LOOKING AHEAD, BUT NOT TOO FAR
I expressed my thoughts - ranted perhaps - about the righteousness of the meteorological seasons last back end. But even I would have to admit that twenty odd days in to what I classify as Spring, there has been hardly any sign of it whatsoever. If anything, since the turn of meteorological March we've had a more wintry snap than the whole of Winter itself had to offer. But under closer inspection, the snowdrops are out, the daffodils are trying, the bluebells are sprouting and wild garlic is showing shoots. As fabulous as it is to closely observe the marvels of the different seasons in transition, this also means we can only be a couple of weeks away from midweek evening races returning to the calendar!
So this year I'm going in to the new season with a little bit of clout already behind me. A few races and some good training since the beginning of February particularly, I have managed to get in regular speed and hill sessions each week and finally those pain in the arse niggly Winter aches and pains are also showing signs of fading away. Whether or not deemed an anti-social at the club for evading their sessions and doing my own thing instead lately, essentially it's what I need to do to stay on the right side of injury wrongs. I sincerely hope to be in a good place the next time I rack up on a starting line.
Another DNF would be unthinkable. Even if racing fitness itself will take a few tries to kick in, the feeling is that I'm not far off and should be able to pile in to the night races with more confidence than trepidation and get some reasonable results under my belt right from the off.
The off will be Liver Hill at Rawtenstall - if I can physically get there on time for a 6:45 start. Annually bookmarked as first midweek evening fell race of the year, it's one I've yet to actually get over to and race. So it's time I did. After this, probably next up will be my one and only tarmac assault of the season at Podium 5K. I'm after a sub-17 minuter which would not be a bad effort for this old goat. Approaching this one with training going even better than the last Podium in November - and more geared towards the distance and the speed required - I ought to get it smashed and done with so long as I keep ticking over like I am at the moment without interruption. There's no point pretending to myself and playing it down - I really want the time at Podium - then I can put this final target on the tarmac to bed once and for all.
In the longer term, it's just about trying to enjoy the Spring and Summer races without a massive plan as such, other than to try and compete at least once a week and build up something reminiscent of consistency for once in my running life.
In the longer term maybe a time will come to actually have a plan, to pick big races, to get stuck in to some of the Cumbrian stuff again with regularity. Obviously things outside of running also come in to play and right now running plans can't get too carried away. But within the cranium of this running nobody in particular there is a vision of sorts - if a little hazy on the distant horizon, focused in the foreground at least.
Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Friday, 16 March 2018
THE DNA OF A DNF
RODDLESWORTH ROLLER
DNF. Did Not Finish. An acronym runners never like to be associated with. I might get back to the tedious detail leading up to my very own DNF, which paled in to insignificance at the Roddlesworth Roller last Sunday. But more so I would like to explore a little further in to the dark world of the runner who pulls out of a race. There is a definitive stigma of failure attached to a DNF and an often staining legacy upon a runner's self respect. I've had four DNF's in the past, through injury, through exhaustion and through chucking my toys out of the pram.
Certainly a DNF by injury is without choice and therefore an easier burden for the conscience to accept - yet latterly depressing - for there is the consequence of the injury to consider and the frustration of being sidelined for an indefinite period of time.
DNF by exhaustion boils down to the amount of stubbornness and resolve of an individual. Those whose stubbornness isn't matched by resolve may allow themselves to reach a stage where they sacrifice wellness or risk injury for the sake of bravado. Those with a more matter of fact outlook might know exactly when to pull the plug and think of the long term. To some, the latter would be a clear choice between being hardcore or a softy. To others it's a simple distinction between madness or sensibility.
DNF by dummy spit and toy chucking is just a messy place to be and a sure way to feel diappointed in yourself. At least that is my view from personal experience. But we are human and these things can happen.
DNF by just not feeling you can't race to a decent enough standard on the day to satisfy your competitive needs could be deemed as an equally lame excuse and bottling out by some, yet perfectly understandable by others. This can depend on the class of the runner and whether more stoic or perfectionist. Those gifted few that possess both of these traits in abundance would tend to be the very cream of the crop that can rely on raw talent to pull them through and avoid such a consequence.
Nobody wants to DNF. Nobody really bothers to travel and turn up for a race thinking they'll see how it goes but probably pull out at some point. Many runners tell ourselves we'll never DNF and pride ourselves, foolhardily or not, on a clean slate at finishing every single race they've started. But a DNF can happen to anybody, anytime and once that seal has been broken, thoughts about a DNF can creep in during a race that may not be going particularly well and then those thoughts need dealing with - again, speaking from experience!
My DNF seal was first broken years ago at the Three Shires fell race after a bad fall. The choice was made for me, my right knee was a right mess and it was all over. The next time was at Sedburgh Hills where I pulled something and maybe could have carried on, but most definitely had made things worse in the long run over that beast of a course, so cop out I plea not. Three Peaks last year? Well I just wasn't up to the job and was ill prepared. Then less than two years ago, I spat the dummy and threw the toys out at Sabden Trail Race. Not running as well as I thought I should or could - deluded really, given my form and fitness at the time - I just stopped and started trotting back the opposite way. Since that particular incident at Sabden, DNF demons plague my thoughts when I perceive that a race isn't going well. The process tends to happen early on if the legs feel heavy and there seems to be little sign of any reasonable output despite the expense of maximum input. Thoughts such as, ''This is crap, I'll give it a bit longer and see how it goes", or "I'll see how I am at the top of that next climb", or "Oh shit, suchabody's passing me now, this is bloody awful''... the demons start dragging me down. More often than not I can dig out a positive response and at some point get myself back in to the race. Sometimes I deliberate over pulling out for so long that I might as well just carry on as the race is over half way around so a DNF becomes an even more pointless exercise! Sometimes I've just had a rusty start and it takes a few miles for the engines to fire. But like it or not, I can't hide the fact that since that cop out at Sabden, I've left the door ajar for a mental weakness.
Heart, legs and lungs are the big players on race day, but if the head starts to get overly involved when the adrenaline is pumping around, this is when there is a vulnerability. The head - and certainly my extensively sized version - is not always to be trusted once in the heat of competitive action. The head can set the legs off too quickly, believe the impossible, overrate our own capabilities. The head might also tell us we are not up to the job, to quit before it gets worse, underrate our own capabilities.
For whatever the reason and whether a spontaneous action, carefully calculated or just a desperate necessity, a DNF can be a personally haunting memory for a competitiv runner and can only begin to be put right by the next opportunity to put some kit back on and get a decent run in. That is precisely what happened to me after last Sunday's DNF. The batteries felt more charged the day after and I found myself blasting out cross country laps on the local park in the mud and rain as hard as I could and enjoyed the punishment. It did the trick I think.
I'm not a happy bunny about feeling the need to pull out on Sunday but there's no point getting hung up about it. This latest DNF came under the category of just not feeling up to standard. I've been training fairly well, got sessions and races under my belt of late, felt strong all last week and was confident of having quite a decent run at Roddlesworth this year. I think I made the mistake of running with the dog the day before a bit further than I ought to. Yep, if in doubt blame the dog among other lame excuses. A mile in and everything was feeling more and more out of sync. I was blowing hard and yet well shy of race pace and I spent probably less than half a minute considering the option to drop out before saying ''sod this'' and deviating off course to the other side of the woods for a couple of miles on my own before heading back to register my DNF status. That somebody shouted to me, "Mate! This way, mate", from behind was a wee source of amusement to soften the blow. There were at least half a dozen guys closely filed in singular fashion on the main track ahead of me and it would have been a quite ridiculous alternative route choice!
In retrospect, if this had been a race I'd not done before in unfamiliar territory and unfamiliar company then I'd have muddled through. But as it was, I didn't see the point. I'd like to think I'm a better runner than that at the moment, even if I may be judged a lesser person for pressing the quit button so readily.
Sunday 11th March 2018
RODDLESWORTH ROLLER Abbey Village, Lancs. 5.5m
1st Man - Chris Davies (Blackburn H.) 33:19
1st Lady - Jenifer Dixon (Middleton) 40:38
My Stats - DNF
RODDLESWORTH ROLLER
DNF. Did Not Finish. An acronym runners never like to be associated with. I might get back to the tedious detail leading up to my very own DNF, which paled in to insignificance at the Roddlesworth Roller last Sunday. But more so I would like to explore a little further in to the dark world of the runner who pulls out of a race. There is a definitive stigma of failure attached to a DNF and an often staining legacy upon a runner's self respect. I've had four DNF's in the past, through injury, through exhaustion and through chucking my toys out of the pram.
Certainly a DNF by injury is without choice and therefore an easier burden for the conscience to accept - yet latterly depressing - for there is the consequence of the injury to consider and the frustration of being sidelined for an indefinite period of time.
DNF by exhaustion boils down to the amount of stubbornness and resolve of an individual. Those whose stubbornness isn't matched by resolve may allow themselves to reach a stage where they sacrifice wellness or risk injury for the sake of bravado. Those with a more matter of fact outlook might know exactly when to pull the plug and think of the long term. To some, the latter would be a clear choice between being hardcore or a softy. To others it's a simple distinction between madness or sensibility.
DNF by dummy spit and toy chucking is just a messy place to be and a sure way to feel diappointed in yourself. At least that is my view from personal experience. But we are human and these things can happen.
DNF by just not feeling you can't race to a decent enough standard on the day to satisfy your competitive needs could be deemed as an equally lame excuse and bottling out by some, yet perfectly understandable by others. This can depend on the class of the runner and whether more stoic or perfectionist. Those gifted few that possess both of these traits in abundance would tend to be the very cream of the crop that can rely on raw talent to pull them through and avoid such a consequence.
Nobody wants to DNF. Nobody really bothers to travel and turn up for a race thinking they'll see how it goes but probably pull out at some point. Many runners tell ourselves we'll never DNF and pride ourselves, foolhardily or not, on a clean slate at finishing every single race they've started. But a DNF can happen to anybody, anytime and once that seal has been broken, thoughts about a DNF can creep in during a race that may not be going particularly well and then those thoughts need dealing with - again, speaking from experience!
My DNF seal was first broken years ago at the Three Shires fell race after a bad fall. The choice was made for me, my right knee was a right mess and it was all over. The next time was at Sedburgh Hills where I pulled something and maybe could have carried on, but most definitely had made things worse in the long run over that beast of a course, so cop out I plea not. Three Peaks last year? Well I just wasn't up to the job and was ill prepared. Then less than two years ago, I spat the dummy and threw the toys out at Sabden Trail Race. Not running as well as I thought I should or could - deluded really, given my form and fitness at the time - I just stopped and started trotting back the opposite way. Since that particular incident at Sabden, DNF demons plague my thoughts when I perceive that a race isn't going well. The process tends to happen early on if the legs feel heavy and there seems to be little sign of any reasonable output despite the expense of maximum input. Thoughts such as, ''This is crap, I'll give it a bit longer and see how it goes", or "I'll see how I am at the top of that next climb", or "Oh shit, suchabody's passing me now, this is bloody awful''... the demons start dragging me down. More often than not I can dig out a positive response and at some point get myself back in to the race. Sometimes I deliberate over pulling out for so long that I might as well just carry on as the race is over half way around so a DNF becomes an even more pointless exercise! Sometimes I've just had a rusty start and it takes a few miles for the engines to fire. But like it or not, I can't hide the fact that since that cop out at Sabden, I've left the door ajar for a mental weakness.
Heart, legs and lungs are the big players on race day, but if the head starts to get overly involved when the adrenaline is pumping around, this is when there is a vulnerability. The head - and certainly my extensively sized version - is not always to be trusted once in the heat of competitive action. The head can set the legs off too quickly, believe the impossible, overrate our own capabilities. The head might also tell us we are not up to the job, to quit before it gets worse, underrate our own capabilities.
For whatever the reason and whether a spontaneous action, carefully calculated or just a desperate necessity, a DNF can be a personally haunting memory for a competitiv runner and can only begin to be put right by the next opportunity to put some kit back on and get a decent run in. That is precisely what happened to me after last Sunday's DNF. The batteries felt more charged the day after and I found myself blasting out cross country laps on the local park in the mud and rain as hard as I could and enjoyed the punishment. It did the trick I think.
I'm not a happy bunny about feeling the need to pull out on Sunday but there's no point getting hung up about it. This latest DNF came under the category of just not feeling up to standard. I've been training fairly well, got sessions and races under my belt of late, felt strong all last week and was confident of having quite a decent run at Roddlesworth this year. I think I made the mistake of running with the dog the day before a bit further than I ought to. Yep, if in doubt blame the dog among other lame excuses. A mile in and everything was feeling more and more out of sync. I was blowing hard and yet well shy of race pace and I spent probably less than half a minute considering the option to drop out before saying ''sod this'' and deviating off course to the other side of the woods for a couple of miles on my own before heading back to register my DNF status. That somebody shouted to me, "Mate! This way, mate", from behind was a wee source of amusement to soften the blow. There were at least half a dozen guys closely filed in singular fashion on the main track ahead of me and it would have been a quite ridiculous alternative route choice!
In retrospect, if this had been a race I'd not done before in unfamiliar territory and unfamiliar company then I'd have muddled through. But as it was, I didn't see the point. I'd like to think I'm a better runner than that at the moment, even if I may be judged a lesser person for pressing the quit button so readily.
Sunday 11th March 2018
RODDLESWORTH ROLLER Abbey Village, Lancs. 5.5m
1st Man - Chris Davies (Blackburn H.) 33:19
1st Lady - Jenifer Dixon (Middleton) 40:38
My Stats - DNF
Friday, 9 March 2018
FROM LONDON WITH LOVE
ENGLISH NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
As a wooly-backed Northern lad from farming stock, it's nice to go and take in the capital city from time to time and get a taste of how the other half live. I would struggle to live there I think, but nowt wrong with a trip out and especially when it's the triennial turn of Parliament Hill to host the English National Cross Country Champs. I remember my last visit to this occasion back in 2015 with Blackburn Harriers. I loved it and wondered why the hell I had never done it before. As such, until my legs can no longer get me around in a half respectable time, it's a must-do when it's in London. I'm already mentally checked in for 2021!
Back to the present though and this time around with Ribble Valley Harriers. Most of us travelled down together in some style with an eight seater Merc put on by our chauffeur Andy Heys. Those machines just cruise at 70mph - it felt like 50. There was plenty enough room and comfort to avoid scrunching up our athletically tuned bodies and thus getting away with making the long journey on the early morning of race day. Our hotel was ideally situated near Hampstead Heath where the action was at and once parked up, it was a short walk to the scene of one of the greatest amateur spectacles the sport has to offer. With a huge pre-entry of almost 10,000 athletes across the board of the ten races on show, it's renaissance of popularity in recent times is a real positive for the club running scene and the sport in general. The Nationals is not about running to raise money for charities - not that I believe such a thing should be outlawed, far from it, before some crazed Neo-Liberal Conservative twists my sentiments here and takes it to The Daily Mail - but nor is it about jogging around with smiley faces and thumbs up, or running for the basic sake of activity itself. There are plenty of opportunities on the race calendar to tick those types of boxes - but this race is most definitely not it. The Nationals is all about pure racing, the competition, getting stuck in and running the very best you can on the day. Everybody else is doing the same thing. Blackburn stalwart Matt Nuttall doesn't say a great deal, but it's normally profound when he does. I believe Matt to be spot on when hearing he remarked that in a normal race these days you might get only ten percent of the field racing really hard for positions, but at the Nationals it's the opposite way around with ninety percent - and when that's out of a field of over 2300 like this year's senior men's line-up, this makes for one hell of a race.
Such a swell of numbers conspired to create a few chaotic moments though early on in the race as the course bottlenecks quickly on the brow of Parliament Hill. If you didn't or couldn't sprint off hard enough to make the top hundred after that first hundred yards or so then congestion came your way. Things came to a bit of a standstill on two or three occasions where the course narrows early on, but that's how it is. Over a distance of 12K, there's plenty of time and opportunity to get some places back. For some higher end athletes, however - such as my shop boss Ben Fish who got stuck in that traffic - it's a bit frustrating because some serious ground was lost on his rivals. For the rest of us though, it's not ideal but I guess we were all in the same boat. I wouldn't like to see the start of the course change as the bottleneck is an infamous feature of the Parliament Hill experience. The day after the weekend before, Ben and I were putting the world to rights and pondered the best way around the problem for in three years time and in order to give the higher end athletes a little bit more priority, but without limiting overall participation. The conclusion was narrower pens and even single file pens for clubs less represented with the pens labelled by club names rather than number where each club can literally put their faster runners to the very front and be responsible to line the rest up in order of ability - thus a more staggered and less frenetic merge upon that opening slope perhaps?
Anyway, back to the race itself and I was feeling really quite comfortable after the first smaller lap. Too comfortable perhaps? I began to crank the pace up a little bit on the next larger lap and it's incredible how even when over half way around there are still so many runners around to overtake and still a good few to be overtaken by - I doubt my position stayed the same for more than ten seconds at a time throughout the whole duration of my race. It's a proper ding-dong all the way around. Once in to that final large lap and fully revised of the course, I started to dig in a bit more and do some serious serial overtaking. But even in massive fields like this one, there is always one face that becomes familiar and in my case it was a chap from Manchester club Chorlton Runners. I thought I'd got rid of him three or four times, but as much as I wound the speed up harder and harder on that final lap he kept popping up beside me again. With probably just less than a mile to go, I decided enough was enough and I had now shut out everybody else in the race and was eyeballs out to get away from the sight of that Chorlton vest for good. But no, half a mile to go and he came by again. As the descent through the woods begins and the finish is in sight, I passed him once more thinking I must have broke him by now. But no - yet again - as the 300 metre or so flat sprint to the finish began, he flew by once more so I hung on to his shadow, hoping I might find that little bit extra on him somewhere before the finishing line. He proved equal to my final offerings though and did me by a couple of seconds. On the plus side, chasing this guy as if my life depended on it must have bought me at least another dozen places in those closing stages. Perhaps I'd gone out too conservatively early on, but I was jiggered at the finish and enjoyed the contests out there. All that effort for 832nd! But I'd do it all again tomorrow, it was ace.
Last time here three years ago I was on the back end of a chest infection so couldn't really dig very deep at all. It was nice to come back to this iconic venue, reasonably fit this time and really feel like part of the battle.
It was a fantastic day for Ribble Valley Harriers all in all. Our ladies team - which is what it's all about - finished a fantastical fifth. An awesome achievement as Walshaw, Jackson, Powell-Smith and Glover finished between 39th and 68th from over 1100 runners to put a club with fewer than twenty members in to the national gaze. The old geezers didn't do too badly, machines Gaskell and Hall were about four minutes and 400 places ahead of myself. The fast improving and comparatively youthful Andy Heys, at 38, also ran a blinder just 80 seconds behind me. I fairly smacked that last lap out as well so I may have to watch my back for him this year.
Ribble Valley put out ten runners, including a full ladies team at the Nationals, despite being a club of so few members. With the exception of Blackburn Harriers, who fielded a strong turnout and gained an excellent 22nd in the men's team standings, no other club was in evidence flying the flag for Lancashire. It's been a familiar tale in recent times regardless of the championships' location and quite a saddening statistic. The Cross Country Nationals - and particularly at it's spiritual home on Parliament Hill - epitomise what the sport is all about. A huge turnout where everyone of all levels of ability get stuck in and race hard. As a spectacle to both watch and participate in, they are fantastic races. That poses the questions, where were all the other clubs from our area and why? Most definitely their loss - not just for the racing, but the crack.
A meal and a few too many beers in the evening, a physically disjointed but aesthetically pleasant four mile run around a sunny but bitter Hampstead Heath in the morning, before a late breakfast and then homeward bound. A cracking little weekend of running club indulgence.
Saturday 24th February 2018
ENGLISH NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Parliament Hill Fields, Hampstead Heath, London.
1st Senior Men's Race (12K) - Adam Hickey (Southend-on-Sea AC) 39:35
1st Senior Ladies Race (8K) - Phoebe Law (Kingston AC & Polytechnic Harriers) 28:33
My Stats - 52:25 832/2328
ENGLISH NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
As a wooly-backed Northern lad from farming stock, it's nice to go and take in the capital city from time to time and get a taste of how the other half live. I would struggle to live there I think, but nowt wrong with a trip out and especially when it's the triennial turn of Parliament Hill to host the English National Cross Country Champs. I remember my last visit to this occasion back in 2015 with Blackburn Harriers. I loved it and wondered why the hell I had never done it before. As such, until my legs can no longer get me around in a half respectable time, it's a must-do when it's in London. I'm already mentally checked in for 2021!
Back to the present though and this time around with Ribble Valley Harriers. Most of us travelled down together in some style with an eight seater Merc put on by our chauffeur Andy Heys. Those machines just cruise at 70mph - it felt like 50. There was plenty enough room and comfort to avoid scrunching up our athletically tuned bodies and thus getting away with making the long journey on the early morning of race day. Our hotel was ideally situated near Hampstead Heath where the action was at and once parked up, it was a short walk to the scene of one of the greatest amateur spectacles the sport has to offer. With a huge pre-entry of almost 10,000 athletes across the board of the ten races on show, it's renaissance of popularity in recent times is a real positive for the club running scene and the sport in general. The Nationals is not about running to raise money for charities - not that I believe such a thing should be outlawed, far from it, before some crazed Neo-Liberal Conservative twists my sentiments here and takes it to The Daily Mail - but nor is it about jogging around with smiley faces and thumbs up, or running for the basic sake of activity itself. There are plenty of opportunities on the race calendar to tick those types of boxes - but this race is most definitely not it. The Nationals is all about pure racing, the competition, getting stuck in and running the very best you can on the day. Everybody else is doing the same thing. Blackburn stalwart Matt Nuttall doesn't say a great deal, but it's normally profound when he does. I believe Matt to be spot on when hearing he remarked that in a normal race these days you might get only ten percent of the field racing really hard for positions, but at the Nationals it's the opposite way around with ninety percent - and when that's out of a field of over 2300 like this year's senior men's line-up, this makes for one hell of a race.
Such a swell of numbers conspired to create a few chaotic moments though early on in the race as the course bottlenecks quickly on the brow of Parliament Hill. If you didn't or couldn't sprint off hard enough to make the top hundred after that first hundred yards or so then congestion came your way. Things came to a bit of a standstill on two or three occasions where the course narrows early on, but that's how it is. Over a distance of 12K, there's plenty of time and opportunity to get some places back. For some higher end athletes, however - such as my shop boss Ben Fish who got stuck in that traffic - it's a bit frustrating because some serious ground was lost on his rivals. For the rest of us though, it's not ideal but I guess we were all in the same boat. I wouldn't like to see the start of the course change as the bottleneck is an infamous feature of the Parliament Hill experience. The day after the weekend before, Ben and I were putting the world to rights and pondered the best way around the problem for in three years time and in order to give the higher end athletes a little bit more priority, but without limiting overall participation. The conclusion was narrower pens and even single file pens for clubs less represented with the pens labelled by club names rather than number where each club can literally put their faster runners to the very front and be responsible to line the rest up in order of ability - thus a more staggered and less frenetic merge upon that opening slope perhaps?
Anyway, back to the race itself and I was feeling really quite comfortable after the first smaller lap. Too comfortable perhaps? I began to crank the pace up a little bit on the next larger lap and it's incredible how even when over half way around there are still so many runners around to overtake and still a good few to be overtaken by - I doubt my position stayed the same for more than ten seconds at a time throughout the whole duration of my race. It's a proper ding-dong all the way around. Once in to that final large lap and fully revised of the course, I started to dig in a bit more and do some serious serial overtaking. But even in massive fields like this one, there is always one face that becomes familiar and in my case it was a chap from Manchester club Chorlton Runners. I thought I'd got rid of him three or four times, but as much as I wound the speed up harder and harder on that final lap he kept popping up beside me again. With probably just less than a mile to go, I decided enough was enough and I had now shut out everybody else in the race and was eyeballs out to get away from the sight of that Chorlton vest for good. But no, half a mile to go and he came by again. As the descent through the woods begins and the finish is in sight, I passed him once more thinking I must have broke him by now. But no - yet again - as the 300 metre or so flat sprint to the finish began, he flew by once more so I hung on to his shadow, hoping I might find that little bit extra on him somewhere before the finishing line. He proved equal to my final offerings though and did me by a couple of seconds. On the plus side, chasing this guy as if my life depended on it must have bought me at least another dozen places in those closing stages. Perhaps I'd gone out too conservatively early on, but I was jiggered at the finish and enjoyed the contests out there. All that effort for 832nd! But I'd do it all again tomorrow, it was ace.
Last time here three years ago I was on the back end of a chest infection so couldn't really dig very deep at all. It was nice to come back to this iconic venue, reasonably fit this time and really feel like part of the battle.
It was a fantastic day for Ribble Valley Harriers all in all. Our ladies team - which is what it's all about - finished a fantastical fifth. An awesome achievement as Walshaw, Jackson, Powell-Smith and Glover finished between 39th and 68th from over 1100 runners to put a club with fewer than twenty members in to the national gaze. The old geezers didn't do too badly, machines Gaskell and Hall were about four minutes and 400 places ahead of myself. The fast improving and comparatively youthful Andy Heys, at 38, also ran a blinder just 80 seconds behind me. I fairly smacked that last lap out as well so I may have to watch my back for him this year.
Ribble Valley put out ten runners, including a full ladies team at the Nationals, despite being a club of so few members. With the exception of Blackburn Harriers, who fielded a strong turnout and gained an excellent 22nd in the men's team standings, no other club was in evidence flying the flag for Lancashire. It's been a familiar tale in recent times regardless of the championships' location and quite a saddening statistic. The Cross Country Nationals - and particularly at it's spiritual home on Parliament Hill - epitomise what the sport is all about. A huge turnout where everyone of all levels of ability get stuck in and race hard. As a spectacle to both watch and participate in, they are fantastic races. That poses the questions, where were all the other clubs from our area and why? Most definitely their loss - not just for the racing, but the crack.
A meal and a few too many beers in the evening, a physically disjointed but aesthetically pleasant four mile run around a sunny but bitter Hampstead Heath in the morning, before a late breakfast and then homeward bound. A cracking little weekend of running club indulgence.
Saturday 24th February 2018
ENGLISH NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Parliament Hill Fields, Hampstead Heath, London.
1st Senior Men's Race (12K) - Adam Hickey (Southend-on-Sea AC) 39:35
1st Senior Ladies Race (8K) - Phoebe Law (Kingston AC & Polytechnic Harriers) 28:33
My Stats - 52:25 832/2328
Saturday, 3 March 2018
BACK AT IT
PARBOLD HILL RACE
After managing to string together four weeks of consistent training, the acid test would have to be a race. Parbold Hill was long since booked in and has been a date on the calendar that I had been eyeing in which to get my ass back in to some sort of gear. Parbold Hill precedes the English Cross Country Championships the following week and so would also serve as a sharpener for that one. Given my twenty-five showings at the Harrock Hill races over the years, which are like little Summer series sisters to this annual Parbold race that covers much of the same course but more, it's a weird one that this was my first appearance at the bigger brother. Probably work or just a lack of planning to pick this race out would be reasons why it's gone amiss over the years, but this time I was under instruction to enter as it's an important race in my new club's short history - so a suitable excuse I thought - it was about time I got a Parbold Hill under my belt.
This is a mutli-terrain affair with some road sections, fields and tracks. But the off-road sections were particularly cut up with all the wet weather this Winter. Fast Summer trails in Summer's Harrock Hill Series were unrecognisable muddy swamps here in wet February. However race day itself saw the sun come out.
I didn't really know what to expect from this race, but I was fairly confident that any sort of capitulation like my last outing at the Lancs Cross Country was highly unlikely. I went out steady, knowing more or less the route of the first half of the race and started to pick my way past a few. The main climb is a tarmac one to the top of Parbold Hill itself and I'd decided from off there I was going to invest some more serious effort and put a proper shift in. There was the risk of blowing up, but I felt stronger than that as I continued to pick a few more runners off. Since early on in these Parbold proceedings, only one competitor managed to pass me and that was club mate and last year's ladies winner Louisa Powell-Smith. I knew she was pressuring behind for some time as I recognised the breathing noises from Tuesday night training sessions. About two miles to go, at this point I picked up speed to leap the cattle grid behind High Moor Restaurant that I have leapt many a time, hoping it would psych her out! It turned out Louisa was suitably impressed, but it couldn't camouflage her superior leg speed as she soon enough surged past just before the final climb of note. I wonder if I should have dug deeper to go with her because, post-surge, there wasn't that much between us after that, making twenty seconds on me to the finish. But tagging on to Louisa would have been a risk. I had to run my own race. However I sense I'm not too far away from the sort of form where I can take chances like that and race with a little less caution. Overall I was fairly pleased with how this one panned out. The heart did flutter for a split second coming down off Harrock Hill in the closing stages. A couple of fences are made in to hurdles, banked up with bails of straw from which to project yourself. An over enthused approach, with a strong run up and one eye on Powell, nevertheless left a lazy trailing leg which clipped the top of the fence and almost sent me for a crash landing. But I somehow stayed on my feet and expressed apologies for my French, so to speak, to the small cluster of spectators.
It was nice to be in the prizes for a change as well as I got a bit of something as a counter in our winning men's team. Our Ribble Valley contingent swept almost everything up in fact. That's how it is with these guys.
Saturday 17th February 2018
48th PARBOLD HILL RACE, Hilldale, West Lancs. 6.75m
1st Man - Matthew Crehan (St Helens & Sutton) 41:59
1st Lady - Katie Walshaw (Ribble Valley) 46:58
My Stats - 48:47 16/442
PARBOLD HILL RACE
After managing to string together four weeks of consistent training, the acid test would have to be a race. Parbold Hill was long since booked in and has been a date on the calendar that I had been eyeing in which to get my ass back in to some sort of gear. Parbold Hill precedes the English Cross Country Championships the following week and so would also serve as a sharpener for that one. Given my twenty-five showings at the Harrock Hill races over the years, which are like little Summer series sisters to this annual Parbold race that covers much of the same course but more, it's a weird one that this was my first appearance at the bigger brother. Probably work or just a lack of planning to pick this race out would be reasons why it's gone amiss over the years, but this time I was under instruction to enter as it's an important race in my new club's short history - so a suitable excuse I thought - it was about time I got a Parbold Hill under my belt.
This is a mutli-terrain affair with some road sections, fields and tracks. But the off-road sections were particularly cut up with all the wet weather this Winter. Fast Summer trails in Summer's Harrock Hill Series were unrecognisable muddy swamps here in wet February. However race day itself saw the sun come out.
I didn't really know what to expect from this race, but I was fairly confident that any sort of capitulation like my last outing at the Lancs Cross Country was highly unlikely. I went out steady, knowing more or less the route of the first half of the race and started to pick my way past a few. The main climb is a tarmac one to the top of Parbold Hill itself and I'd decided from off there I was going to invest some more serious effort and put a proper shift in. There was the risk of blowing up, but I felt stronger than that as I continued to pick a few more runners off. Since early on in these Parbold proceedings, only one competitor managed to pass me and that was club mate and last year's ladies winner Louisa Powell-Smith. I knew she was pressuring behind for some time as I recognised the breathing noises from Tuesday night training sessions. About two miles to go, at this point I picked up speed to leap the cattle grid behind High Moor Restaurant that I have leapt many a time, hoping it would psych her out! It turned out Louisa was suitably impressed, but it couldn't camouflage her superior leg speed as she soon enough surged past just before the final climb of note. I wonder if I should have dug deeper to go with her because, post-surge, there wasn't that much between us after that, making twenty seconds on me to the finish. But tagging on to Louisa would have been a risk. I had to run my own race. However I sense I'm not too far away from the sort of form where I can take chances like that and race with a little less caution. Overall I was fairly pleased with how this one panned out. The heart did flutter for a split second coming down off Harrock Hill in the closing stages. A couple of fences are made in to hurdles, banked up with bails of straw from which to project yourself. An over enthused approach, with a strong run up and one eye on Powell, nevertheless left a lazy trailing leg which clipped the top of the fence and almost sent me for a crash landing. But I somehow stayed on my feet and expressed apologies for my French, so to speak, to the small cluster of spectators.
It was nice to be in the prizes for a change as well as I got a bit of something as a counter in our winning men's team. Our Ribble Valley contingent swept almost everything up in fact. That's how it is with these guys.
Saturday 17th February 2018
48th PARBOLD HILL RACE, Hilldale, West Lancs. 6.75m
1st Man - Matthew Crehan (St Helens & Sutton) 41:59
1st Lady - Katie Walshaw (Ribble Valley) 46:58
My Stats - 48:47 16/442
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