Burbage skyline race

Splendid, splendid, splendid.

6 more miles of misery and they managed to find 1200' of climbing from somewhere. Took me ages to find my feet and stop stumbling around on the technical, bouldery ground. Slightly panicked about getting there on time after getting stuck in a million traffic jams. Felt better after the big climb to Higgar Tor (and the spot where I proposed. Ah.). This was followed almost immediately by the descent, not for nothing known as 'the plummet' . Whee!

A whisker over 50 mins. Sam had a blinder of a run and should make an impression on the results when they appear.

A special place.

Local hill reclassified

Woodhouse Hill has been found to be a 'gateway drug'. The hill, normally avoided by sensible runners, is known to lead onto much more fearful things.

Investigation revealed that the hill, no more than a couple of minutes bottom to top, was a regular hill repeat for Mark Hartell in preparation for The Most Lakeland Peaks in 24 Hours (77 since you ask), when living in Frodsham.

One recent ascentionist was said to be 'sick as a dog' at the top and remarked he 'won't be doing that again in a hurry'. Whilst his companion noted: 'Great, can we do laps?'

Locals were said to be undeterred by the change of classification 'I'll keep going back, I could stop whenever I wanted,' remarked one 'I just don't want to'.

The tyranny of data

I had to swap a wheel across on the commuter. (Yay, I'm a commuter again! Doldrums be gone!) So I'm zipping along thinking 'wow, these tyres are fast' (pumped up properly, more like). And in the 20 mins it takes to get to work, I'm stunned at how often I glance down at the Stupid Mute Computer. Its inscrutable face telling me nothing more than an approximation of the time.

Life's much easier if you're not constantly trying to looking for a metric to validate yourself against. And look Steve's had the same thought, which is nice.

Game birds

Yesterday we saw off Thelma Lee, one of the finest people I know. A woman universally remembered for her warmth, spark, humanity, intelligence and cheerfulness. A role model for me as kid, the sort of person I wanted to be when I grew up (still waiting).

As a small reward and an act of rememberence I went for a run on the rolling grouse moors above Jubilee Tower and along to Ward's Stone. Despite a fierce Easterly wind and some pretty shonky routefinding in good visibility, it was a wheeze. Loads of climbing, loads of effort. Ran within a couple of feet of the birds several times before they bothered their arses to get out of the way. (Those hunters are so brave.)

Around half an hour in I was plodding along, thinking slightly pompous thoughts, when my left leg was swallowed up by the evil peat bog, releasing it's grasp just below testicle level. I can think of one 83 year old woman who would be quite chuckled by that.

Kinder Downfall race

What a classic, classic event. Really good outing. About 10m of running with somewhere just short of 2000' of climbing, most of it in the first 3 miles.

All sorts of conditions, grass, rocks, mud, peat. Seeing a bit of old snow cheered me up the last steep pull to the plateau, to get a bit of falling sleet on top was a real bonus. My first 'proper distance' fell race and I was slightly nervous of getting my ass kicked, thankfully cheeks came away unscathed. Well done organisers, well done anyone who takes it upon themselves to stand around in the cold to look after us.

Great to meet up with Dave again — he had a really good (data enriched race) coming in 9th. Rich, who inspired me to have a go in the first place with a recce back in February, also had a good run. Looks like he's in the process of becoming Hayfield's newest entrepreneur.

Just sneaked into the top 100 I think. Couldn't have gone much harder I don't think. Could have walked a bit less on the steeps I guess, but I'm sure I'd have paid the debt back later on.

Mojo rising

A welcome blast from the past got in touch in the form of Jon WIII, an old biking mate. The boy's only gone and taken up climbing and wanted a tour around the North West Face in Warrington. Just the excuse needed to recommit to the old Monday night training sessions.

Jon's only been climbing a short while (indoors) and already showing some pretty good talent. Great to see his confidence rising over the course of the evening and a great appetite for leading everything, rather than top roping. He'll go far. Inspiring stuff.

Measured second impressions

Used the Alpkit Gamma a few more times now. Still impressed.

Did a night run with a few of the Helsby lot and a couple of fell runners. The torch stood up well in comparison to more expensive competition — I never really felt like I was being outshone by the others. I'm well used to the phenomena on night rides where your (previously adequate) 15W halogen is reduced to a brown smudge of light by all the super-bright HID users. Thankfully that wasn't an issue. It was fine on more technical terrain, but wouldn't really be up to a fast, technical descent. More light would be good, but more light costs £40+. We were out for around 90-mins in the end, so I'm sure any shortcoming would have made themselves felt.

Still on the first set of batteries after around 6-hours total, although I'm a habitual battery-miser, switching off or to low power whenever possible, so I suspect there's plenty more to come.

The button sequences make more sense when you get used to the two separate cycles of Big LED (high, low, flashing) and Small LED (white, green, red, flashing red) with a long press to switch between the two. If you switch it off on Big, it comes back on in the Big cycle, and vice versa) ...you can see why I was confused now. Good stuff.

Parbold Hill

Cracking run out over Parbold Hill 6.75M on Saturday. Sort of a longer version of the Harrock Hill race series from last year. Another 'fell race lite', with somewhere around 800-1000' of climbing.

Good turnout for a local-ish event, although this one comes with a decent history — this was the 38th event. Not too muddy all things considered. Vaulting straw bales towards the end (over the wire fence) added a bit of thrill on tired legs. Enjoyed the singletrack and rougher stuff, the long road climb was nothing short of a nuisance.

134/456, 53'35". Working hard, but there's probably a bit more to come.

Thanks to Mark Sanderson for the great pic.

Kinder surprise

Long run up from Hayfield, past the reservoir, up William Clough and then along the edge of the Kinder plateau. It's been a long time since I've been up there and damn, it was good.

I'd spotted a similar run on Rich's blog last week (close enough to just borrow his tracklog thing), and was just the kick I needed to get out there.

After finally getting up on the plateau (and yes it did involve slightly too much walking) the territory is pretty wearing. Barren, wind-stripped gritstone boulders, the feet never fall in the same place twice and a missed step could easily have consequences. That and running into the late afternoon sun, conscious of time passing, added just the right amount of spice. The Walshes worked admirably. Finished up with a little extra climb up Coldwell Clough and back to Hayfield. Splendid.

Gullible first impressions

One less reason to shop. The Alpkit internet retailer appeared on my radar last year with some good products, keen prices and an enthusiastic user base. I spotted them after vaguely looking for a bouldering mat — there's seemed to be the right price for the features offered (you know when you look at something and you just know it's not "worth" the asking price: the big names want £150 for what seems to be a pretty simple, lo-tech product).

So anyway, the light. The LED revolution has given the outdoorsy light market a proper kick up the arse in the last year or two, performance finally catching up with potential. This little thing is massively featured, seems decently put together and pumps out a good, if not quite blinding, amount of light. For any price, it's promising. For £12.50, the Alpkit Gamma is stunning value.

First requirement was a lamp I could use for running at night, and this did the job admirably. Enough light from the main (single Watt) beam for running along familiar forest tracks without compromising speed. The secondary 5mm LED is great for unlit roads and there's all sorts of quirky 'special forces' features for night vision and stuff, to do with green and red LEDs and reading orange contours on the map. Further tests will prove if it holds up on fast descents, more rocks and roots, and unfamiliar ground.

I have no doubt it will be more than up to the job of getting off the hill with an over-optimistic finish time and general camping duties.

The thing sits pretty comfortably on the head, with a lightweight 3xAAA battery pack on the rear. Beam adjustment is positive and it's not a nuisance to wear even bouncing around offroad. The buttons are fine to use with a lightweight liner glove, the only thing I can fault it for at this early stage is the slightly idiosyncratic button sequences for going through the (many) features. Nice one Alpkit.

Moel Famau

Sam and I had a jog up Moel Famau at the weekend. I've had it in the back of my mind for a long time, Sam mentioned it last week saying: "I'm doing it on Saturday", simple as that (there's a lesson in decisiveness somewhere).

Anyway, things I learned: I had a go wearing a hip pack to get used to carrying map, jacket, food and stuff. Turned out to be a nuisance, must try something smaller. It's always further than it looks on the map. Sometimes it's quicker to walk hard than pretend you're still running. 'Walking hard' can be exhausting. Going up was hard, but as soon as we were on the tops I felt we could have carried on for ages. Watching your friend falling over in his road shoes is cruel, but funny. Running in the hills is bloody magic.

Delamere Forest Summer Trail Running Series

Not one race, but a whole series confirmed:
Thursday June 12th (7.00pm start)
Thursday July 3rd (7.00pm start)
Thursday August 7th (7.00pm start)
Thursday September 4th (7.00pm start)

Ace. More info at http://www.epicevents.org/section.php?xSec=10

Delamere Dash

Met up with Chris and Sam for a new 6 mile event in Delamere forest. It would be rude not to, being just up the road and all. Stunning day again, cold and sunny and an early start at 9:15. Haven't run for a fortnight, what with Christmas colds and stuff, so didn't expect too much. Came in just under 43 minutes, which was good enough for 62/212. Must do something about that grimace. Chris played a blinder and showed some proper speed for 21st and 38 mins. Nice one.

Epic Events were talking about putting on another event in July, which would definitely be worth looking out for.

I dreamed about Ron Hill last night

I'd just been telling Jon in the office about Ron Hill's unbroken streak of not-a-day-off since 1964. So anyway, I'm lining up at the start of the Staffordshire Moorlands Christmas Cracker and the bloke next to me turns to the bloke next to him and says 'still running every day?' 'Aye' comes the reply, 'I'm due to tick over my 150,000th mile next week.' And there he was, with a twinkle in his eye. Alf Tupper personified. Jeezus, feck! 150,000 miles!

Brilliant race again, freezing cold, loads of ice on the ground. Tough work boulder hopping across past the Roaches and over the tops past. I figured the only way I could improve on last year was to suffer more on the climbs and keep going when it got hard, so I did. It was hard.

64'57" for 8 and a bit miles, 44/321. Pleased with that.