NOT MEARLEY GOOD ENOUGH
MEARLEY CLOUGH
Almost three weeks have whizzed by since the Three Peaks. All seemed well with a sub-hour eight miler at what felt easy pace just four days after the race and I soon got back in to the swing with a 34 mile week on the board. But silly behaviour during the last run out on the Sunday of that week has put me out of sorts ever since. I discovered a route in to the long ago disused Test Track of Leyland Motors, or British Leyland as that once world famous industry was latterly known. I hadn't been on there for well over thirty years since dossing around as a kid so it was fascinating exploring and running around the outer and inner laps of what used to be the testing site mecca for some of the world's best commercial vehicles.
Add to the nostalgia the strong rays of a high Springtime sun, this seemed to inflict a solar drunkenness upon me as I bashed the test track tarmac quite hard and without much consciousness of my actions. Finally I departed the test track through the same gap in the concrete walls and suddenly took an overwhelming hit of exhaustion. The plan of eight or nine miles steady had gone to the dogs. After chucking in these extra two or three on the test track, I just crashed. The following two and a half mile shuffle homewards was indeed nothing much more than that. If I'd had 20 pence on me, I'd have phoned home to be picked up. Do phone boxes still take coins anyway?
The hamstrings were cramping, my knees had lost shock absorbency and generally I was feeling hungry, dehydrated and absolutely shot at. What a clown. I've run sensibly and consistently all year, listening to the body, then post-Three Peaks I drop my guard and inadvertently stick an unfavourable spanner in to the works. It's definitely hampered preparations for the Mearley Clough fell race this Tuesday - a week and a half later and I'm still not right.
Mearley Clough is without doubt one of the finest short fell races that at least Lancashire has to offer at this time of year and evokes fond memories of a truly decent performance here back in 2007 when I finished fourth in a very decent time. The race begins from the Calf's Head at Worston, through a few rolling fields, a farm yard, up a woodland trail and then the main event upon the hillside itself. Aside from the elite class who barely break stride, this is a hands on knees climbing assault up to Pendle's Scout Cairn.
The cairn itself looked to have been vandalised by mindless thugs for whom I wish slow death. If only we could round up such pathetic imbeciles that lack the respect or intelligence for anything other than their own twisted ideals of entertainment, thus terminating the genetic septic pool from which they spawned. Wishful thinking.
So back to the course then! From the cairn, a miniature horseshoe route leads to hurtling down the opposite steep side of the Clough before retracing steps back towards the woods and the fields. A pasta supper in the pub after and all this for a fiver. Alternatively it was a whopping £17 to enter a local 10K road race recently. That's the world we live in today.
Come race night and upper hamstrings were feeling like guitar strings ready to twang from an overly twisted tuner, particularly on the left side. I could tell this race was going to be tougher tonight. I didn't feel fresh at all, even the slightest incline during warm up punished my legs which felt trashed. Whether it was very delayed onset fatigue from the Peaks, that Sunday morning silliness or more likely a combination of both that's left me this jaded, all I know is that excuses are futile. I took a race number and must have thought I could pull a rabbit out of the hat.
The first half mile felt like a truly ferocious pace and one that caught up with me as the incline starts to intensify in the woods. I thought if I could just hold on before the main climb... then I noticed a course diversion and not one that whet my already losing appetite. A dip down to the brook, a sticky ascent out and then a traverse back and losing height again before starting the main climb from the very base of the Clough. Well that just did my head in a bit and I was absolutely blowing out of my rear whilst losing a good few places in the process. Never a nice place to be in a fell race. Meanwhile ahead, way ahead and up high was a most impressive race leader, young local lad Josh Boyle. With the not to be sniffed at likes of Darren Kay and Sam Watson in his wake, Josh was running the unrunable on sections of Mearley's steepest offerings and held out to take a most impressive victory indeed at the age of just 15. As for myself, I frittered away to finish eighteenth and was unable to stave off or then kick back at the challenge of Accrington's Graham Morris. It was Graham to whom I spat some dummy and spilled my beans at the end about my racing days being numbered and looking up the price of a set of decent second hand woods for the Crown Green season. But here was I, whining to a guy almost ten years older than myself who is enjoying something of a renaissance during the last year or so. Graham's a good guy and tried to give me encouragement and suggested that breaking up the running with cycling could be a solution. It's certainly worked for Mr Morris with a Great Britain vest for veteran duathalon now in his possession. I enjoy cycling, but I don't love it enough. It's a relationship I would definitely need to work on but it is the right time of year to try and embrace it.
Over pasta supper and a pint I shared some thoughts old and new with my old Chorley clubmate Mark Ellithorn - the Benjamin Button of fell running - 'The Thorn' seems to look younger every time I see him and of course he must enjoy me keep reminding him of that.
Very little running at all followed that week. I felt like a crumpled mess for most of it. This week has seen a moderate return to normal operations but still tender in places. Next race up that ticks my box of possibility is the first of the Harrock Hill summer series next Wednesday. But I'm going to have to feel far more finely tuned than this if I am to risk competing again. The big question for me and my running is indeed a big question and has been asked before. Whilst I still have the belief, the willingness to compete, am I but a deluded soul whose best running performances are really long since gone?

Tue. 10th May 2016
MEARLEY CLOUGH (3.9m/1Tu200ft)  Worston, Lancs.  
1st Man - Josh Boyle (Barlick) 30:55  
1st Lady - Caitlin Rice (Glossopdale) 36:00
My Stats - 36:22   18/153