SportsShoes Blog

OK folks the challenge is now fully live and here’s your chance to get involved.

To remind you, Steve Fry and myself are going to attempt to run the 3 Peaks of the Yorkshire Dales 3 times within 24 hours.

The date of our challenge is the 24th April 2010 and the fun will start at 2am….

In return for torturing ourselves over 72 miles of Yorkshire Dales terrain we are hoping to raise a few quid for chairty and we’ve selected the Jane Tomlinson Appeal as both Steve and I always admired Jane’s exploits and like the fact that the charity distributes funds around a number of great causes.

If you could find your way to sponsoring us we’d be HUGELY grateful - you can find our site here : http://www.justgiving.com/3×3peaks

Many thanks in advance.

Andy & Steve

I’d entered the Hobble as a solo runner but on Thursday my Bingley Harriers teammate Andy Jebb called me up and asked if I’d like to run it as pair with him.

After running together in last year’s OMM we know that we’re reasonably well matched although Andy’s been piling in the miles recently so I suspected I was in for a rough ride.

This year the race headquarters moved to the junior school which proved a great base for the race although the loo queue before the start suggested a few more porta-potties might be in order for next year….

The race starts on the historic Haworth main street and it’s always fun to see the looks on the early morning shoppers and tourists faces as 200+ runners go haring up the cobbles.

We soon strung out across Haworth moor and Andy and I tucked into the second group of around 6 runners just 50 yards or so behind the lead pack. The weather was fine but as we made our way up to Top Withins the cloud rolled in and it looked like it was  to be a mirky day.

Once we were over the top and on to Widdop the cloud lifted but the wind was cold and straight in our faces. We held our position of around 7th as we passed the windmills and headed off towards Todmorden on the Calderdale way.

A dead sheep hanging upside down from two ropes from the front of a tractor greeted us as we trotted up one field - the things you see when you’re fell running…

My leg, which I’ve been struggling with recently,  felt pretty good as we weaved our way down the hill to cross the road near Tod and I was glad as it’s at this point, around 18 miles in, that the race really starts.

We worked our way up the steep climb to the Mankinholes checkpoint where I picked up a nice jam donought to help me up to Stoodly Pike.

From Stoodly you can look back towards Haworth and see the waves of climbs spread out ahead of you that are pretty relentless on the homeward 13 miles. At this point the race opened up and the top boys kicked splitting the field and pulling out a decent lead over us - we weren’t phased and knew that rather than chase a lost dream we needed to keep mashing on at our pace if we were to reach the finish in reasonable shape.

After the thigh burning decent into Hebden Bridge it’s straight back up the other side of the valley to Heptonstall where we ran into an old friend of ours John Cordingly on his post round - no wonder he’s so fit if he’s Heptonstall’s postie!!

It’s then down to Horse bridge for a quick slurp of water before tackling the long drag of a climb up through Hardcastle Crags. Here I started to fade a little and Andy was strong but I still manged to run every step and we dropped a Horwich runner who we earlier thought was a contender for the overall win.

Into the final checkpoint at the bottom of Stairs lane and we were told we we had 5 solos and 1 team ahead of us - this was a position we’d be happy to hold.

The climb up Stairs is a toughy after 30 miles of running but again despite feeling a bit jaded I managed to tap it out without resorting to a walk. Andy was setting a good pace for me running just about 10 yards ahead to keep me going.

As we dropped off the back of Stairs lane towards Oxenhope we knew we had just one last climb to go up to Penistone Hill and even though it’s only around 1/2 mile long it’s brutal.

From Penistone Hill it’s a ‘quick’ trot across the moor back to Haworth and when Andy said there were two runners just behind I managed to dig deep and find another gear.

We finished in 4 hours and 33mins and second team - although this was 6 mins down on my time of last year I was very pleased with my run and our team performance. Andy could have gone a bit faster if he’d not had me to drag round but I’m not sure he’d have made the top 3 solos so the way I see it without me he wouldn’t have got a bottle of wine!!

Bingley had a good performance on the day with our pals Dave and Ruth taking the mixed pair title.

The old pins don’t feel too bad now but I think I might take tomorrow as a rest day.

This coming weekend it’s the Haworth Hobble an annual favourite of mine.

The Hobble, as it’s affectionately known, is a 33 mile race starting in Haworth and working its way across the moors to Mankinholes then up to Stoodly Pike monument before turning and going up hill and down dale back to Haworth via Heptonstall and Stairs Lane.

It’s a really tough race to ‘get right’ and pacing is key to a decent result. The really cheeky thing about the race is that it doesn’t get going until you’ve done 20 miles as most of the climbing is in the last 13 miles.

Last year I had a good run and came home 3rd in 4 hours 27 mins - a time I think I’ll struggle to match this year. Having said that, the weather’s not looking too bad for the week ahead and my long run yesterday went OK with only a slight niggle from my pesky hamstring.

This week leading up to the race I’ll be taking things quite steady with a gentle morning ‘dog jog’, a hill session Tuesday night then very little else other than eating loads before Saturday.

Plans for our 3 x three peaks challenge are starting to take shape and the craziness of the event appears to have captured folks imagination - hopefully we can raise a few quid for cancer charities through our efforts. We’ll be making up a just giving site soon so get saving up and watch this space.