Getting into the 21st century

So I decided to set up a blog, not because I think I have anything of particular interest to say, but more as an archive for myself of my experiences in racing and training and other notable events in my life.  The main driver for this is my upcoming race across the Alps in September this year - I wanted a way to keep my friends and family back home informed of my progress (and pain)  without being limited to the 25 characters that Twitter and Facebook generously allow. 

For now this blog will probably be fairly sparse in terms of visuals and links and all the fancy stuff other boggers seem to use, I am slowly getting to grips with it all and actually am quite chuffed that I have even been able to set it up this far. 

So keep an eye on here if you're at all interested......!

Haworth Hobble 10/03/2012

A joint report from Andy and I.

Haworth Hobble

Just for a change Lotte and I thought we would put together a joint race report for the Haworth Hobble. Its broken down into chapters which should offer our dual perspective and hopefully make for a nice change.

Pre-race and start

Andy: Unusually, Lotte arose before I did. We had kindly been put up at Ali and Emma’s in Hebden bridge, but since Emma had taken Ali off for some more (undoubtedly hilly) training for her attempt at the Fred Whitton, they had left us the keys. After a long week at uni, and a long drive, I tried to convince Lotte of the merits of the ‘John Griffin approach’.  It’s a complex method, but fundamentally involves consuming a bottle of red wine the night before a race.

Anyway, we got up around 5.45am, fed the cats, and the fish (house sitting comes with great responsibility) and set about breakfast.  Coffee with coconut oil, a berry smoothie and stewed apple with reflex natural whey protein powder stirred in (yum?)

As we drove over to the race start in Haworth (about 8 miles) the weather did not look promising. At the top of the hills, there was a thick cloud, it was raining, and there was driving wind; saw a couple of wind turbines that looked as though they were about to take off. With a relatively low volume of running, I had that nagging feeling in the back of my head, “do I REALLY need to do this?”

Having registered and eaten some almond slice, we walked over to the start, down a steep hill, which as Lotte correctly predicted, we were about to run straight back up….

Lotte: I spent the night acting as a bean bag for the cats whilst Andy slept soundly beside me.  Despite my attempts to deposit the cats onto his side of the bed they seemed to prefer my company.  So I gave in and tried to let the purring (from the cats, not Andy) lull me back to sleep.  It didn’t work.  After a cuppa and some porridge we drove over to the race in miserable weather.  Visibility was pretty bad and I was reluctant to get out of the car on arrival.  However, just as we were walking to registration, the rain stopped and patches of blue appeared.  Our spirits were raised.  Little did we know how short lived that would be……... 

First 15 miles

Andy: Well what can I say? I didn’t see much. The weather hadn’t much improved since our drive over, and for considerable sections of this part of the run, it was worse. The only thing you could really hold on to was the fact that the run was a loop, and therefore eventually, that would mean we wouldn’t be running into a headwind. Of course, the wind could change direction with us and by the way the day had gone so far, that would not have surprised me.  I was settling in for a long day. There was however a long downhill very runnable section (even with the wind behind us, almost) which I very much enjoyed, so I can’t say it was all bad. We were however mostly in cloud, which meant that I didn’t see much more than just a grass verge for a good couple of hours, which got quite boring. I guess its just lucky the weather wasn’t like this way back when, or no-one would ever have found Wuthering Heights. We had soon realised we should stay close to ‘the locals’, with no map of our own, we would not have stood a chance on the navigation front.

Lotte:  Yorkshire people are a hardy bunch.  Not a piece of Kenesio tape nor compression sock in sight.  Just tough folk with nothing more than a pair of Mo Farah shorts and a vest sprinting off up the first hill as if the headwind didn’t exist.  We southerners were definitely in a different league to this lot.  I felt incredibly slow, even though our pace was decent and my heart rate was up.  I spent a lot of this first section tucked in behind Andy trying to get some shelter from the relentless wind.  As Andy enjoyed the long downhill section he asked if I was alright as I was rather quiet.  I told him I was bored.  Bored of seeing nothing but his back, there were no views to see (even though a couple of locals assured us the views were amazing) thanks to the cloud we were running through.  Bored and fed up at 9 miles in.  This was going to be a looooong day.  The couple of biscuits from mile 7 check point were wearing off and I had the hump that the only food there was some broken biscuits.  Not what I would call substantial for a 32 mile run into the wind with 4,400ft of elevation.  My 3 gels and 3 Mrs Crimble macaroons would be gone before half way at this rate.  However, as we passed our 3 or 4^th or possibly even 5^th reservoir (hard to tell after a while) and came upon checkpoint 2 @ mile 15 my spirits soared as my eyes beheld hot cross buns, jam doughnuts, hotdogs, squash, biscuits and sweets.  YEY!!!  FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!  Even though Andy made me run and eat I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a doughnut more. 

Stoodley Pike revisited

Andy: Having sustained myself on 3 gels and handful of biscuits for the first 13 miles, at the 2^nd aid station, I refilled my water and grabbed roughly the equivalent of a whole packet of biscuits, more out of boredom and for something to do (eat loads of biscuits) than anything else.  With no views, the running had been a little dull. Unusually, however, there was another checkpoint just 2 miles down the route. More because I couldn’t resist myself, I then had a hot dog and a hot cross bun – soon, my spirits were beginning to lift, and with it, the cloud cover. 

We trudged on, following ‘the locals’ through Todmorden, and lots of turns, lucky not to get lost. Soon enough however, the climbing began to start proper. Just before the ascent up to Stoodley Pike there was yet another aid station at around 20 miles. I was almost beside myself with joy having had a jam doughnut, some biscuits, and another hot cross bun when I realised there was a man giving out drams of whisky. A Jura 10 years single malt – nothing special, but hey, it was free. I’ve never tried alcohol in a race before and I think I’d try it again. It certainly gave me that inner warmth for the climb up to the pike. We yet again followed a ‘local’ for the fastest route.  As it turned out this guy had come third in this race 10 years previously in 4.26 – not too shabby. Even if he was a little slower now, he wasn’t going to be wasting his time with anything but the fastest route. We made some good time up to the pike and then back down into Hebden Bridge. When Lotte and I had visited Ali and Emma before IMUK last year, we had actually run out and back to Stoodley Pike from their house, so this was now a familiar route!

Lotte:  On a sugar high we strode off enjoying the fact that we were almost half way and the fog had gone.  It was still windy in places, and very muddy.  Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about mud and like a proper girl, I picked my way as delicately as possible around the worst of it but still ended up submerged up to my ankles in black mud (and I think a not insubstantial amount of cow poo).  A local man had told us that the first 20 miles were runnable, then it got hard.  Erm…..what?  THEN it got hard?!!  See? Yorkshire folk.  Hardcore.  I tried to convince myself that he had got it wrong, despite this being his 6^th race but had to face reality as we came upon Stoodley pike.  Andy had been chatting to a guy that looked like a pirate and I was a few paces behind when I saw Long John Silver, Andy and a handful of others leave the path the other runners had taken and go directly vertically up towards the top.  I followed suit and gasped my way up along side a woman who was actually on her hands and feet crawling her way up.  Steep was not the word.  But it was quicker and became quicker still when Andy got behind me and told me to “hurry up” because he was getting cold.  Yeah, next time Andy, a push up the hill would have been more conducive……..

We reached the top and the cloud again.  The wind was howling up there and we saw some people heading straight on in the distance.  We couldn’t see anyone else and as we’d been up here before and taken the left hand way down into Hebden Bridge we stopped to wait for someone who did know.  Luckily LJS knew and we were soon running down a lovely gentle descent towards Hebden Bridge and actually passed Emma and Ali’s house where we were staying.  Had I had the house key on me at that point………….

Hebden bridge and beyond

Andy:  As we dropped down into Hebden Bridge (past the end of Ali and Emmas road!) it was hard to convince Lotte to carry on, along what turned out to be a long, hard, steady and uneven slog for more or less 6 more miles.

The final two miles were however downhill, but by now, it was just about getting it done. Even though the weather had improved, my conditioning was making itself apparent.  My right hip flexor was quite sore and I too was as glad as Lotte to finish in just over 6 hours.

We didn’t hang around for food, and headed straight back for a shower and a stretch before getting a pork belly in the oven for a good 3.5hours. Down the pub for a pint, then back for dinner. All in all, a good day!

Lotte:  After the Everest-esque expedition up to Stoodley Pike we of course had to drop down into the town of Hebden Bridge.  By now the downhills were harder than the ups and I actually had to lean on Andy to make running the long descent to the town bearable.  I even fell over on one of the steeper sections. L The third doughnut high had long gone and I was tired.  The sun was now out and it was hot.  Of course because we had dropped back to sea level, we had to climb back up into the clouds.  This was a long long hill which was only made better by a local man in his doorway offering sweets and juice.  Normally my upbringing would have kept me away from a stranger trying to lure me into his house with sweets but by this point I didn’t care.  The going was tough, the ground uneven.  Andys game for the day was run for 10 mins then we can reward ourselves with a walk and some food.  This seemed to work as before we knew it a couple more miles had ticked by and we were at marathon distance in a time of 5:03.  Only 10k to go.  Only another hour of running…………………. Our walking time was over on an uphill section that everyone else was walking so as we were running again now we passed a fair few people here.  2 mixed teams which pleased Andy (I was way beyond caring where we finished, just as long as we did soon) and a handful of people we’d be too-ing and fro-ing with.  But as soon as we hit the descent, they more or less all came by us again.  This is by far my weakness and I need to learn how to descend properly, even when tired.  At the bottom of this downhill section was, yup, another up.  We walked this and worked out we had about 2 miles to go.  We walked mainly because everyone else was.  In fact, we should have run it as we were so close to the end.  But as soon as we got off that section of road and onto the dirt track we started to wind it up.  I told Andy to pick it up a gear and we started taking some places back.  Unsurprisingly, I loved this section, down hill and a mile from the end.  A wiggly path past a church and we popped out a few hundred meters from the school.  A lovely sunny afternoon and a good cheer from the supporters and we were finished. 

This was a really good value for money race.  £10 each and cake at the start, food galore on 3 of the checkpoints and a hot meal and more cake at the finish. A tough but rewarding course (well it would have been if we’d have been able to see the views!) and a better understanding of why they call it the Haworth Hobble.