The “Return of the Rains” Weekly Report

The first update of August, with a round-up of club activity over the past two weeks and some dates for your diary.

Tour of Tameside

Plenty of Glossopdale Harriers took part in the Tour of Tameside this year, a series of 4 races on consecutive days with a combined total distance of over 30 miles. Wioleta Wydrych shared these thoughts:

If I could summarise the full Tour of Tameside in a few words, I’d say it was a nice speed session that lasted four days. The winners of the tour are all the supporters that made an effort to meet us on the route, cheer us up, volunteer, pass the water and take great pictures! Thank you to all Glossopdale Harriers for your amazing support!

Name	Cat.	Gender Pos.	Cat. Pos.	Chip time	Overall pos.
Michael Greenhalgh	MV40	79	16	04:21:43	92
Wioleta Wydrych	FOPEN	27	9	04:44:20	143
Wendy Mcmahon	FV40	43	6	04:55:06	180
Kirsty Read	FV45	47	4	04:58:48	191
Kevin Ingham	MV45	168	30	05:14:26	227
David Munday	MV40	210	36	06:48:32	325
Susan Moore	FV40	116	21	06:48:33	326

Glossop Skyline

More than 30 Harriers spent a combined total of over 260 hours running the 30-mile Glossop Skyline, the Virtual Club Championships route for July – the first time many have attempted this distance. The below report from Cathy Murray tells the story of a particularly epic effort!

The unsuspecting Vicki Hamilton, Anne Williams and John Stephenson met up at 6, with my arrival almost unfailingly tardy, at 2 minutes past. Supporting runners Susan Clapham, John Pollard and Guy Riddell were almost champing at the enthusiasm bit, as we set off Tintwhistle-bound. Sue trying to sneak in a bit of extra mileage running on past the steps once we’d crossed the reservoir!

Everyone was quite excited about the adventure ahead, with lots of yacking going on, despite heading uphill with little warm up. The only damp squib being the weather – we were studiously ignoring this – a damp mizzle – as the forecast was for rain, but supposedly an improving picture.

Whilst there was sensible uphill walking in the beginning, I don’t think we collectively maintained it for long; indeed, the pace felt almost business-like for a social, entry-level Ultra – I smiled to myself at Alison’s laugh at my spellcheck typo “untrusted pace”, rather than “unhurried”, as being perhaps more accurate!

What the hell, we’d soon find out, and it’s good to get a few miles under the belt in a long event – doesn’t everyone always go off too fast? It never did get too fast a pace, though – probably too much conversation going on – but we were making great progress seemingly effortlessly; that’s always when things go wrong, isn’t it?

And they did – my fault, entirely. My left big toe caught a stone in the path descending Wild Bank, at just over 9 miles in, on the descent to Mottram – moving at enough speed that the momentum was considerable. My day rapidly nose-dived, ‘saved’ by my chronic weakest link, the right knee, left palm. Bit of a harder impact than expected – better add on a commando roll, then! (Just to distribute the grazes a bit more – adding in right hip and calf). I do tend to pursue full contact in sport, so I’m rather accustomed to meeting the ground a bit fast – so I sprung up again, in my practised way. I resisted concerned urges to clean the grazes, as they were superficial – I didn’t want to waste time, especially this early on and was more worried I’d stiffen up, as that’s my current issue in trying to return to fitness in impact sport.

We were soon down in Mottram, searching for Andrew Reuben’s kind promise of an ambulatory oasis behind walls and trees. It turned out we were ahead of anticipated schedule, and it hadn’t arrived yet – but soon did appear, along with Sikobe himself. It’s great to see “long-time-no-see” running pals literally emerge from out of the woods!

After a most welcome and quick social watering stop – mostly, for me, this was watering the tarmac from my leaky fluid bladder tube whilst trying to tighten my pull laces (to prevent falls – ‘um, a bit late) – with the ever helpful but somewhat reluctant John Pollard committing himself to “most weirdly compromised pose” shot of the day, nursing the offending leaky tube – we all swiftly moved on, particularly John himself!

Up Church Brow and through Broadbottom, Susan Clapham was keeping us flying – until we found ourselves almost in a ditch ascending a field with a few quiet commercial suckled calves and cows dispersed. This turned out to be because a few of the GDH membership, including Susan, prefer to give the normally placid bovine species a wide berth, just in case. John P. sussed this before me, but having spent my entire working days treating cattle, I wasn’t going to cover harder ground now to avoid harmless examples of the species, so dragged everyone back out onto the path of least resistance. Susan took this, along with everything, in her stride, and soon we were on top of Coombes Edge where Guy and John made their rehearsed excuses of work and responsibilities and left us. For Sue, it was the knowledge of more cattle ahead!
Either way, it felt a little lonely to wave the way-pointing, pace-setting, friendly sociable trio off – but now we wouldn’t be tempted to run faster than we could sustain, over the dreaded Flagstones of Doom!

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Photos by Susan Clapham

John S. muttered the encouragement to “just sustain a run for 2 or 3 miles”, to clear the cursed stones; the last thing any of us wanted was to savour them, so they passed underfoot steadily but interminably slowly, as they always do.

Vicki and Anne were completing their first ultras, although no-one would have guessed this – steady progress from both throughout, never making it look hard. Meanwhile, the flags slowed me to a slow run, but they always have that effect on me these days. Soon they were done, and we looked forward to meeting Rod Holt on the Snake, with a broomwagon of treats and water refreshment, plus Alison to help us over a pretty grim Bleaklow.

I did notice that the knee I’d fallen on had stiffened noticeably, but it still functioned and the rest of me was holding up. So, off we set across the moor, into breezy rain with hill fog – pretty unpleasant and not what was forecast, as we pointedly observed. Unfortunately, the fortunes of the knee deteriorated as rapidly as the conditions, and I found myself hobbling, unable to bend it, for accumulating fluid in the joint – it was operated on in 2009 for a full thickness articular cartilage defect under the patella. I was told never to run again, but by 2019, I found I could by then run rather well, pain and deterioration-free, making a massive difference to my fitness and QoL; although I have been road cycling in a big way during the preceding interim years.

The fresh knee issue seemed likely triggered by the fall, exacerbated by the flags.
Ali, John S., Vicki and Anne variously sorted the nav. through the patchy fog, whilst I kept on hobbling, but it was certainly becoming wetter and colder. We stopped to put extra clothing on by a wall, when I observed my hands were numb; I was glad of gloves and waterproof trousers, or the ability to do quick bursts of speed, to keep warm.
Eventually, we emerged below the cloud on Hope Street, Old Glossop, at about 29 miles by Garmin Connect on my watch. Pat was riding and didn’t take the call from Alison’s phone (I had usefully mislaid mine – on my pillow!), but happily Rod did, saving the day for my knee, and freeing up John S., Anne and Vicki to continue on to Hadfield, tea and extra medals awaiting!

Quite a day, between the unexpected and seemingly minor trip and the less-than-ideal conditions, though I think the total time was still not so bad, considering – around 10 hours. If not for the injury, we’d have made good time, particularly in iffy weather.

All credit to the total team: supporting and co-finishing runners, Rod and Sikobe. I just moved my legs, sometimes rather slowly!

I can’t end without pointing out the merits of the FRA kit requirement – the point of this write up, alongside expressing grateful thanks to all the team on the day. The kit is compulsory in all but bomber conditions, when occasionally it’s waived, precisely because you may never need all of it – but if you do, you really do. My waterproof taped trousers weigh little, but made the difference between feeling comfortable and hypothermia setting in. Definitely worth carrying.

John’s fleece gloves returned dexterity to hands that had become frozen lumps of dough. If you can’t do your zips up, owing to cold hands, this is a very bad sign, on the hill – so says a former ice climber, winter mountaineer/climber, alpinist and Canadian backcountry winter camper.

It was quite the reminder. You never know when you might have to slow right down, and it changes things – remember, this was July and we all had ace waterproof taped seam jackets, mostly worn through the day.

Thanks to everyone involved with the ultra, in planning, recceing, execution. But for the knee, I’ve certainly enjoyed it all – and the stubbed toe trip could happen on any run, indeed anywhere. Hopefully, it’ll mend, and I’ll be back out, doing what it let’s me do, in time.

The legacy should be that we have more people going long in the future races. There’s some great ones to be done – with more views than bogs, I promise!

Cathy Murray

Nick Ham’s Race Reports

Nick’s been keeping himself busy with local races – here’s his report on a few recent outings:

Sat 17/07: Alderman’s Ascent

I’d never done this before but “phew, what a scorcher”, it has etched itself into my memory. It was novel to see Dove Stone Reservoir from the other side before I nearly died climbing back up to the top of Alderman’s Hill in the cauldron. Thanks to Luke H and Paul S for the encouragement / abuse.

Luke and Paul above Dove Stone Reservoir

Thu 22/07: Sale Sizzler 5k #4

The scorchio theme continued with temperature nudging 30 with high humidity. I expected to have to take walking breaks to stave off an exploding head. Thankfully there was just enough breeze to prevent that ignominy. A promising sign was that I was well into the park before the first few front-runners came steaming past on their final lap, equalling this year’s best scenario with our staggered rolling start. Despite that I ended up with 0:25:25, which was identical to the second with Sizzler #3 in the previous week. This week I ran rested but was slowed by the heat, whereas last week I was slowed by having run Bamford Fell Race on the previous evening. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Sat 24/07: Denholme Doddle 27.6mi.

I was looking forward to making a better job of this than in 2019, when the Ménière’s Disease still had a tighter grip on my life. The weather conditions – cool, breezy and overcast – were identical to 2019, so better for running than we’ve had for a long time.

At the organiser’s briefing before the off for the runners, he seemed to be warning us to look out for rats on the course. It turned out he was saying “wraps”, and was telling us which checkpoint to grab one from, depending on which distance we were doing (17, 21 or 27). I looked forward to sampling one of these “rats” as I settled into the groove of comfortable running, but had no idea which checkpoint I’d have to grab mine from. I bet no-one else knew either. I did notice my left foot / ankle reminding me every so often of the tweak it suffered on the DCRO Dash of 7^th July when I’d landed heavily from a high stile.

On the descent to checkpoint 2 I caught up with a man whose run was slower than mine (now there’s a novelty). Unlike the Bamford Fell Race where I’d had to wait for a while to overtake on the descent, here the path was plenty wide enough. I moved to the left to begin to overtake and my left foot immediately yanked violently sideways down a hole. The pain was instant as I finished the wrecking job I’d started on the DCRO Dash. I sat down and waited to assess the pain level before getting up to test the damage. I hobbled the remaining 100 metres to the checkpoint knowing there was no way I could continue. 27.6 miles had become 8.7. I’d been denied the pleasure of not getting a PW, since the running had been going well, and much faster than in 2019.

Now I’d stopped running, the breeze felt cold (now there’s another novelty) so the kindly marshal offered for me to sit in the passenger seat of her car for shelter while I waited for transport back to base. As I languished, the bloke around whom I’d attempted to steer pottered on his way with a bellyful of crisps and other checkpoint comestibles. I may have bored evils into the back of his head as he passed my window.

I never did get to see let alone sample the rats. Instead I went home for an early hot bath, which worked wonders for the foot discomfort.

Sat 31/07: South Pennine 24 Anytime Challenge #2

I’d pencilled in this day for my second attempt at this 24-miler to hopefully beat my #1 attempt of 5^th June. It would be my first run since the foot/ankle-wrecking but I’d had no problem walking around during the week, so with some misgivings about venturing out alone into the wilds, I set off. After Alderman’s Ascent 2 weeks ago, I now knew what I was looking at as I gazed back across the reservoir.  Alderman’s Hill was now lost in the cloud! What a contrast to two weeks ago.

Alderman’s Hill lost in the cloud

I took it very gingerly on the treacherous descent from Laddow Moss to Crowden, terrified of another ankle twist. The crossing over the top had been in cloud and drizzle and I was alone. I felt vulnerable and the self-preservation instinct was wound up to max. The foot was holding up well as long as I didn’t load it too much in toes-up position.

The run down sunny Longdendale was pleasant and warm but the cloud was back for the climb back over the hills overlooking Manchester far to the left. I checked my watch, wondering if I might beat 6 hours this time. I certainly hoped to beat the 6:22 of my first attempt (when it was much hotter, it has to be said). Now on easier ground, the foot felt easier too. When I realised a sub-6 might be on the cards I picked up the pace like in a proper race. As I approached the finish I recognised the Alderman’s Ascent route again to the left, with the monument we climbed to first of all then Alderman’s Hill.

The monument and Alderman’s Hill in the distance

I ran back to the clubhouse in 5:40, so 42 minutes knocked off the previous time. I’m happy with that.

Nick H.

Trunce Race 2

Report by Eleanor Swan

Phil, Josie and Caitlin Swan took part in the second race in the 2021 Trunce series, on Monday 26th July. Wendy Trelease was also there from Glossopdale Harriers. The results:

Juniors

• Caitlin Swan: 4th – 18:10

Seniors

• Phil Swan: 19th – 34:47
• Josie Swan: 30th – 38:06
• Wendy Trelease: 72nd – 46:18

The Hadfield Dash (Virtual Club Championships, August)

The Virtual Club Championships route for August takes us back to the Longdendale Trail for the 5.5km Hadfield Dash. A few Harriers have already recce’d the route, with a couple of speedy times clocked up already. Full route details can be found on the Club Championships page.

Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay

The GDH qualifier event for this year’s Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay will take place on Thursday 9th September, meeting at Bowden Bridge in Hayfield. The event is a club social, so everyone is welcome – whether you’re aiming to qualify for the relay team or run the course (6km with 400m climb) at a more leisurely pace, there’s a visit to the pub lined up afterwards. See the Facebook event page for all the info.

Manor Park Marathon

With the announcement that parkrun is back on, the 4th edition of the Manor Park Marathon will take place on Saturday 28th August (bank holiday weekend). The aim is to run as many laps of the Manor Park parkrun route as you like, and then finish with the final three laps of the parkrun itself (which begins at 9am). If you choose to make it a full marathon you’d need to complete 24 laps (each lap is 1 mile) before the 9am parkrun, but it’s entirely your choice – you may just want to join for a few “warm-up” laps before parkrun.

See the Glossopdale Harriers Facebook page for more details.