Half Tour of Pendle - 7/3/09
March 7th, 2009 by Andy Nicoll9 Miles - 2250ft of climb - English Championship Race
There was a big turnout for this year’s Half Tour of Pendle (HTOP) including a great contingent from the mighty Bingley Harriers. It was an English Championship counter and with over 400 runners the start was a bit of a scrum. The organiser was trying to get folk back to the official start line but it proved to be like herding cats so he gave up and just shouted ‘go’. A mad dash through Barley village ensued but soon we were all cruising down the bridleway alongside the reservoir towards Pendle Hill.
A couple of cheeky tarmac climbs on the road quickly lined out the field and by the time we turned off the road and on to the hill all jostling had stopped and racing had commenced.
Pendle Hill has the honour of being one of the biggest hills in the world (as it misses out on being a mountain by about 15 feet) and this year I managed to run it all from start to summit in 21 mins. After turning at the summit there’s a long descent down to the Nick of Pendle which starts as boggy moor then into a nice stretch of technical singletrack before breaking out on to fast open moorland. I caught and passed my mate Mitch as we left the singletrack and wondered how long I could keep ahead as he’s a demon climber. After turning at ‘the Nick’ it was a fast blast down to a reservoir before a tough steep climb over heather covered tracks took us back towards Pendle Hill.
From the top of the moor it’s a killer descent back down to a stream where there was quite a crowd watching the descenders and secretly waiting for spills and blood.
Once across the stream there’s a sharp pull back up to some farm fields after which it’s a sprint back to the finish field over undulating but good ground.
I could see my mate Jason Stevens of Calder ahead - this week he’d got me beat from the start - but I felt good about my race and was pleased to have held Mitch off and beaten my other pals James Senior and Steve ‘Carnage’ - both of who have beaten me soundly in the past.
I crossed the line in 1 hour 12 mins and some secs and think I was 59th overall.
The race was won by my Bingley team mate and fell running legend Ian Holmes in 1hour and 3 (I think). This was a stunning performance by the 43(?) year old master of the fells as he led home a very high quality field of young(er) pretenders including Rob Jebb, Andy Peace, Rob Hope and plenty more.
