DISSENTING DESCENDING
FAIRFIELD HORSESHOE
I couldn't quite believe it when I worked out it was eleven years since my last appearance at this fantastic race. It's been at least seven years since I even summited Fairfield on a training run.
Despite this inconceivable sense of time travel, everything felt so strangely familiar on this long awaited return - although I was a little blase about how far the parking field was from registration. As it was my wife's birthday weekend, we had another stayover up this end of the world just ten minutes down the road from Rydal. Plenty of time for a chilled morning, no need to rush... but somehow I ended up getting tight for time to get my number, scampering down the track to chuck my kit on and then hurry back up to the start just in time for kick off. At least it got the adrenaline pumping at last, for every single outing since my last race eight days ago has been limited to slow jogging. Aches and pains in my knees again, general lack of energy levels - and as such - loss of running mojo. I've barely been able to run a sweat up.
Fairfield is just the sort of race that will chew you up and spit you out if not in condition for it. My woeful performances in both training and racing recently meant I was never going to treat it with anything less than the utmost respect.
When I thought I still had time on my hands and about to head off for registration, I get a shout and it's the familiar face of Blackburn Harrier Matt Nuttall. There's probably a joke going around about my admiration for Nuttall, but he's a strong all rounder who has run solid and fast at all disciplines for a quarter of a century or more. To cut a long story short, for a long time he was the runner who I aspired to emulate, even though I never really got close. Getting the better of him in the odd track session was as good as it got.
Matt's a committed athlete, strong personality, calls a spade a spade and unless it's profound and worth saying, he may not say much at all. He's always made a great double act with his best mate and close rival at the club, Paul Guinan. Nuttall and Guiny were like the Kray twins when I was at Blackburn.
I couldn't help observing that certainly for a race day, Mr Nuttall seemed much more laid back and friendlier than I've ever seen him before. Not that he was ever unfriendly as such, more so the broodiness of a fiercely focused competitor. Perhaps his more holistic approach to racing at the moment is bringing out his more socialite nature?
Anyway, like myself, Matt's struggling to get back to anything like form. Unlike myself though, he's dealing with it.
Even racing as a mere shadow of his former self, I'm admiring Nuttall all over again for a whole set of different reasons. His attitude to taking harsh beatings at every race of late is to say, ''I am where I am'', getting on with doing races he's never done before to maintain his interest and also hopefully building a way back. I wish I could share that same outlook, but I'm more of a troubled specimen. It's not that I don't get enjoyment, fulfilment or even lack gratitude that I am capable of running around routes like the Fairfield Horseshoe; it's just that if I can't feel as if I am being competitive, then I'd prefer to just run the route on my own. Being in a race to get an arse-kicking time after time is just making me more and more despondent. Nuttall however, well Nuttall is a different monster and is a monster that has a plan. I'm sure he'll see it through and that eventually he'll get back up to standard. I thought he'd lost the plot a few months ago when I saw photographs of him plugged in with earphones during a few fell races. Now I'm thinking it was all part of the grander masterplan.
I was around a minute or so behind Matt throughout most of the race until the last couple of miles, which says much about how far he has to go yet. I was reasonably content to make the summit inside an hour and had picked off plenty of places after a conservative first climb on to ridge of Nab Scar. I seemed to be holding my own on the second half of the horseshoe which throws in a couple more short climb testers and I remember thinking about half way down how I was feeling quite good and ready to finish the job off. But when the descent gets rockier and steeper, the quads numbed a touch, my knees didn't feel up to the job and all the places I had made up on the climb - and then some - were cheaply thrown away over the sort of terrain that once upon a time I thrived on. In one sense I felt I was holding back, but equally I felt I just couldn't push myself on either. With knees hurting and stiffening up, there was no rhythm at all to this shambolic manoeuvre down the hillside that sparked bouts of vocal self-condemnation and dissent which I can only hope no passing competitors thought was aimed at them.
I took a random peek at my watch which displayed 1.37... the valley floor still looks a long way down and even if I was descending in a plane I would say there was still a few minutes until touchdown.
In 2007 I had crossed the finishing line in 1.31.
The next time I dare glimpse at said wrist-based timing instrument is when I catch a view of all the runner's vehicles in the field, still a distance away and still a few hundred feet below. Now I'm on 1.42. I'd said to my fell racing widow Sara that I'd be hitting that track back to the finish in about 1:40, but here I was, still up the bloody fell. The last quarter of the race had disintegrated in to another sorry mess.
True to his word though, Clayton Harrier Chris Funnell had a drink waiting for me at the finish after we shared a few words running off the top of Fairfield. That put a smile on my face at least.
I walked back down the track with Nuttall after finishing and he was still looking at the positives, although when it came to his own descending, he too was a bit perplexed at his demise. Both of us also pointed to the odd day every fortnight when randomly we go out and run and everything seems fine again, before taking another week or two to recover and be able to run like that again. What's going on? Matt's got five years on me, battered himself since his early twenties doing triathlons, Ironman and still been a prominent and consistent runner throughout. He's got more of a right to be worn out and more of a right to be pissed off than me. But he's made of sterner matter than I, both in physicality and the stuff between the ears.
Another tough cookie is Wharfedale's Mark McGoldrick. Around the last time I did this race we were in each other's pockets at some races. In the last four or five years though, our running fortunes could not have gone in more different directions. Goldy was well up there in seventh at this one and has been sort of sub-elite for a few seasons now. A cracking fell runner indeed. I guess you've either got it or you've not and he has tapped in to another level and beyond. He laughed when I reminded him I used to beat him from time to time, but the joke was most definitely on me.
So is this my last race for a while? Can I suffer more punishment? My works postie and fell runner Alan Life thinks I should see out the end of June before considering downing tools. I feel like a crock though and just to add to my list of ailments, a creased back has erupted this week after a long period of relative calm.
Basic competency to run at all without pain pending, I've decided to see out my midweek race favourites of Blencathra and Tebay next month before in all likeliness calling time on the racing game and the plundering attempts to be fit for it.
I remain optimistic that I might be able to have a go again at some point in the future, but the curtain appears to be falling on this particular volume of running ramblings of nobody in particular it would seem.

Leaving the scene from Rydal down the dusty track back to the main road, a heart warming sight for an admirer of the fellrunning old school; I spot a chap of relative seniority in an Up & Down t-shirt. A priceless garment of vintage fell running value. The Up & Down magazine dates back to the very early 1990's - a brilliant editorial labour of love by one of my favourite fell folk, Dave Woodhead. There can't be many of those t-shirts about anymore. It goes without saying the model in question was also wearing original Ronhill tracksters and a pair of Walsh PB's. Talk about keeping it real? The ultimate antidote to tech-t's, graphene grip and compression tights enhanced with muscle containment membrane. What a dude.

Saturday 18th May 2019
FAIRFIELD HORSESHOE   Rydal, Cumbria   9m/3000ft
1st Man - Carl Bell (Keswick AC) 1.20:17
1st Lady - Kelly Roberts (Helm Hill) 1.31:54
My Stats - 1.48:48    */*