Heptonstall Fell Race

What a lovely day for spending 15 miles bog hopping!

Four of us turned out for the 2nd running of this race. We were greeted by near cloudless skies, & pleasant temperatures - spring may have sprung!

It's a really well organised event, with the ladies of the village serving up free brews & cakes before & after the race.

The race starts & finishes outside the White Lion pub in Heptonstall, following a short reading & blessing off the local vicar. Then it's off up the cobbles before turning down into the woods of Colden Clough. This belies the task that awaits, as it's quite a pleasant descent through the trees. However,, what goes down etc.. & this race seems to defy the laws of physics & geography - it may be in my head, but other than that bit, everything else seems to be uphill & there's a lot of it!!

The run basically takes in Standing Stone Hill, Greave Height, Walshaw Dean res & Wadsworth moor. Then it's Walshaw, Hardcastle Crags, Shackleton Knoll & Middle Dean, before the final quite brutal sting in the tail of the "blue pig" climb out of Hebden Wood & back to the finish.

A luckily minor disaster awaited Matt Haworth as he descended of Greave Height. He put his foot in one of the many bogs when unfortunately, as is usually the case, it was far deeper than expected and rock waited to gash open his shin. He soldiered on for a while but had to retire and following prelim first aid from Calder Mountain Rescue, spent a few pleasant hours in A&E being stitched up - physically not financially!
Luckily he's fine & should be running again in a week or so!

I finished about 4 minutes slower than last year, although it would appear the race itself was far slower, maybe due to conditions underfoot, with the winner taking 15 minutes longer than last years time. On that basis, I'll take it as an improvement - see you can make statistics do what you want!

Ben was a couple of minutes behind me, having decided to run without a watch to ensure he just got the miles in his legs.

Fionnuala wondered why on earth she'd entered such a tough race as this, maybe it's because non of us told her it was tough - sorry Fionnuala! But great running nontheless.

All in all a good day out, it's really one for the diary as long as you don't mind spending half the race up to your waist in stinking bog!