Hi all,
What a weekend – almost like spring – but beware, we are still officially in winter. Those of you have strayed beyond the bypass will have realised that there is still lots of snow on the hills. Though there is a bit of melting, its not making much inroads into the white stuff.
Some complaints that there was not time to run the ‘gently undulating’ Lasswade 10, and get to Scotlandwell to run the Bishop Hill Race. Maybe you didn’t run fast enough – more speedwork needed I think coach, uphill and carrying heavy weights as well. Coach is by now holding his head in his hand and sobbing, crying No! No!.
Never mind, you will be in peak condition for Chapelgill in 2 weeks time.
The last race in the excellent Borders X Country series concluded at Peebles last week – remarkably a snow free Peebles. This ensured the muddy bits were suitably muddy enough for proper x country running. None of this posh stuff that avoids mud and hills – the little darlings do get rather upset in these conditions. We constantly hear about the debate for a ‘winter break’ for the Fitba, or even summer Fitba. So why not for posh cross country or even summer cross country. It will only be a small step then to have indoor cross country, so its nice and warm and dry for them. Now readers of this blurb will be able to turn out in the wind, rain, mud, bogs and hills and have a great time.
Russell somehow missed out on his picture in the Peebleshire News this week. His form seems to be improving, so he was probably past the photographer before he got his lens cap off. Only one other finisher from this group, but one who has maintained a consistent standard through the winter. Well done Graeme. If I missed anyone else in the results – sorry.
BOG TROTTING AND THE HIGH PEAK MARATHON
For those of you who left school a long time ago, the Pennines are a ridge of hills that stretch from Derbyshire in the south to the Scottish Borders in the north. The very southern end, the White Peak consists mainly of limestone, but this soon changes as you head north and the Dark Peak is encountered, being mostly of millstone grit. With a few exceptions in the Yorkshire Dales this rock structure is found throughout the rest on the range.
One of the features of Millstone Grit is that it is impermiable. So any land that lies on top of it will tend to be boggy. Remember from school how you were told about moist prevailing winds from the South West, and when they hit rising ground they cool and the water vapour turns to rain. The South Westerlies have had the whole Atlantic to cross, and the Pennines are the first lumpy of ground they reach. So it rains alot in the Pennines, and you have the ideal situation for boggy, marshy ground.
This added to the nature of the terain, means that in bad visibility, which happens regularly, one boggy & tussocky bit of ground looks very much like another. On a nice day they look wonderful and are full of excellent running, but on a bad day, you really need to have to have your wits about you. As a bit of a help there is always the knowledge that if you due north or south for long enough you will hit a road or railway (uness it is in a tunnel), and if you go east or west for far enough you will eventually go downhill and escape the boggy hell. However, you could end up in Lancashire, so maybe best stay in the boggy hell.
The history of bogtrotting can be traced back to the early 1900s. The large populations that lived in the industrial towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire looked to get some relief from the almost ‘satanic’ environments they lived in. Railways provided easy means of transport into the pennine hills where many would head to walk on the moors. There were problems in many areas with access to the moors, the landowners wanting to prevent access, but that is a story for another time.
The term ‘bogtrotting’ was devised to describe the art of fast movement over the peaty and often pasty bogs of the Peak District plateau, In wet weather it was essential to avoid sinking into the morasses, (and in the early days) in dry weather it was equally essential to escape from the gamekeepers! The pace, while not being particularly fast can best be described as relentless. Are, perhaps, the Edinburgh based Bogtrotters misnamed?
A great many routes were tackled by the early pioneers, the only common feature was the nature of the terrain and the distance, often 40 miles or more. Pubs were often starting and finishing points, the Cat & Fiddle, The Snake Inn and the now demolished Isle of Skye Inn at Wessenden Head feature in many early races or challenges.
While there were not always races over the routes, they were looked more like time trials, and attempts to break the records were taken very seriously. A dry summer could make make a lot of difference, reducing the bogginess of the moors and allowing a speedy crossing.
Perhaps the best known route of all was the Marsden to Edale, and in the second half of the 20th century multiple crossings (there and back and maybe back again) were completed. At times there was also a race held over the route, taking the longer and rougher route over Black Hill, Black Moss and White Moss – a route not for the faint hearted! However, when one competitor died in bad weather on Bleaklow during a race in the 1960s it was decided not to continue with the event.
Some of you may remember an advert for double glazing involving the Tan Hill Inn. If you ever cross the A66 from Penrith to Scotch Corner, on a nice day and you know where to look to the south of the road you can just about make out the Tan Hill Inn. (Somewhere around the Bowes Moor hotel is a good spot). It was from here that a race/challenge was started over the 120 or so miles to the Cat & Fiddle Inn. I’m am not sure what the current record is but I believe that it under 24 hrs.
The Ultimate bogtrot has to be the Pennine Way, 270 miles from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, or the other way round, though most go from south to north. This covers much of the same ground as the Tan Hill to Cat & Fiddle, only taking a different line to reach Edale at the end. Sveral people have covered the route in under 3 days. Probably my first ‘major’ ultra (as opposed to one off 30 or 40 mile runs) was to run the Pennine Way in 5 days, carrying most of the kit I needed. The plan was to run from north to south one Easter with my old friend Jim Rogers. The only slight problem was that he decided we should start from Glasgow, so we had a couple of days road bashing just to get to Kirk Yetholm, before we could start the PW proper. Jim was a far better runner than me (having run a 2.29 marathon as a nineten year old), but once off road I could more than match him. We were lucky that the weather remained fine, with a cold northerly wind at our backs
throughout the run. Arriving at Edale we thought we could get a train home next day – but this was in the days of British Railways, and they did not run trains on Good Friday. So to avoid the risk of cabin fever, we went out and ran the Derwent Watershed (High Peak Marathon) route the next day as a warm down.
As a matter of interest Jim is now a member of the British 24hr team, with a PB of around 148 miles (Adrian will put me right on this) and I am the current keeper of the ‘Latern Rouge’ on the Thursday Meadows sessions. I have started to catch some folks up in recent weeks, but they immediatly go home when that happens.
The High Peak Marathon race was started in the early seventies by a group from Sheffield University. Initially they wanted a challenge to test stamina and navigation skills, and the Derwent Watershed Route (which became known as the HPM) seemed ideal. About 40 miles, as long as you did not get lost and quite a lot of climbing. However, perhaps it was not challenging enough. Maybe it would be better in winter. OK, but you still get good days in the winter. So lets hold it at night in winter. Great! What an excellent idea coming from a fine centre of learning in Yorkshire. Its that sort of joined up thinking that made Yorkshire the great place it is.
It did attract some adverse publicity, as the death of the runner in the Marsden – Edale race was still fresh in the memory. So it was decided that it should be a team race, carrying adequate safety kit, tent, sleeping bag etc, should all run together . The teams would start at minute intervals from 23.00 hours on the Friday night. Usually the less experienced teams would go off first, while the old hands would be last off.
The route headed initially south from Edale through the boggiest and muddiest fields (so your feet were soaked right away) to reach a ridge, that was followed east via Hollins Cross and Loose Hill, before descending to Hope ( well named if ever a place was, as you had only just started). A steep climb over Whin Hill before an equally treacherous descent to Bamford. A few miles on the road to follow Stanage Edge (with lots of part made miilstones lying about) to eventually cross the A57 Sheffield - Manchester road. This is the last civilisation you will see for many hours! Head North, eventually swinging west aound the head of the valley holding Ladybower reservoir – this was used during training in the Second World War for pilots prior to the dambusters raid, and also in the film of the raid made in the 1950s. This is where the bog trotting skills come in, plus navigation skills. Its dark, the ground is pretty featureless, and the
potential for geting lost is high, as many teams have found over the years. Climbing gradually to the top of the Pennines and Bleaklow Moor, there are some wonderful wind eroded gritstone monoliths sticking out of the peat, together with several wrecks of planes that crashed in the 40s and 50s, not able to climb high enough to avoid the hills. (That is one feature of the whole length of the Pennines – lot of remains of crashed planes, mainly from WW2, if you know where to look). Eventaully if you are lucky, you meet the Pennine Way, and head south to cross the A57 at the summit of Snake Pass. This is about 2/3 of the way round, and it may just be getting light if you are having a good run. From here the bogs used to get worse, but I think the Pennine Way has been partly paved now. Over the glutinous Featherbed Moss, Mill Hill, and onto the edge of Kinder Scout. If you think you can navigate go for a run on Kinder Scout. You can’t
get too far lost as you wil eventually fall off the edge, but trying to navigate on a very flat plateau of 20 deep groughs (peaks and hollows in the peat) will challenge the very best. Finally via Kinder Low, Lord Seat, and the amazing shivering mountain Mam Tor, and back through the gloupy fields you started in back to Edale. Then a wait until you worked out how long the other teams may have taken. But in reality you are past caring by then.
I was lucky to be part of a very good team for a few years, maybe because I organised it, and spent many days recceing the route so I could get round without having to use a map or compass, even in bad weather and at night. Fellow team members were usually Jim Rogers (see above), Gerry Orchard (some of you may know him from supporting me on my BGR in 2008), and either Ian Jones or Dave Rosen, and international orienteer who, once out of sight of the start, stripped down to shorts and orienteering top, whatever the weather.
During my early recces I came across a group of old lags (from Dark Peak running club) sheltering from a blizzard. They invited me to share a their hot chocolate, and a flask was produced. Why was I there – well it was pretty obvious as no-one else in their right mnd would have ventured onto Bleaklow on such a foul winter day. So these old heads were sussing out the opposition. I met with them a few more times after that, and they had the amazing knack of getting me to carry all their gear. But I did learn a lot from them – they were willing to help me when they found out my team would not be challenging them for the vets trophy!
The vets trophy was based on ‘average age’, so they used to get a young speedster to do alot of running to out of the way checkpoints, as in the early stages there were often so many people at the checkpoints, the marshalls had no real idea which teams were which, and were quite happy to clip any tally they were given without too many questions. The old lags made as straight a line as possibe to prearranged meeting points. Once the teams thinned out, the youngster seemed to end up with all the gear to carry. He usualy ended with with a trophy, but didn’t often turn out the next year.
Ian Jones was something of a boffin, and had studied science at Cambridge University. One of the problems was the torches we had then. There were two choices – normal bulbs or halogen. Normal were about as bright as striking a match – in other words pretty hopeless, but they kept going for quite a time. Halogen gave a better light, but the got through Duracell batteries at a serously rapid rate. So Ian thought he had the answer. He appeared with something the size of a car headlight ( I saw some orienteerers by Castle Law last year with similar size lights), and this was connected to a battery that would have started a car. For the first hour or so this went very well. It lit up the hills like a lighthouse, and blinded anyone foolish enough to look into the beam – giving us a great advantage over some of our competitors. We had not got too far before his rucsac appeared to be smoking and on opening it there was a geat flash, a shower of
sparks and the lighthouse gave up. That was the end of that, and Ian had to manage the next 6 or so hours in the dark!
On the subject of torches, in the low cloud that prevailed most years, torches were totally useless, as the light just reflected off the water droplets (or snow flakes) and you couldn’t see anything. Also if you were trying to be competitive, then having a torch on gave your rivals something to follow and also told them where you were. Out of sight and out of mind was agood tactic in this race. Given the navigational problems on the route, the last thing you wanted to do was show anyone the way. One year, from starting last we had reached the front soon after crossing the A57, for the first time, and two teams decided to try and follow us. As the mist increased, we managed to shake them off in the dark. Both teams eventually reached Glossop sometime on the Saturday afternoon – about 16 hours after they had started. We were tucked up in our sleeping bags at the finish. Our arch rivals were usually a team organised by a very good runner, Jeff
Coulson, I think he ran for England on the roads, and maybe even on the fells as well. One year, his team were determined to beat us, and followed us across the difficult terrain for mile after mile, about 20 yds behind. We sped up, slowed down, went off course, even stopped once, and they did the same. When we stopped they Jeff told us they were following us and were not going to pass us, so there was not a lot we could do. One of us would win, and the other would be second. They had started about 10 mins in front of us so, we always had that in hand. However, on reaching the Pennine Way on Bleaklow, they thought the worst was over, and they made a break for it – but right in front of us, took a wrong path. Once they had disappeared into the gloom, we all loked at each other and said somethin like ‘oh dear, thats torn it – ho! ho!. We knew that they were heading into peat bog hell – so we legged as fast as we could to the Snake
Pass Check Point and much to the marshalls surprise just kept on going – they had tea and food ready for us. Jeff and his gang got there about 15 mins later, and couldn’t believe that we had been and gone. They evenually caught us again, but couldn’t get away from us by enough to win. I think we were about 5 mins behind at the end, so a narrow win over about 10 hours of running.
A couple of times heading over towards Kinder someone got stuck in a bog and 2 or 3 of us were needed to pull them out. I was stuck once, and my merry men claimed they were only pulling me out so they could stick me back in head first as a thank you for dragging them out on such a foul night, and they could pinch my newish Walshes!
Overall, I was in 3 winning teams out of 10 or 11 finishes, with a few more top 3 spots – not too bad a record. Before you go and try it for yourself, which I know you are all keen to do, I think it is the toughest event that I ever did. I recall one runner from York was suffering from mild frostbite in his feet by the end. He was lucky to keep all his toes. 10, or often many more hours immersed in icy water or slushy snow is probably not the best thing for your toes.
In a dry summer, it makes a fantastic route, best in August or September when the peat is dry – and probably best in daylight.
And the Saturday after was always the Haworth Hobble, a brisk 33 miles over another bit of boggy Pennines a few miles further north – with many of the same faces there…
Oh – the good old days……..
So I’m down to the Hobble next week to see how fat slow and unfit I really am.
RACES TO LOOK OUT FOR:
ROAD RACES
11 April – Perth – Heaven & Hell 1/2 marathon. Following the route of the last couple of years – with ‘extra hell’. A fine race, well worth doing. Check Out Perth Road Runners website for more details.
HILL RACES
13th March – Haworth Hobble - 33m + 4400 ft – the first of the Vasque Ultra series – an excellent run round the Pennines, a chance to recreate your own Kathy or Heathcliffe moment as you speed past the Brontes old farm at Wuthering Heights. Also visit Stoodley Pike. This race kindly saves the hillier bits till the second half. Usually a good turnout from Scotland - Boggies, a few Carnethy and one or two others. Details on kcac.co.uk
20 March – Chapelgill, near Broughton. 2m + 1500ft. A nice little short race to start the SHR championship, straight up and back down again.
21 March – Criffel, from New Abbey, Dumfries – 7m + 1800 ft. A fine up and down race on a splendid hill. Not too many folks go to the summit, so nows your chance. A good run if Chapelgill was not enough for you the day before.
17 April – Screel, from Palnackie, Castle Douglas – 4m + 1300 ft. Partly in forestry and part open hill, quite technical in parts with rocks and roots, but a good race nonetheless. If you are going, allow plenty of time as its a much further/longer journey than it looks on the map.
17 April – Coledale Horseshoe from Braithwaite, Nr Keswick. 9m + 3000ft. Details on www.fellrunner.org.uk Google the race, and you can find a Chris Upson map of the route.
24 April – Anniversary Waltz – 11,5m + 3600ft a good run round the head of the Newlands Valley, approx 8 miles from Keswick. A popular race, so book early to avoid disappointment. Entry on line only – www.anniversarywaltz.co.uk
24 April – Yorkshire 3 Peaks Race – 24m + 4500ft. Details on www.threepeaksrace.org.uk
See you on a hill sometime soon.
Cheers
Jonathan.
Scottish Gas 5 & 10k results & photos