HOT AND BOTHERED
WHOLAN NOOK TRAIL RACE - CALDERDALE WAY RELAY - HARROCK HILL RACE SERIES [1]
Another three races under the belt - three in eight days to be precise - a ratio which is pushing the boat out for this old boy. Still sore from the bone dry conditions at the Wholan Nook trail race, Sunday's Relay was sufferance in the midday sun. Any hopes that I could run through the stiffness, soreness and lethargy on another hot and sticky affair at Harrock Hill three days later were dashed as I got really frustrated with my complete lack of engine power and resorted to petulance and ill behaviour.
Wholan Nook didn't go so badly, aside from the ball ache at registration. This cost me valuable warm-up time. I would never blame the organisers, it's just a sign of the times. The third race of the Burnley & Pendle Grand Prix, this was a series that looked to be on the wane a few years back but it's popularity has recently boomed. Once upon a time, arriving with three quarters of an hour to spare after work used to be easily enough to get parked up, get your number, get warmed up and then crack on. Not any more. I must have spent up to twenty minutes here going through the process of shuffling through the masses to get to the table of entry forms, then to wait for an available biro and finally join a long and coiled queue. Aside from those queuing, runners already registered seemed to be hanging around chatting in there rather than taking their conversations outdoors on a perfectly pleasant evening. It all felt a bit chaotic and claustrophobic to be quite honest. With all due respect to the otherwise commendable ambience of Clowbridge Reservoir Sailing Club's HQ, I couldn't wait to get my number and get the hell out of there.
I hadn't decided if I was going to go Yorkshire bound instead for a bash at the Kildwick fell race until quite late in the day. Ultimately - and ironically - what turned my head in favour of Wholan Nook was a shorter distance to travel and therefore more time to warm-up... not so.
The course, up on the moors above Burnley, turned out to be fast on mainly hard tracks weaving out beyond Clowbridge Reservoir. Even the few sections upon grassier trods were hard as nails after over a week without a decent downpour. As well as opting for the wrong race perhaps, I also picked out the wrong footwear - a rather silly faux pas from somebody who works in a shop advising and selling running shoes - but I didn't realise actually how much man made hard track there was going to be. Looking around at other runners and asking one or two I knew beforehand, there was no definitive slant evident in favour of shoe type - so if in doubt, I thought, just go with the trusty fell racing x-talons. Yet the unforgiving ground took it's toll late on and I was begging for the feel of some cushioning or give in the ground. The race had gone reasonably but for a sticky five minute patch where I lost ground on a few guys I was hoping to be closer to. Once off the moors and upon the long, flat run in to the finish by the reservoir's edge I started feeling a bit leggy. I was overtaken in front of a spectating Phil Hall, once a prestigious local track athlete and now a coach at Clayton-le-Moors. I admire Phil for some of his track running achievements and still cutting the mustard as a veteran. Also the distinction of winning a fell race on Pendle Hill in a pair of cross country spikes is a feather in his cap. His suggestion that my black Ribble Valley vest was weighing me down and that I change it to the white one of Clayton was harmless banter, or at least I would normally think so if it wasn't for his bitter disdain of all things Ribble Valley Harriers! Thankfully his little quip had a positive effect on my finish to the race though, salvaging back that placing lost with thirty yards to go. Thanks 'coach' ;-)
Four days later it was team duty at the Calderdale Way Relay. My first time involved in the competition and a first for the Ribble Valley club. With a team of twelve required, our hand was forced as to which category we were chasing. With not quite enough ladies and certainly not enough men, it had to be a Mixed team and with the exception of this particular nobody in particular, we had the quality in the team to be quietly confident of winning the Mixed Team shield. This is one of the things that attracted me to joining the club. Not attaching myself like a leech to a team of winners (even though that's a bonus!) but just being there in a team, competing in this type of relay race. I was on the fifth leg out of six on the near 52 mile Calderdale Way which winds it's occasionally complicated way along the rolling hills surrounding Halifax. Leg 5 is second shortest at 7.5 miles and is picked up from a road crossing just outside the small settlement of Wainstalls Road. I had reccied the route a fortnight earlier with my then partner to be, Ben Walmsley. We unintentionally added a little entertainment by going off piste and spent far too much time not even being able to locate exactly where we were... this, despite map, compass and GPS gadgetry on our phones! Other than that it was fairly plain sailing. A week later though and unforeseen injury required team jugglery and Ben was switched elsewhere. Now Caitlin Rice is down to join me on Leg 5. I was quite looking forward to that, not just because she is an esteemed fell runner, but because this was another novel and unique beauty of the Ribble Valley set up - wherever else in the club running world would an ageing Lancashire lad be paired up with a top class lass from Derbyshire? But then there was another twist, as the evening before race day the chairman rings and tells me it's had to change yet again - and that now I'm running with him instead! No offence to Mr Barnes, but I was a touch deflated by this. Suddenly novelty and unknown quantity was replaced by familiarity and also a bit of fear... Barnes is on really good form of late.
Being a rather poorly organised individual, whilst I knew the date of this relay race well in advance, it was maybe only ten days prior to it that Sara brought it to my attention it was also her birthday weekend. Now let's get it straight, I hadn't forgotten Sara's birthday - I'd just inexplicably failed to connect the two together! I managed to get away with it though, fortunate enough to get a late booking at a place to stay nearby Wainstalls at The Crossroads Inn. On Saturday I took Sara and Connie dog out on to Haworth Moor for a walk up to Within Ruins via the Bronte Bridge. A cracking day in weather beautiful to walk in if not to run in. Sara is now reading Wuthering Heights, so she certainly got in to the spirit of things. I just enjoyed walking - rather than running for a change - routes that I've raced so many times. It's amazing what a different perspective you get and the wonderful things that go unnoticed. Back to race day though and almost with regret must I remind myself that this a running diary rather than an account of my private, social and recreational activity. I was right back there then, on that bench up at Withins having my butty with Sara. What a wonderful moment.
So Sunday morning and another lovely, but much shorter walk this time, around Ogden reservoir more to the direct North of Halifax. Oops, there I go again indulging in social and recreational references, but the link to racing was that much as I was enjoying the stroll, I wasn't realistically conceiving how I was going to switch in to some sort of running race mode in an hour or two's time. Sure enough the nerves were there, the anticipation - but physically I wasn't exactly looking forward to racing midday in this Spring heatwave and I felt a bit tired. Three steady pints of Peroni the previous evening might not have helped, but it was Sara's birthday and I would argue that having a fourth would have been a much more considerable hindrance. I managed to resist that fourth one and besides, I felt a bit livelier by the time Sara had dropped me off at our starting point. Chris turns up in Union Jack shorts, his original RV vest coarsely self crop-topped and splattered in what looked like bullet holes, but what he described as air holes to help him keep cool. The outfit was some sort of tongue in cheek ode to the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan, whilst also a celebration of new club kit on the horizon. Maybe part of it was also to teeter with the regulation of club vest uniformity? Maybe it was just Barnes the exhibitionist? Who knows - a rebel with his own cause is Chris Barnes. I'd pay good money to have a fish around inside that cranium of his to see what makes it tick. As it was, I felt under-dressed and straight laced in my untampered club vest and boringly matching black shorts.
The warm conditions were not conducive to particularly fast times and so we were hanging around a fair bit longer than projected to take the baton from our Leg 4 runners. I probably made a mistake of letting Sara go off to meet me at the other end without taking a water out of the car first. I went almost an hour without a sip before setting off, which was probably not ideal whilst trotting about and generally dehydrating a little whilst we waited. I didn't think much of this at the time, until during and certainly after the run when I was absolutely spitting feathers. Suddenly Andy Payne and Katie Walshaw came in to sight after what looked like a beast of a final climb up the valley and we were off at last. Barnes set the pace but then I ended up ahead at a stile after he took a crap line through a very rare patch of boginess. Then I took it on a bit harder than I should on the following first bit of climb and probably got Chris thinking, "Oh shit, Sutty's on it". I felt like it at that point, easing down the next valley thinking 'I'm going to smash this'. Then my partner nudged ahead again on the flat and I carelessly clipped a toe end on the top of a stile in full flow, crashing to the deck from a height on to my shoulder and face and forming a crumpled heap for a few seconds. Chris hadn't even realised and was now thirty yards ahead. That tumble had no lasting physical effects, but seemed to symbolise the sort of lumbersome and clumsy runner I feel I have become this year.
I couldn't get near Chris again and he had to rear up at times so not to get too far ahead. The following little road hill really started to hurt, my legs were stiffening up and we were barely two miles in. Now I'm thinking that Barnes is thinking, ''Oh shit, Sutty's bombed already''. Off that backwater road and at a most unlikely outpost through a small gap in a big stone wall, up some steps along a very narrow path and my favourite fell race legends Dave and Eileen Woodhead were hiding out taking photographs. That put a smile on my... well perhaps not my face, but I was smiling inside at least. Getting a bit of encouragement from these two was the very last recollection of any positive or heart warming emotion I experienced until we finally popped out of a ginnel at Shelf and it was all over. Uphill sections were really punishing me and there was no recovery there to kick in to decent flat speed. I could blame the hot sun, the punishing heat in the baking bottoms of theses windless little valleys, but it was the same for everybody. It would be easier to concede that I'm just not up to the job, which would be the frankly honest explanation. On the plus side though, we - or should I say 'I'? - because the run was basically dictated by my own lack of pace, well we/I didn't lose a place for the team and in fact even gained one late on. Barnes seemed happy enough, so that was the main thing. In actual fact our Leg 5 time turned out to stand up as a decent effort in the broader picture of things and surprisingly eighth quickest on the day. Relief for me that no damage was done to jeopardise the team's chances in the Mixed category which we went on to win convincingly. Given three of our lasses were on Inter Counties Fell Champs duty the day before - and, well, and that I was in the team - a very good return and for me personally my first ever team winning honours in a relay. Equally impressive was our 11th place overall. 11th then became 10th thanks to Clayton-le Moors receiving a time penalty - one of their young fast lads Danny Collinge returned from an ill-fated transfer to Salford Harriers too hastily before the paperwork came through.
Spring had barely showed it's hand before what feels like the height of Summer has descended on us all unexpectedly. Now in to the third week of the hot stuff, if it's good for the flowers and the bees, it's a tougher time than usual for ducks and runners. Even the evenings are starting to get muggy as well which was the case at the opening Harrock Hill fixture three days on from that Calderdale slog. I really did get hot and bothered at this one. There was debate during the day whether to take it on as I certainly didn't feel at all refreshed after Sunday. But the first Harrock Hill has often been a 'where I'm at or where I'm not' race at this time of year and besides, it's a race and I need to keep racing.
Best intentions to finally nail a relaxed and thorough warm up were foxed again - this time by my own stupidity. I got in the car, the petrol gauge beeps - ok no problem - five minute detour to stick a tenner in  - I can do this. No I can't, I opened my wallet to be reminded I'd left my bank card and cash in the shorts I was wearing earlier in the day. Aaaagh! I phone home for Sara's youngest to find my card, tell me the details and hope that some sort of manual transaction could go through - ''it might work'', said the patient cashier. But it didn't, so it was time to hand over my valuables and nip back home to get the bank card. Just over twenty minutes wasted there and whilst still enough time to have a bit of a trot and a stretch, I'd got in a tizz and so proper pre-race preparation went to the dogs yet again.
I'd set my stall out in the race with a two part plan to run the first half nice and steady and not get sucked in, then engage racing gear in the second half and try to pick off as many places as possible. Well, the first part of the plan went well. As for the second half, the gearbox went knackered. I felt I was having a real stinker and it got to the point where I'd basically tossed the towel in on myself. I graciously conceded a place to a Liverpool runner on the final climb, thinking it only good manners really as his need sounded greater than mine on this single file section. But the gentlemanly consolidation of my fate ended right there. The next guy to pass by when the path broadens out again really wound me up a bit as he needlessly cut right in front of me, making contact when there was enough room for a small car to overtake. That got the fire back in my belly, but then I proceeded to race the last mile on negative energy and got it all wrong, which unfortunately brought out the temperament of my former footballing self - never that far from the surface it would seem in the boiling pot of competition. As I started to reel the perpetrator of my annoyance back in, a Warrington vest came by and so rather than sit on him to guide me by, I immediately surged past the pair of them. Now hunting down that Liverpool vest, I got past him again down the last descent but could hear more company building up on the final road section. I held out until the young Warringtonian completely steamed me on the short pull to the line - my goose was cooked here and I had no reply. Then I felt somebody else gaining yardage just as I approached the funnel. Still 'juiced up' as John McEnroe would say, thinking it was that runner who had got my heckles up I petulantly and blindly gesticulated rudely to the opponent behind, stopped a yard short of the line and with guiding hands said, ''just f**ing 'av it then!''. Oops... wrong person. It was that Liverpool guy again - I still let him have it, but was quick to apologise for my actions. I don't think he took much offence fortunately. I still don't know who the seemingly clubless runner was who gave me the elbow and the subsequent results don't seem to shed any light on it either.
So I'd got myself all wound up, behaving like a childish brat just because I wasn't on it, then spitting out the old ''I'm done, it's over, I've got to the end'' spiel to Johnny Horrocks. He's heard it all before. I've always been a poor loser - you'd think I'd got used to it by now. Despite my behaviour, the finishing time was actually not quite as catastrophic as it felt. Significantly though still some one hundred seconds off where I finished the series here last Summer. The real legend that is Paul Muller, now 61 and the country's finest for his age, overheard my 'the end is nigh' routine to Johnners and basically talked me out of it whether or not he intended to. I just listened intently and lapped up what he had to say for five or ten minutes. If the words of the great Mr Muller weren't enough to put things in to perspective when a race doesn't go to plan - and they were - then the truly saddening news later that a competitor from Wirral AC had collapsed and died during the race most certainly was.

Wednesday 16th May 2018
WHOLAN NOOK TRAIL RACE   5m   Clowbridge Reservoir, Burnley 
1st Man - Tom Corrigan (Barlick) 29:37
1st Lady - Pauline May (Todmorden) 36:13 
My Stats - 33:10   12/288

Sunday 20th May 2018
CALDERDALE WAY RELAY   Leg 5   7.5m   Wainstalls Road to Shelf, West Yorkshire 
1st Men's Team - Calder Valley Fell Runners 6.07:30
1st Ladies Team - Todmorden Harriers 8.08:54
1st Mixed Team - Ribble Valley Harriers 6.54:53
My Stats - Paired with Chris Barnes 1.01:37   8/100

Wednesday 23rd May 2018
HARROCK HILL RACE SERIES [1]   5.2 m   Bispham Green, West Lancs.
1st Man - Peter Bray (Chorlton) 33:01
1st Lady - Joanna Goorney (Lytham) 40:44
My Stats - 37:45   17/232