Sunday

 It was 1pm when I got out on Sunday.  My lunch was already packed so I sat at the top of the hill and stared out into the gloom while I ate some fruit, a packet of crisps and drank the coffee I'd just hauled up through the rock garden.  I didn't think through the fog when I promised myself I'd sit at the top of the hill and look at the view.  Still, I had a chat with a few passing dog walkers before following them down the hill and riding back up past the apple store, checking out some more bivi spots for later in the month and then riding up to Stanage Pole.  There were far fewer hordes today.  

Up the track, the air cleared for a moment, it was like being hit with a hair drier.  The air, no longer wet, was a good 5 degrees warmer.  

The Cotic cruised happily over the drain speed bumps and we did our first bunnyhops on easy terrain over the puddles.  I decided on my usual route over to the reservoirs, running up hill and down Padley to join the busy parking bays - even though the icecream van is long gone.  Still, it was a foggy Remembrance Sunday late afternoon and the majority of people were leaving.

I was finally hungry again and this time promised myself I'd climb up the hill away from the traffic at least, before stopping for my sandwich.  I aimed for the offroad climb that I discovered when I last rode here to see if I could beat my PB up it.  About half way up I remembered I was supposed to be hungry and nearly fell off but I kept going until my back wheel span out 5 metres from the top and I had to push but I still got a PB.

I recovered by carrying on across summer pastures to the Lockerbrook outdoor centre where all was quiet.  I had the lane to myself and the descent to myself.  Good job because I leathered it and I leathered my muscles.

Standing on the pedals steering across sloping slippery rocks which had a light coating of grit and pine needles. My knees and thighs screamed at me to stop but I was having too much fun. It was too late for anyone else but there was just enough light left to see what I was doing. I knew I'd got a PB - at least I'd better. I got to the bottom out of puff and growling at my sore muscles like I'd just climbed Pen y Ghent.

I burst through the gate others had failed to close. I had no energy to park my bike so I just laid it on the floor and staggered over to close the gate behind me, still gasping. A family cycled by and looked at me like I was the monster from the black lagoon, groaning and lollocking around.

When I got to the last climb out of the valley the light went on.  I love leaving the valley this way.  Probably because I always have the hill to myself when I'm on my way out, or if I do have company everyone is happy because it's such a beautiful place.  There was just enough light to make out the water below, navy blue in the fading glow of a sun long gone and the outline of the black hillside.  The occasional late-leaving car below and the blackbirds flitting in the woods were my only company.

I didn't mind having a few hikes, it wasn't about rushing it or crushing it any more, it was about getting home. I nearly nailed the climb in the dark though - in fact I pushed it a few times and once crashed into a boulder - saving myself a crushed leg but scratching my new frame (it'll get used to it) and then dropped everything, including myself into a bog dropping off an edge.  I am always drawn to the bog and have been known to walk around it but this time, from my vantage point lying in the heather I noticed the easy line - it was right there, in plain sight.  A classic case of following my fears.

Soon after I went sideways on a rock, failed to unclip and again found myself lying in the heather.  I realised I was pretty tired and slowed down some more and even hiked out to the A57 after I decided I wasn't quite up for riding the slabs right now.

The traffic was manic enough to help me decide to ride home via Rod side, splodging through the farm puddles, opening the gates held shut with lengths of climbing tatt and conversing with the rams brought home to pasture for the winter.

By the time I got to the lanes I was broken, hungry and ready to collapse in front of Strictly Come Dancing on the TV but I wasn't done with hills yet.  Rather than face the steep rolling traverse to home, I climbed the steady up to Crookes and took one last sweeping drop into home.

Today wasn't quite such an awakening revelation as Saturday's ride but it didn't 'alf do me in ready for a good nights sleep.  I didn't really remember lots of it, nothing particularly struck me but in retrospect it was a nice day out.

And that's what it's all about.

Bivi A Month - to be different October

I could claim BearBones 200 as my October BAM but, given the opportunity to legitimately bike camp under the Derwent Water dam as part of my Fell Running club, I could not resist this weekend's beer and volunteer deal.

Dark Peak Fell Runners hosted the annual Fell Relays this weekend, with 1800+ competitors and supporters to move between a carpark in Bamford and Fairholmes car park at Derwent reservoir, all hands were required on-deck.  As a gift, the organisers put on a little do in a marquee at Fairholmes with camping options. 

On Friday afternoon I packed quite a lot of comfort gear into 2 paniers on my hardy but silly Tripster ATR and Lauff forks and wobbled my way over the A57 in rush hour traffic.

By the time I left Sheffield, I reckon 50% of people passing were fell runners (who are closely related to long distance bike packers more than they'd care to admit) who gave me lots of room. 

It started raining as I hit the bottom of the valley outside my house and continued.  I added the waterproof and sweated up / chilled on the way down.  It got properly enjoyable when I turned onto the Kings Road to Fairholmes, relatively traffic free as all fell runners were suitably fed and inebriated by then.

I hadn't booked so had brought pasta and sauce to brew but then there were enough burgers to go round so I "helped".  The tin mug got used for beer from a keg. 

The tent had a brilliant layout with most of the party camped at one end and a few (including myself) grumpy old gits pitched at the other end behind a van to drown out the noise of the party and generator and get out of the lights.  Not necessary though as the loud waterfall of water pouring over the dam from the last few weeks rain was sufficient white noise to cancel out most din.  I went for a short walk in the dark and drizzle before bedding down at 10:30.  I'm told the party ended about midnight but I was already sound asleep - with the tent, thickest sleep bag, extra blanket, fleece trousers and down booties on hand - luxury indeed.

Tent within a tent

In the morning I burned some porridge - on the basis a gas stove is much stronger than a meths one.  Fortunately it was still palatable if a little brown and crispy in places.  The stove was too large for the little mug so I balanced it on the lid of the big mug which will forever now have a discolouration ring to remind me of this day.

I probably disturbed most people but I had to be down at the Bus stop in Bamford for an 8am briefing.  I packed up and spent 15 minutes trying to get one of the sponsors' vans into the race field before heading off on my own path down to Bamford.

There I was equipped with an attractive plastic hi-vis vest and spent the morning dancing in a pair of gardening gloves to direct motorists to park in the car park in stead of attempting to pull into our bus stop.  We dispatched 1800 runners plus their packs / gazebos / cakes over a few hours without causing any traffic disruption or delaying local buses (except for a minute here or there).

Fetching

I spent my lunch brewing soup and coffee whilst standing by on the radio to start dispatching the busses back to Fairholmes to bring people home.  Had a walk by the river and realised it's a long time since I've just SAT in the countryside and enjoyed it... though the bus view was a little off-putting.

Unloading the buses was hectic, matching teams to gear and trying not to get buses and cars picking up kit crossed over. 

Still, we did it.  Happy to report that a bunch of people walked back and there were 140 bikes on the racking provided for the sustainable option.  A good warm up for a fell race.

After all the excitement I forgot I had to ride home.  My bags were heavy, having not eaten my food from the night before and picked up a discarded sandwich box.  I also had the burden of three jerseys that I failed to pass on to other people. 

Faced with needing to walk up the A57 because I didn't have the gears, I instead opted to ride up to Stanage and back over the Moors.  Much walking ensued but at least I wasn't getting close-passed by HGVs.  I cursed as I realised I'd added a lot more climbing to my route.  Still, I texted TSK and he had the oven on and the timer pinged as I walked through the door, cold and starving. 

56km, 1000m.

Mickelden Straddle Fell Race - The "sensible" race

I've been trying to do this race for some years.  I think I entered it once and when the day came, I had a narsty cold and the weather was not good enough to accommodate 15 miles of bleuragh.  I attempted to enter it another time and probably found it to be full.  I have had years where I'm just nowhere near capable of a 15 mile fell race in February after a winter of hibernation and vicious cyclo-cross racing.

This year, we both entered early and we were both fit and healthy for it except for the slight hindrance, for me, that I haven't really done much running training for a 15 mile fell race - although that's what I said about last week's Tigger Torr 9.6 mile fell race which I finished remarkably well and concluded that pushing fully-loaded mountain bikes around Welsh hills for an entire weekend was perfectly adequate preparation for any fell race going.

I still wasn't convinced though.  I raced Tigger Torr so hard that it took me until Thursday to be able to walk down stairs normally and Friday to reacquire any kind of spring in my step but I said I'd show up and run it at a regulated pace.  I mean, I could definately do 15 miles at a  nice steady pace.  Then I discovered the cutoff.

TSK wasn't worried about it but I was a little concerned.  Last week it took me 57 minutes to do the same distance to the cut off.  This time I had 1h 10 mins on legs that weren't really that fresh.  Still, so long as I kept above 4.3 miles per hour I'd be OK.  I set myself a target of 5mph to allow for the faff - which often besets one of us on a race.

I gave TSK a lecture about the faff which he suffered from last time and reminded him he was racing.  Still, we both started the race in too many layers - he in a windproof and me wearing an extra teeshirt I didn't really need.

The race started on a rather tame forest trail and a LOT of people ran past me.  I wasn't going to get drawn into going too fast.  Every time I felt tempted to let rip, I thought of my ambition to be able to ride my bike on Monday... perhaps Tuesday... or at least do yoga on Tuesday.  I was going to talk to TSK as he came past but he never did and then I noticed his bright orange jacket ahead and I thought, sneaky bugger" but I let it go.  I was perfectly happy for him to beat me over this distance because he is doing a long distance race, not me.  He's been training for this, not me and I wanted to be able to ride that bike tomorrow.

I was thinking about it so hard I nearly missed the first turn through some trees before re-gaining the trail and the sharp downhill to the stream (taking it easy not to batter my legs) before the climbing begain in earnest.  After 2.5 miles I stopped to take the teeshirt off.  5 people I had passed on the last climb came by but then I ran back past them fairly quickly at my own pace.  The only problem was, I wasn't really paying attention to the way I was going.  I was watching my pace.  6.3mph had dropped to 5.6mph average and by the time I got to the top of the climb it had further dropped to 5.1mph and my calves were aching so bad.

Still, the moorland was upon us and flattened out.  Hopping across stones and climbing up peat hags to avoid bogs was still faster than trying to run up hill and checkpoint 1 at 5 miles was achieved in 58min:33secs.  The path was so attention-consuming that I forgot about my aching calves for a bit and set about the downhill to Howden reservoir with gusto, although still controlling the speed so as not to smash my quads and calves around like I did last week.  It was a much smoother descent and at the bottom of it I acquired a friend.

I met this older chap on the peak as I caught him up and commented how warm it was, he responded, "I'll say, I'm sweating like a pig!".  So harsh I was taken aback when down at Howden he turned out to be very well spoken.  We talked about Tigger Torr and he said he hadn't entered because of the online entry system and suggested that it might be a sign that he should retire but then I pointed out the beautiful scenery we were running through and asked how he could leave all of "this".

I think I might have swayed him.

We ran together - sometimes chatting and sometimes silent.  I enjoyed his company and his pace so much that I ran ahead to get the gates and he shut them behind us.  I was tempering my speed just a little bit.

We met the marshalls which then shepherded us up Howden Clough and the steep returned.  The first climb at least stretched out my calves and I was pretty surprised to see the guy continuing to tail me up the steeps.  We passed the runner ahead who had been intermittently walking then running off at a right lick, meaning we never actually caught him.  Clearly he didn't have much more of the run in him.

When we got out onto the open hillside, below Howden Edge I seemed to have dropped my tail and reeled in another guy, then a lady who I had been hoping was Andrew (in orange) but really wasn't.  We all stopped together at the path junction and I have to admit I had no idea how far along we were and almost took a wrong turn had it not been for a chap insisting we take the main path.  Much to my embarrasment, checkpoiint 5 was just around the corner.  I had to mask my embarrasment and hope that no=one had seen me stop to get the map out.

The people I'd passed had come back around me but once we were back onto the rocky bog my inner Dark Peaker took over and I passed everyone back as I skimmed across the stones, intermittently scrabbling up to the short heather above to avoid the really boggy slippery sections. It was much easier on my legs running on the tops since the heather is still only 20mm tall here.

I passed a woman who insisted on trying to leap over bogs where her legs weren't long enough and squealing and wailing every time she was submerged upto her knees and beyond.  I had to get around her and her partner who patiently waited, tried to keep pace with me for a bit to spurr her on then resorted to just waiting again.  The descent began and I ran faster and faster.  A quick glance at my watch told me there were still 4 more miles to go but damn I was enjoying this.

Delicate application of my hamstrings made me run much faster and... oh no, there was a path turning!  It said Langsett to my right but... did we come that way???

One of the marshalls, walking along behind me was looking at me earnestly.  No! Not an audience.  There was no-one ahead of me.  The man in a yellow jacket had disappeared.    Argh.  The map was still in my hand so I checked.

It was clear that the turning took me to the wrong end of Langsett and would have left me without check point 6 and therefore disqualified or facing a mile of retracing my steps uncofmortably before I was allowed to run another mile back to the finish.  Squeally woman's husband/partner came into sight and that was enough to stop me worrrying and send my scurrying off down the hillside at a speed approaching full-pelt - well, for a mile 12 effort anyway.  There was no point in taking care through the puddles now.  Mud went everywhere and so did my legs but it was worth it... right up until the point my left foot tripped over a stone and the resulting reaction in my right leg caused an excrutiating cramp to rip through my right calf muscle.  Ow!  I took a little more care.

A few little walks up hill and then the final spiralling descent to the river before climbing back up the other side.  I hazarded a look behind.  No one was there.  I had time in the bank to dawdle my way up the climb and even bypass the slithery path through the trees in favour of the bridlepath surface and space.  A marshal was surprised to see me coming from a different direction but I explained my reasoning and he said he respected me for my descision (I'm not sure he believed me).

There was about a mile to go and what should I see but the man in the yellow jacket walking.  I continued my pace and then he started running again and drifted away.  I kept to my pace.  He walked again and I closed in a bit.  This went on for ages, it seemed, until finally I caught him up and feigned a bit of fatigue.  I wasn't looking for a sprint, didn't fancy one but knew I could probably win it if it happened.

Sure enough, within sight of the finish we both had a bit of a go.  I shouldn't have, given my promise not to destroy myself but hey, you never know whether you're fighting for 124th place, or 99th place.  We propped ourselves up against a table and stretched.

We were given rescue ale and smiles and I went off in search of TSK who finished 4 minutes ahead of me and deeper into the hurt locker, having stayed in the same position for most of the run.

The organisation lavished us with sandwiches and wraps and tea.  When we picked ourselves up to leave, we could only hobble through the carpark.  Absolutely astonished at how quickly I disintegrated from, "Hey, this ain't bad, I'm doing OK here, I'll outsprint this chap" to, "ooh ahh, ooh, I can't move my knees, Ah! My ankles".

We peeled ourselves into clean(ish) clothes and drove home guzzling coffee along the way.  Presriptive long showers and baths were taken and then the bed... half an hour of lying on my back with my feet against the wall and the glow of endorphins and sweet sweet sleep.

I guess I can't claim I'm not ready for a 15 mile race any more.

14.61 miles, 2:58:28. El 723m
Overall: 175/192
Women: 20/29
LV40: 9/14 (making a habit of 9th).

Tigger Torr

Friday: Go swimming in the morning and am proud to knock out a whole mile.  Get outside and my hips are aching and I decide I deserve the massage that's overdue a week to recover from my christmas-holidays-training-and-race-fest.

I tell my physio just how much I'm looking forwards to my first running race since I grew new muscles in my legs and learned how to use them.

He asked what my race was.  I said I'd entered Tigger Torr.  He said, "Ah, this weekend".  Oh, well there you go then.

The results of my physio appointment were really positive.  The deep tissue massage I had booked turned into a slap-fest verging on the edges of assault as Marcus brought the blood to the surface to reduce the swelling associated with the massage and leave my legs "all zingy" (and pink) ready for Sunday's race.  My eyes were all welling and stingy by the time he'd finished.

Saturday: rested and made a pact with myself to properly *race* on Sunday.  I'm doing one or more a month for the next 6 months so I might as well start somewhere.

I got packed, I plotted a map.  I was ready.  There was a lot of waiting and then we set off and I breathed and I breathed hard.  So much for racing this thing.  I was well into my limits and streams of people were peeling past me until finally I hit mud and got into my stride within a group.

After the first road crossing we were faced with two options.  Many people went left and cut off a corner but they seemed to start to queue on the narrow track and so I stayed on the wide open path and cut my own pace along the corner.

Onto the moor now and half of the pack turned right off the trail and the other half continued on the wide open track.  This time I was surrounded by people going my pace and less of us seem to take the short cut route.  It is also a line I wished I had taken on the boxing day bogtrott so today seemed like good a time as any.

First checkpoint achieved after a subtsantial time wading through heather along a trod.  A few people ran past me as the group ahead slowly moved away but I didn't want to raise my game much at that point.

I exchanged a few places with a bloke in a pink teeshirt and bounded past a few guys coming off burbage rocks as my downhilling skills outweighed my slower pace.  They were still pretty good though.  Here's me: now mixing with people of my own ability!

We were all checking on a guy who had hurt is arm and for a moment I thought he was having a heart attack and felt guilty about not stopping but there were plenty of other racers around and he was still making his way over to marshalls, not *actually* collapsing in the heather.

We scrabbled up the muddy side of Burbage valley and over to Higger Torr then over to Winyards Nick without really noticing it to be honest.  Small changes in position didn't matter until this point when I looked at my watch and made the ridiculous conclusion that with 6 miles done, we only had half as much again to go.  Wrong - I'd only done 6km and still had 9km to go. I didn't realise this at that point though and resolved to keep going at the same pace - even to pick it up a little bit!

We got to the south end of the course at Burbage Bridge and then set off North again where we had the joy of cheering on other racers on their way down - where we could look up.  I shook hands with the marshall as I passed around them and then had the joy of discovering I was ahead of TSK - both of us confused as to how I had got ahead.  Still, there wasn't far to go so I had to keep pushing right?

Climbing off Carl Wark I saw Jen who is a twitter friend that I haven't *actually* *met* yet and is also wife to the nice man who slapped me on Friday.  I squealed a hello as I recognised some blonde hair behind a camera lens attached by a lead to a cantankerous beagle who was voicing his boredom of taking fotos of fell racers.  I should have stopped for a hug but I was sweaty and I felt like I was probably doing quite well and a hug may have been flippant, surprising and a little forward - given the sweaty! - even if she is a fellow runner.

Where we crossed Burbage brook and I acquired a tail through the slush who I then held up as I protected my knees going over the river scramble.  I was looking forwards to legitimately following the path that I'd accidentally taken on the boxing day bogtrott - for real this time.

It didn't disappoint.  My new muscles found routes from rock to rock through the heather and around the hill walkers, really not sure what was going on around them.  Now to venture out across Houndkirk Moor where it suddenly became blatantly obvious that the run was not going to be 10km long at all.

Still, I'd given it some to get here and I wasn't about to give up now.  I at least wanted to hold my place and we all plugged away through the bracken in a long, colourful line.  Occasionally someone came past and occasionally I raised my game and stuck with them until the next pack of people where I either stuck with it or faded into the group and waited for the next fast wave to catch.

We finally hit the Houndkirk Road again - that big wide open track and this time I chose the cut-through route because we were a thinner field.  As we approached the road I saw the change to teh route - no longer retracing our steps back to a short, flat run along the main road but instead, running through a small quarry.  A lady passed me and I complained that my knee was about to divorce me.  She said, "me too" and then proceeded to run away from me.

"It's just cramp in the little knee muscles" I thought and carried on running, trying to relax it into going away... but it stayed... and it got worse.  I hobbled a bit over the rises and then we were back on the road.  It felt like a good thing and I allowed myself to open up my stride a little bit and run fast.  As a fell-runner it pains me sometimes that I'm quite fast on flat roads.  It's like being a rockstar who's quite good at maths.  Cool but a little bit prim and proper at the same time.  Speeds hit 6.7 miles per hour and then we turned onto the Long Line Lane and a downhill.  My knees were hurting anyway so I just opened up.  The stride went long and I threw all regard for the condition of my legs tomorrow out of the window in favour of speed.

I kept hearing the woman behind me on my shoulder catching me up and every time I thought, "well if she comes past me at this speed, there's nothing more I can do" and she never came past.  Men did but I didn't care.   I just wanted to hold onto that ladies' place.  The speed hit 8 miles per hour.

For a brief respite we turned back into the muddy lower pitch of the rugby field and I looked up to see the wall of death - a wood chipped slope of around 5% leading from the lower pitch to the middle pitch.  I joked to the guy to my right that this was the worst hill of the race.  He hadn't looked up, he didn't see it coming, he went backwards with a groan and I never saw him again.

My knee was proper screaming now and all that time I could feel the next place runners breathing down my neck. It wasn't about women's places any more it was about all places and I finally opened up to whatever sprint I had left.  It wasn't much but it was enough not to let me be caught on the middle field.  I checked in then stopped my watch and leant on the shoulders of hte finisher in front of me - just in case my knee collapsed completely.

Over the line I caught up with a lady who I had exchanged places with several times and we'd checked on eachother as we passed by when she stopped to tie her laces and when I slowed down to drink from my Camelbak.

I also said hello to fellow tri club mates and waited for TSK to come in.  He had a nice run but not so good a race as he had battled with the faff.

We hobbled to our car, changed shoes and put on a dry top then drove home.

It was only later when I realised how well I had done.  I took 13 minutes off my previous time - despite the course being longer and I finished 15 places higher in my age group.  I was no longer in the second half of the women's pack but in the top third and just sneaked inside the middle third overall, having come in previously behind 300 other people.

There are things to be credited for today and none of them include much running they are:
Pushing heavy bikes up big hills
The favourable weather conditions - still cold but warmer than years gone by.
My Physio's incredible detective work (and no doubt the slapping)
TSK putting me into the inescapable carrot position.

9.56 miles 1:50:29 524m el.

A/G 9th/33
Women 31st / 94
224th overall of 380 finishers.
Much to my delight, I was the 6th Dark Peak women's finisher meaning that my time contributed to the Dark Peak ladies' B-team being in 6th place.

Boxing Day Bogtrot 2016

2 overshot checkpoints.  8 miles (13kms) of mostly thrashing through thigh-deep heather.  48 effort miles on foot.  Not sure how that fits in to the festive 500.

Lanterne Rouge.

I will take it as a compliment that the organiser has never returned back to base in time to get soup before - meaning that although I was slower than everyone else today, I was less slow than the slow people who didn't dare race today.

The weather was still windy but gloriously sunny and it only hailed on me very briefly.

I got lost and lay in the grass to check my navigation and I had just gone out by 100m and got straight back on track so I'm pretty pleased with that aspect of it and looking forwards to the next one.

Long may it continue.