the  top of Jacobs Ladder then back via Edale Cross and the Kinder Downfall route. Fantastic evening. Met two pensioner age women at Kinder Low at about 20:15, they had got lost following the Pennine way. I set them on the right track. they were intending on camping so did not matter so much that they were late. They tried to load a pile of sweets into me!! Probably could not get their head around somebody running.

Kinder Low Trig

April 15th. 2013
 It was the Kinder Downfall race over the weekend. With a lot more people using Strava  I had a look on Sunday to see I had dropped quite a few places on the Snake Path segment. I headed over to Hayfield last night to repeat what I done the previous Monday in a very strong head-wind namely Snake Path and Sandy Hays climbs and return the same route. It was a lovely evening and underfoot conditions very good so I thought I would be able to have a good blast at it. Went very well I set a PB on the snake path and jumped from 38th to 23rd out of 63 people with posted times. The one I am very happy about is talking about 67 seconds off my Sandy Hays time to jump from 10th to 7th. Have to see how long I hold that as now we are into the improving weather some of the faster runners in Pennine ,who have not posted a time yet, will start having a go at the segment.

Paul's Bob Graham this weekend. I am feeling good so hopefully it will be a successfull day for Paul and me! I would like to do three legs.
 
Feb 11th. 2013
Got myself involved with the "Overweight to Raceweight goal" on the FRA forums again. Determined to get down to the 70 Kg this year (did not quite get there last year before creeping back up a bit again). It is the next weigh-in on Wednesday so with that in mind I have been out running the last 4 days. Got out last night and done a 24 Km via Cobden Cross, Rowarth, Cowen Edge, Mellor Church and back to Marple. Very cold night and with frozen snow in most of the sheltered areas. Very enjoyable run and unsurprisingly did not see one person the whole night.

Strava
Started to use Strava now instead of RunKeeper. It is a bit of fun with the segments where I can see how I compare to other Strava Users and the Pennine Strava Club. My best Segment is the climb from the Foxes to New Mills golf club where I am 9th out of 80. Most of the 80 would be MTBers. On a climb like that running would be faster that trying to cycle it. I have overtaken MTBers a number of times on that climb. One of the segments last night was from the Little Mill up to the top of the climb. Not doing so well on that climb, well down the ranking. I see quite a few members of Pennine in that league table.

Jan 23rd. 2013.
I need to stop reading the FRA forums! After struggling in the ice last Thursday a guy on the forums let us know of an offer on at SportsShoes.com. They have
Inov-8 Oroc 340 on at £45. That is a bargain so for the umpteenth time I made a snap purchase because the "price was right" They arrived this afternoon so I went out at 9pm tonight for a five mile run. Lots of packed snow and ice. The shoes were great. I really enjoyed the run, so bright with all the stars and white snow.

Jan 17rd. 2013.
Pennine's long distance coordinator put another of her three hour runs on for last night. We arrived in Hayfield to a cold night with light snowfall. After some debate 3 of us decided to follow the Trans Pennine Bridleway from South Head to Rushup Edge then down Chapel Gate to Barber Booth. The return would be along the Pennine Way to Edale Cross, over to the fields below Kinder Low End and then down through Tunstead Fields to Hayfield. It was a tricky enough night, epically on the Trans Pennine bridleway as there was a lot of ice. The wind and snow was not so much a problem, in fact when in shelter it was a lovely evening. The steep descent via Chapel Gate was to prove to be my most difficult section as three times within a minute I lost my footing in the ice to go crashing down. The final fall wrenched my right arm and little finger (it is still sore). On the way back my five hours on Sunday's Trigger started to catch up with me and I started to struggle to keep up with the pace. Overall an enjoyable evening. We were out for 3 hrs from 7:10 to 10:10 and done about 13.5 miles.

Jan 10rd. 2013.
Last run before Sunday's Trigger, Not run since last Sunday as I felt a slight issue with my left ankle. Felt it again last night so kept it very steady, pretty much in last place for most of the night. Should be OK for Sunday. We went up to Lantern Pike to get an amazing night time temperature inversion. The Hayfield valley was shrouded in cloud with all of the hills visible with the starlight reflecting off the cloud. We have had so many incredibly memorable (for the right reasons) night runs

Roll on Sunday, weather forecast looking similar to last year.

Jan 3rd. 2013.

Lovely conditions tonight, still pretty tired from the Trigger reccie on Monday. Stephen and I decided to do  a bit extra by doing an up and down of Sandy Hays. Very misty on top and we lost the path on the decent. Lovely runkeeper plot of our antics.

The kilometer from 7km to 8 km should have followed back the same line as the kiolmeter from 6 Km to 7Km

Running Style

I became aware of running styles when I read the book "Born to Run"  (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Born-Run-Hidden-Ultra-Runners-Greatest/dp/1861978774).   The important aspect of running style is running cadence (http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/07/the-basics-cadence/) and which part of your foot strikes the ground first. I think I have probably succeeded in getting my cadence up as often when out with Pennine I compare how often I take a step compare to those around me and I tend to be faster. Basically the rule is more steps per minute but they are shorter so the speed is the same.

The other rule is landing on the front of the foot instead of the heel. I though that  with my higher cadence I would not be too bad on that front. However the two photos from the Stockport 10 and Run the Line would seem to contradict that.

Near the end of the Stockport 10

Near the end of Run the Line

Two beautiful heel strikes!
The thick padding on modern shoes encourage heel strikes. I found a pair of these going cheap so "why not" lets have a try with minimalist shoes.

 Inov8 Bare-X 180 Running Shoes

With the flat soles and very low heels in these a heel strike is going to hurt so lets see if I can change my style.

Low heel

I will update this post as things develop.

Please post if you  have some comments/advice, 

I have had a couple of 20 Km road runs in the new shoes now and fairly happy with how it has gone. I am getting the front foot strike OK and the very thin soles on the shoes are no problem. Only problem is a slightly sore and stiff left ankle that is not allowing me to get as clean a front foot strike as I would like. This has been a problem I have had for a long time.

Bleaklow Marsden to Edale "The Trigger" Reccie

Jan 1st 2013 The Trigger Reccie 
Wanted to do the last Trigger section from the snake top to Edale. Parked up in Hayfield and went up Williams Clough then along the flags towards snake top. This time I managed to find the flag with the broken corner that marks where I needed to head directly south to the plane wreck. It was not as easy as I remembered it from the last time I done it so I am now not sure if it is better than going over feather bed top. I will use this way on race day so just have to see how it goes. The accent up onto kinder does seem a bit easier so got up to the Boxing Gove OK and then cut across to Kinder West. There was driving wind and rain at this stage. I got to the Pennine Way and met a family with a small boy that was only about 8 yrs old. Commented to the Dad that it was horrendous conditions and he replied yes but great fun thought. Not sure if the young lad agreed. Lots of running in the water along Kinder downfall to get out of the stream bed at Crowden Head then head straight east across to Grindlow. It is absolutely awful around Crowden Head, the gruff dams are being very successful so it is incredibly wet up there I got stuck a couple of times.

Completely lost my sense of direction when I picked up a gruff and decided to follow it. The gruff finally brought me out at Crowden Tower which is not where I had intended on going. Initially I did not realize where I was and started to head in the wrong direction before turning around and following the edge path to Grindslow. Between Grindslow and Crowden Tower I met a couple of women who asked for directions for the shortest way back to Edale, so I told them to just follow the new flagged path to Grindslow and they could descend from there. I ran in the same direction and then started the decent to Edale. Cut a bit of a corner off on the decent from Grindslow to Edale and had a bit of fun galloping down the very wet grass at the bottom of the hill, which involved a sprint against a couple of young lads that were doing belly slides in the mud. Their mother is going to love that when they get back to the car.

I had intended on following the Pennine Way to Edale Cross then back to Hayfield from there but:
a) it would be a bit short,
b) I was not happy with my route across Kinder
c) it was a nice day at this stage
d) I was a bit worried about the two women I had met. The path of Grindslow is not obvious at the beginning and they could easily have followed the wrong one.
So when I got to the  Pennine Way into Edale I turned around and started to head back up to Grindslow again. Lots of comments from the muddy family about having to do it in reverse. My vanity also meant that I had to keep running as well until I was out of sight. I had hoped I would meet the two women while ascending to Grindslow Knowl but no joy. Means they missed the decent I had hoped they would take, just hoped they had gone down Grindslow Brook, which would have been OK as well.

 Got the reverse trip across Kinder perfect so arrived at Crowden Head OK. Head a meander around there to see if there were any lines that would be a bit firmer but no joy so I just headed to the Christmas Trees to drop into the stream bed to follow the river Kinder back to Kinder Gates. When I got to Kinder Gates it started to get very dark extremely quickly, a bit spooky as it was only 3:30. I was starting to regret not bringing my head torch. I said to myself, "Pat I think you are going to get wet". I couple of minutes later the heavens open up on top of me. Not often I have seen rain as heavy as that. A few weeks previously a Berghaus waterproof running jacket just arrived in the post. My brother in Dublin is the worlds greatest scrounger and he saw it as a "second" on a rail in some shop and thought Pat would find that useful. It is an amazing jacket just designed for these type of conditions. So hood up with toggles pulled tight to cover as much of the face as possible and I was able to carry on quite happily. I descended via the 3 Knolls path, which was a bit tricky in the pouring rain then a lovely sprint down through the three fields to get to my car near the quarry carpark. As I approached it I said to myself is that my car with the lights on? Oh (insert appropriate word) am I going to have  a flat battery? Thankfully the car started OK so I just got in with all my wet gear as I could not be bothered changing. Just get out of the gear in the garage when I get home.


07 Dec. 2012 Trigger Reccie

Last year I went up Lawerence Edge which was OK I got over to Wildeboar Clough by following a couple of women that were heading across on a compass bearing. I overtook them and ended up having to find my own way to Bleaklow summit. My line to Bleaklow summit was not brilliant.

For January's race I want to be a bit more sure of the route over Bleaklow. So yesterday I parked up in Crowden to have a go at the Bleaklow section of The Trigger. This leg starts with a rough accent through the heather and rocks with bits of trods in places. This is followed by a steep accent of Lawerence Edge with a couple of moves at the very top that require some care. The runkeeper plot below shows the line I took once I got onto the plateau. The little out and back at the bottom of the image below is deliberate so that I can identify where the style over the fence is. As can  be seen my line was way off it should have been more directly south from where I reached the plateau.

How not to run on a compass bearing.

Once I crossed the styal there are trods in the grufs that go the whole way to the Pennine Way. The grufs split a number of times and it is very easy to follow the wrong one which can result in rougher travelling. But if you keep going generally south (and possibly slight west of south) you will hit the Pennine Way eventually. This section of the Pennine Way is very faint so if there is snow it can be easily missed.

From the summit of Bleaklow it is a case of heading directly south to the Higher Shelf Stones Trig. The line is via Wain Stones, Hern Stones and then straight south from there. There is a trod the whole way but once again it is faint and easy enough to unintentionally leave it.

Back and forth to get the right line to Wain stones.

Last year, after the road crossing at the Snake Top,  quite a few guys went along the flags then cut directly south to climb Kinder via the Boxing Glove. This is a rough route passing to the east of Within Clough as there are a lot of side tributaries that have been dammed up and must be crossed. It has been suggested to go past Within Clough and go down to the west of it. I tried it yesterday but did not go far enough past it. The flags were so icy I  spent too much time watching my footing on them. I probably should have went as far as Moss Castle/Glead Hill area before striking directly south. I have done this in reverse (coming from the plane wreck up to the Pennine Way flag stones) in the past and it worked really well. You just have to identify the correct place to leave the flags, which is easier said than done. It is a pretty featureless area around there. What I done in the plot below was hopeless.

Left the flag stones too early.

My phone battery was getting low because I forgot to put it in Aeroplane mode so it spent hours desperately trying to get a signal and eating up my battery in the process. I had to turn it off once I got to the wrecks. I had intended on going to Kinder West trig but it was 15:15 and while I had a light I did not fancy descending off Bleaklow in fading light so decided to call it a day and headed straight back to Bleaklow summit via the Pennine Way. Pretty much a perfect line back to Wildboar clough and I descended on the west side of it, which is a much better way for going up/down Wildboar. Just had a one mile trot back along the railway line to the car to finish at about 4 O Clock, having started just before 11 am.

Loads of mistakes made but a lot of useful info gained as well, so overall a successful day out in clear blue sky and sub zero conditions.