SportsShoes Blog

Yesterday was the first race in this year’s English Fell Championship - Noonstone on the moors above Todmorden / Hebden Bridge.

This is a race I’ve done a few times in the past and although I enjoy the challenging course, this year I decided to give it miss in favour of clocking up some descent mileage.

Not wanting to miss out on the race atmosphere, I managed to combine a recce for the forthcoming  Haworth Hobble with a nice long trot by scrounging a lift across to the race with my mate Andy Jebb and then running home.

I even managed to take a quick walk up Stoodly Pike monument - something I’ve never done before as the only other times I’ve been passed it was on race day when a scenic tour is the last thing on your mind.

I then trotted the 20+ miles home via Haworth with my iPod to keep me company.

Unfortunately the trot turned into more of a hobble than a recce for the Hobble race as my right quads are still giving me grief. I’m really quite concerned about this niggling injury as I can’t seem to get to the bottom of it. I’ve got myself booked in for some more physio and I’m going to ask her to stretch out my ITB as I think it might be this that’s throwing out my right leg action.

I need to get this all fixed up if I’m to succeed in my forthcoming epics. It’s frustrating as I felt absolutely comfortable yesterday from a cardio-vascular point of view but my right leg was painful after just 20 mins of running (not good if I’m planning on going for 24 hours!!)

I had this problem back in 2007 when I stepped up my mileage for the Ultra Trail Tour Du Mont Blanc and back then the physios at Carnegie in Leeds got me going pain free again after some very physical (& painful) manipulation.

It’s just 2 weeks to go to the Haworth Hobble race - 33 miles from Haworth over to Stoodly Pike and back - that’ll be a good tester for my legs. Then it’s just over a month later when Steve and  I will take on the 3 x 3 peaks challenge and just 7 weeks after that it’s the big one as I take on the West Highland Way race,

Well, just to prove that sportsshoes.com caters for every kind of runner we have just taken delivery of the biggest running trainer we have EVER seen.

SIZE 19 Adidas Supernova Sequence 2 Running Shoes!… yes you heard right… SIZE 19!

What a shoe… what a carbon footprint  ( yes i know technically there is no carbon footprint… but it is a play on words, sorry but getting grief from fellow colleagues )!!!

… so ladies, gentleman and fellow runners… I present Size 19…

You could pretty much fit the size 6 inside!

Compared to everyday objects!

Have we got a bag big enough?

So, don’t be shy… if we haven’t got your size then all you need to do is ask, we can do all sorts here at sportsshoes.com

Yesterday I ran the Wadsworth Trog - a 21 mile race from Old Town near Hebden Bridge.

The race is run by Calder Valley Fell Runners (CVFR) who always do a great job in planning and delivering high quality and challenging events.

Last year the race was run in snowy but clear conditions but this year whilst most of the recent snow had disappeared, the weather threw us all a new challenge in the form of thick fog which didn’t lift from the moor tops all day.

In many races this wouldn’t be too much of a problem but in the Trog, fog is exactly what you don’t want as there are quite a few miles of trackless rough moorland to contend with.

Last year I had some success in this race so this year I set off with the other 100+ runners with a personal target of making the top 10. 

After a steady start there’s a long  drag up to the 1st checkpoint on decent tracks before a drop down through the tussocks to the reservoir. From here it’s a pull straight back up a steep bank onto the moor top where all the tracks disappear and the fun starts.

I was running with 3 Clayton-Le-Moors (CLEM) harriers and the four of us headed out on a rough Northerly bearing aiming for the fence line about 2 miles away. Unfortunately, as often happens on long range bearings we drifted over to the West and had to pick up the return path to find our way to CP3 at Cock Hill.

From here the route is flagged or obvious up to the Top O Stairs but then we were back into the mirk and following a rough track past the Stoop stone and over to the Withins Ruins and CP6.

After CP 6 I dipped into my pack to try a new Maxim gel which comes in a screw top foil packet. This is a great idea as it allows you to take a couple of mouth fulls of gloop then replace the top and put the rest back in your pack for later. As anyone who’s ever used gels will tell you, the standard rip off top packets can leave a very nasty sticky mess in your pack if they;re not completely empty before they’re stashed.

From here right back to Cock Hill myself and a CLEM runner paced each other well taking turns at the front and pulling each other up hill and down dale.

Then came the toughest part of the race - finding our way back to the High Brown Knoll checkpoint and then down to the finish. The fog was still thick and despite running on a bearing we were soon lost once again. Eventually we reached a track that I recognised from my mountain biking days and I led myself and 3 others up to the CP. Here we met up with the other 2 CLEM runners who had pulled away from us an hour or so previously but had then been lost in the mist and all 6 of us set off on the home leg.

Despite another navigational error that added distance to the already long race we eventually reached the last manned CP where we were told it was flagged all the way to the finish. A mad 1 mile dash down off the ridge took us to the lowest point of the course from where it’s a killer 1/2 mile climb back up to the finish.

My legs could not transition from down to up and I lost a place to a CVFR runner but still came home to finish in 8th place overall which I was very pleased with.

Ahead of me my regular sparring partner Jason Stevens from CVFR had a storming race to finish 4th.

My Bingley team mates Ian Hill, Dave Stevenson and Helen Jackson all got round successfully and Helen won the womens race adding to Lee Athersmith’s win in the Half Trog earlier in the day.

At the finish everyone had tales of being lost on the moors and one chap claimed that his Garmin suggested he’d done over 25 miles!!

All in all a good day out and my efforts won me a pair of gloves!

Next race is the Ilkley Moor Fell race at the end of Feb - a short but tough blast around Ilkley Moor - with or without hat