Open 5 Finale

Church Stretton was the venue for the last open 5 of this years series. The last time I'd raced there was at the FRA relays back in October, so I had fresh memories of the beautiful but painfully steep hills we'd have to contend with. I also knew, if you attacked them hard, you could fly around the area! After our race in the Lakes in April I'd felt like my legs had finally got some biking strength back in them and was looking forward to seeing what I could add to that in a month.

Plotting

 As it happens, I doubt I added anything and I was pleased just to be out racing come Sunday - In the last 4 weeks I spent 2 weeks progressing from struggling to walk between rooms in the house thanks to a chest infection, to walking up catbells, back to running (twice) and a third week giving up on running because walking was still a bit too hard. I was surprised  that the Tuesday before the open 5 I still felt like somebody was sat on my chest and was exhausted, so I resigned myself to watching from the sidelines....
That lasted around 24hrs...then I worked out the 'breathtakingly simple' (thanks Todd....) explanation - If you are taking inhalers, it helps to check that there is something left in them....numpty!
Needless to say, once I got some new ones, I was no longer exhausted! I even managed to run Tigers Todger fell 'race' on the Wednesday (albeit at a relatively sedate pace) and with each day my chest was feeling a bit less sore. A record Lastminute.AR entry on Thursday evening and I was in :-)!

Bikes or leaning posts?

 I was debating going solo right up until the day, not wanting to hold Rosemary back from a storming race, however we decided to go with it and see how it went. Looking at the map, the run route looked set to take in some of the FRA relay highlights - I planned a route, crossing my fingers that I was right with which ones wouldn't be there (otherwise there'd be some good steep and rough running). The MTB route was a bit more awkward to plan, but we worked out a rough plan and headed to the start. Within the first 10s I realised my hopes were out the window...replan time and some fun off the beaten track :-).

I made us work hard for the last half hour....

 We set off a bit more steadily than normal (Rosemary even commented on the drop in pace), however whilst I couldn't really run fast on track, it didn't really matter what terrain I was on for the pace I could manage. So I adopted the tactic of straight is great - with the occassional contour. This resulted in my favourite terrain, rough underfoot with steep heathery descents! Rosemary doesn't like these so much....sorry!
We got all but the two five pointers within 2hrs and most importantly, hadn't run too hard so my lungs were pretty intact :-).
Off on the bike and this didn't last long with a long road climb with double arrows! Uphill was not my forte this weekend, especially not for extended periods of time. I was half thankful we got stuck in a traffic jam on the narrow road  - quick breather. By the top I was a bit light headed and certainly lacking any MTB strength I thought I might have. We rode around the top and I did wonder if I could actually ride for 3 hours, however a good descent sorted me out. The rest of the ride was lovely and followed the pattern of flying along the flat/downhill and me dropping off on any slight incline, Rosemary dropping back to push me uphills. The beasty hike a bike to 8 left me slightly light headed again, but the whizz down through the forest to 12 made me forget all about it! And somehow, I decided we'd been enjoying ourselves too much up to this point and we should probably do a bit of proper racing. So, with 24mins left on the clock....we turned away from the finish, approaching 13 from below! 11mins in and out and we hit the road to the finish hard! Apparently I could ride harder, I just couldn't look up from the floor at the same time or I would see stars...

Open 5 Series winners

We made it into the finish 2.5mins late, far better than we thought might be the case! A slight lie down was required.....however, we'd only lost 6 points so had a total of 574points, our best to date :-). We won the female pairs catagory, both on the day and in the series! A great end to the series at a great venue, I'm looking forward to next year already :-)

Burbage Skyline - a rare sight, me and shelf within metres in a race! (Pic- Accelerate)

Next stop - Open 2 day (via Jura Fell Race) - with this in mind I gave my lungs a proper test last night at the burbage skyline fell race and am pleased to report they have continued to improve and I was only just over a minute off my best. The rest of the pennine ladies had storming runs with Steph finishing in 3rd, Claire 5th and myself in 6th....I think we got the team prize? Still my favourite evening fell race :-)

Fun in the su.....now

After the last blog post, as I'm sure most of you are aware, IT SNOWED! And in Crookes (where I live) it snowed loads!

The main high street in Crookes....

So it was a good decision to evacuate Sheffield at 7am on the Friday as my road was still passable (just). 2.5hrs later I'd made it to New Mills (50min journey) and after spending the day at home, headed to Kendal where everyone was wondering what all the fuss was about - barely any snow in sight!
 On Sat morning I recieved a text to say the Edale Skyline had been cancelled - and with good reason, a couple of rather fast ladies went out to give it a bash anyway and took 2.5hrs to do about 1/4 of the route...never mind the announcement I heard at the train station on Sat night about the train to Edale (the only form of transport to Edale bar owning a tractor with a snow plough attached) being delayed by 29minutes.

There was slightly less snow in Grizedale however (although its all relative...) which is where I was racing the  Cumbrian Commotion Trail Plus with Bruce and Campbell. This was an adventure race without any nav to hide behind - so perfect if you're looking to give it a go. It started with a short run to split everyone up before an mtb - run- kayak - run.
The pace was a bit fierce for the first run but settled down on the bike. The MTB route had been amended so that it was practically all on fire roads, however this took nothing away from the fun of it as it was a skill just to ride those in all the snow! Sliding all over the place, it was some of the best fun I've had on a bike. By the end of the mtb we were in the lead so headed over the hill for a quick kayak keeping the effort up through deep snow..The woods were a proper winter wonderland, all very pretty. As we headed back up the hill from the kayak, we passed those on their way to the boats who were very encouraging, many of them yelling 'go on lads, well done'..... 

Crossing the finish line at Cumbrian Commotion (photo - James Thurlow)

It felt a bit like falling down the hill to the finish as my legs had gone numb by that point, but after a quick bit of plank skiing and a hop over a slippy barrier we crossed the line still in first :-).
I had a few more snowy adventures with the general theme of going for a ride as though there was no snow and being surprised that it took twice as long. Bakewell had plenty of 'rideable' snow, which made your thighs burn, however cut gate was....well... a cornice! I was so excited to find a bit of non snowy ground on this particular outing that I flew down the hill only to attempt a superman impression over the front of my handlebars...oops.  All of it was in stunning sunshine and definitely a lot of fun. 

Trust me - that is a bridleway :-)

It was a novelty to ride not in the snow this weekend at the Open 5. I was racing with Rosemary whom I met up with on the Sat evening after a paddle on the beautifully still Derwent Water. I knew Rosemary was good at organising, but I didn't realise this organisation started on the Sat :-P....thats a lot of planning!
So whilst Rosemary sorted, I emptied everything warm I had with me into the camping hut and wrapped up. I'd never been in a camping hut before, the heater was certainly welcome!

I'd fallen into the trap of 'fixing' my gears on Fri night....at 10pm...so it wasn't a great surprise that, whilst they had been working when I left the house, they no longer shifted up on Sunday morning....thankfully Jon fixed that quickly, thanks Jon!

Photo- Charlotte Hattersley

 We opted to run first, even though the bike looked pretty commiting, so off we went, up, up, up towards Grizedale Pike! I couldn't believe it, I was overheating, now thats not something that's happened recently! Somewhere along the way it became obvious that if we went for one of the 2 controls that would have meant climbing an extra 200m, we would not be back in 2hrs. It wouldn't be much over, but if we wanted a good bike, we probably needed the full 3hours. So we binned the plan of running high and arrived back in transition after only 1hr 40.

We headed out on an anticlockwise loop on the bike, choosing to miss control 10 early on. It was clear from the off there were some big climbs to be had, however it wasn't until the 10km+ of solid uphill back to whinlatter that my legs started to fall off. It felt like the whole course had been one long climb up to this point and I wanted some downhill. A hand full of haribo and a gel sorted me out a bit, as did our arrival at the red route! I love a bit of singletrack, by the time we'd cleared Whinlatter of controls I'd forgiven Ant for the looooooong climb to get there! I think this has overtaken Warcop as my all time favourite open 5!

At the finish (Photo- Claire Maxted)

We swooped down to the finish a whole 7mins early (don't know what has got into us these last two events) with a score of 545, enough to win :-).

I think our strengths are starting to rub off on each other as we are certainly a lot more evenly matched than we were at the start of the series. On the runnable fire roads up through the forest, Rosemary was right on my heels (I was certainly aware of this given the accidentally large interval track session I'd ruined my legs with) and on the bike I felt I wasn't holding her up quite as much....especially towards the end in Whinlatter (although I still think this would be a different matter if there were large road sections!). One more open 5 to go at in Shropshire in May! Can't wait :-)

March so far

I've been slacking a little bit on the blog writing front, so here's a brief update of March so far...

5000 points in Open 5s!

 The first weekend (as is the norm) was an Open 5, this time from Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales (more here). I was glad to be back to running reasonably as there was a clear loop to aim for (and I'm not sure I would have made it last month). It soon became obvious we could almost clear the run and so after just over 2hrs we'd had a solid start dropping only one control. The bike was a similar story, we returned having only missed two controls and were a whole 15mins early! Just what we needed to counteract our other open 5hrs15 from previous months! Maybe we should have gone for the bike control in Malham....but those steep arrows on the map didn't make it all that inviting...

The following week I got an exciting parcel in the post....time to get out and test the new Haglöfs kit :-). I chose some pretty harsh conditions to do so, running for 4 hours around Edale to get some Bob Graham training in for Claire....the weather was....well...grim. I tried out the Gram Comp Pull Jacket with an intense range LS top underneath (and a fleece that happened to have been left in the car...brrr) along with the pulse running tights.

Haribo stop on top of kinder...ascent number 3/6

I don't think I own a comfier pair of tights. Having reasonably short legs, I've found in the past that the zip at the ankle sometimes rubs on some running tights, especially on long wet runs, but no such problem with these. I found them light and well fitted, even when wet. An added bonus was the lower leg material, especially designed 'for better ‘wet grass/bramble’ performance'. Well the kinder dozen terrain was a good test of that design feature as we ploughed our way through plenty of deep heather...legs emerged unscathed :-).

One of my specialities is getting very cold in wet and windy conditions. I am pleased to report the Gram Comp jacket kept me toasty, I was a bit concerned with it not having a waist draw chord, but didn't encounter the problem of rain going up the jacket. The hood adjusters are very minimalist, but secure and the peak, although not wired, kept the rain out of my eyes...

Wolf's Pit Fell Race - The gram comp jacket doubling as a bum bag!

 Finally, last weekend I got in a good recce of the Edale Skyline and raced my first fell race of the year - Wolf's Pit. The race was a brutal reintroduction to running fast, with a large field of strong runners racing the 5.75miles with 410m climb. I warmed up the night before with several hours of dancing in pop tarts, so was a little on the tired side..

The part that suited me came right at the start, straight up up up a steep hill! By the top I was still in the mix for the podium, 20mins of runnable trail later and I was looking to hold onto fourth. By the final descent I was in 5th and glanced over my shoulder...there was my relay partner Claire about 50m behind. As I knew her ability to run my legs off on a descent I threw myself off the hill, hoping to keep far enough ahead to stagger into the field and the finish still in 5th. I glanced at my watch at one point and was pleased to see the pace starting with a 4:?? minutes/mile....so I couldn't believe it when we hit the track at the bottom and she was right on my shoulder! I did stagger into the field, but was in 6th, high enough to be 3rd counter for the winning Pennine ladies team with Steph (3rd) and Claire (5th) :-). Even better, this is the first time I have felt good running at pace this year!

 It's amazing how things have changed in the peaks over the last few years, the last time I ran this race it was bone dry, properly fast! I ran 5minutes slower then and finished 8th I think... my time from this year would have placed me in a comfortable 3rd with little competition around me. It's great to have such a strong womens field now, it'll make for some much faster times and much more competitive racing!

Running my legs off to stay ahead of Claire Aspinall

The challenge for this week is sitting still (well...stiller...until Friday).  Then next weekend comes a proper test, the Cumbrian Commotion AR on Sat followed by some flat out racing around the Edale Skyline English Champs Fell Race. Fingers crossed my hip flexors hurt less by then....it turns out running and biking doesn't prepare you for hen do's that include burlesque dancing and wearing high heels....

Open 5 - Cheddar

Female pairs winners

 Last weekend was the latest Open 5 in the series, this time down in Cheddar. Whilst I have friends in Bristol, I'd never made it to Cheddar before so was looking forward to going to yet another new place and seeing the highlights courtesy of Eddie Winthorpe!
It wasn't all smooth running in the weeks before the race, however I did at least have 'some' skin on my heel by race day (3wks of healing and only 'some').

My heel after too much fun in the snow a couple of weeks ago...

 After a long trip down I was pretty knackered (and I had been most of the week), but a good nights sleep at my friends in Bristol set me up to start well.
We decided to try out bike then run as I wasn't all that confident my heel would still have skin on it after running.

Biking to control 16

The bike route was ace, a fast road section before a killer hill climb where I was glad of my 3 chain rings and we were on the top of the gorge. There was a good mix of fast moving and really fun descents...oh and a bit of mud thrown in there too! I think it's fair to say that me and Rosemary are the most incompatible pairing as far as strengths and weaknesses go, on any road section I'll be hanging onto her wheel, off road however and I can get the upper hand, with technical descents my favourite! This route had the best of both worlds meaning (in the main) we could ride together well, both getting to ease off at times where the other wasn't as comfortable - well done Eddie, up until now I have felt a lot more like it was a game of chase Rosemary's wheel!

I actually had to run especially for James to get this photo (there might have been some walking going on before we saw him...)

A slight over estimation in the length of the bike route meant we arrived in transition almost half an hour later than planned. A slick change and we were off on the 'run'....well, talking of strengths and weaknesses, my normal strength for running had disappeared somewhere on the bike section. The hills were a plod at best. In the above photo its a wonder I'm smiling, I think that was the last grin of the race... I don't think I've ever felt so bad on a run ever. The tiredness of the last week had well and truly caught up with me.

We headed across the fields and down to a control and some of my usual spring returned, but something was still a bit funny, I was pretty out of breath and concentrating was difficult.
 Rosemary offered help with the nav - only trouble was I was so wrecked that concentrating on my planned route was enough for me at that point. What she was suggesting was so different to what I had planned I didn't know what to do with it. I decided I must be being overly cautious with my route as I was feeling so rubbish and Rosemary was clearly expecting us to go further, I'd just have to man up and get on with it....turns out I should have stuck to my guns, the help was offered off small glances at the map, not on an actual overall plan.
Yet again we got caught out by the control with the best name on the map, visiting 'totty pot' (10 points) instead of my planned control (15 points) and got a bonus 1.5-2km thrown in for free! By the last control I knew why the run was so much effort, for the second time in a month I was having a small asthma disaster. It was all I could do to keep moving, so it was a bit of a stagger into the finish 12.5mins late - 35points lost.

Thank god we had a good solid bike section to fall back on - we took the win by 42points but I think we were lucky this time! For now we are the series leaders, but we'll have to stop being late back if we're going to stay that way!

In the week after the Jan open 5 I did a full weeks training with highlights of a track session, spinning and lots of fell running in the lakes. This week I'll be happy if my back, legs and chest stop hurting - one things for sure, we definitely went hard enough this time :-)

Seize the day

Over new year we were up in Scotland, running, skiing and ice climbing (indoors thanks to 100mph gusting wind). I then had another crack at the open 5 with Rosemary at the start of January (http://planetbyde.com/2013/01/07/haglofs-open-5-north-york-moors/) and last week we had an ace long weekend running in the Lakes. What a bonus, it even snowed for us! Without a blink, the first thought when we saw the snow falling was, woohoo, massive snowy run!

This is how we enjoy the mountains and it's how Rachel Majumdar and Tom Chesters were enjoying them in Glencoe last weekend when they were descending Bidean nam Bian, in the wrong place at the wrong time. My thoughts are with their families and friends, they'll be missed by so many! I know I'll be missing Rachel's  ready smile, I'll remember her as one of the kindest and most encouraging people I had the pleasure to call my friend. As it happens, I never got to meet Tom. He was working on a PhD similar to mine in Hull. He tracked me down online (ah, what a small world orienteering is) and we chatted by email, sharing stories of weekend adventures (I mean, discussing the intricacies of osteoporosis and bone biomechanics), planning to meet up the next time he was in Sheffield visiting the gait lab we were both using.
 
As fellow blogger whereverthepathmaylead put it:
'These events demonstrate the fine line we tread when we pursue the activities we do. Everyone was adequately equipped and suitably experienced. Through no “fault” of their own, they’ve ended up in dangerous situations. And the fact is, as fellrunners and mountaineers, it could be any one of us at any time. Does that mean we don’t do it anymore and we find more sedate activities? No, of course it doesn’t since, as well as being an ever-present danger, it’s also one of the attractions to what we do'

So when we're inevitably back up on the hill (Saturday no doubt), there'll be two more people with us reminding us to enjoy every minute. RIP xXx

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  Hope everyone had some good Christmas/New Year adventures!
I've been out and about in the Lakes, Peaks and Cairngorms (via a quick trip to Brighton), all in 10 days!



Wansfell race 27/12/12: How to make yourself go dizzy while running uphill..

Back in September I got a mysterious package through the door, inside I found a Haglofs wind jacket (shield comp Q hood) and Haglofs goretex jacket (scramble Q jacket) along with instructions to use and abuse. I looked out of the window, the sun was shining.....hmmm.

I took the wind jacket out on the fells in the hope of finding some blustery conditions, but it was completely by chance I found some. Out on a night ride across houndkirk moor I suddenly realised it was no longer summer and I was certainly not wearing enough clothing. Thankfully, tucked neatly into my cycling jersey pocket (test number one passed) was my bright pink shield comp! I was still a bit worried it might not be enough, at around 70g it feels like there's almost nothing there even when on, but the minute I put it on the wind felt completely blocked and I continued on for another hour and half :-). The fit feels equally good for biking reach and running which is good in my books, and it has a hood,something my other wind jackets have lacked.

Wansfell race: Trying not to fall into a marsh

By the time we left for the lakes just before Christmas there was no longer any lack of suitable test conditions! Me and Sally had a last minute change of heart looking at our planned route over Fairfield and opted for a lower level, but still very wet, loughrigg, silverhowe, loughrigg. Me and Wil abandoned our attempt at running over St Sunday Crag to spectate the ultra tour de helvellyn, opting for a 50min (instead of 2hr) run and a vantage point in the white lion...Arriving in Askham for the finish, we watched the best sprint finish after 38miles from Shelf and Kim, Kim just ducking under 6hrs for the race, awesome in some rather wild conditions.

A bit later on and Claire arrived, finishing her first running race of that distance, very impressive!

 

By the time we hit the peak district we hoped it might be a bit nicer...well, we could see the top of the hill at one point.... I took my new bright pink shoes (below) for their first outing. I chose a particularly muddy route so there'd be no puddle dodging, no matter how pretty they were to begin with. Me, Wil and Nic did a classic loop around kinder, up to the shooting cabin, Williams Clough, Kinder Downfall and back via 3 knolls. For a trail shoe I was pretty impressed, I could keep up on the descents (ok, so the others weren't going full tilt but heh) without danger of damaging my ankles or ending up on the floor. I've had other pairs of shoes that resemble a road shoe converted for off road and found that especially with my ridiculously mobile ankles, I manage both of the above very easily. So far I've found these new trail shoes good, low enough that they are good and stable with a close fit so I've got pretty good confidence in where my foot is/is going. I'll probably keep them for trail rather than fell in the most part though - at Wansfell race I did do a small bit of sledging instead of running down the hill, then again, so did Nic and he was wearing mudclaws!

 

 

 

Haglofs Gram GT trail shoes

Wansfell race is actually a bit mental, I forgot how far up it goes!! With 380m of climb in 2 miles, its a lungbuster and very easy to blow up on. I managed to make myself dizzy going up the hill but summited before falling over, which I promptly found was the best descending tactic as the grass was so steep and wet. It's been nearly 2 years since I last did this race and after so long travelling the previous 2 days I didn't feel fantastic. It came as a nice surprise to get a PB, by 1.5mins!!

Finally I took the scramble Q jacket out for its intended purpose - another blustery wet adventure around the peaks, from Ladybower over Win Hill and Hagg Farm and back. Both me and Helen were well equipped with our nice slick summer tyres on...we had fun, it was a bit like Mountain Mayhem slideyness but thankfully less sticky mud!

Muddy peaks biking

 

The jacket kept me toasty and dry and as you can see from the picture, it has now been at least a little bit abused. So,given the beautiful colours the jackets and shoes started in, the question I can hear on everyone's lips, 'are they still bright and shiney?'. Well, the answer is pretty much yes. Even after running through Kinder's finest peat bog the shoes came up bright pink, now with added darker pink highlights. On to the next test at the Open 5 on Sunday :-)

Open 5 - South Downs

Pre race plotting - 'if we go this way we could really make it hard for ourselves!'

 A very last minute decision to race saw me team up with Rosemary Byde (http://planetbyde.com/) for our first crack at the female pairs category of the open5. After picking up some elite tips at 'a night with Jessica Ennis' on Friday evening I was walking home when the joint of my right big toe started to really hurt - no apparent cause and by sat it wasn't too bad so I wasn't worried about it when I got to the event on Sunday.

It turns out, racing with a statistician means the course is meticulously analysed in every possible way, and that's before you even start! A slight change to my normal 5-10mins of roughly planning where I'll go.  Still, we had it sorted and were off a little after 10am.

 I set off in charge of the run nav and having adjusted the route now we had the control descriptions, headed off to no29. The first bit of the course ran through a forest with what turned out to be an intricate network of tracks. About 500m into the forest the track we were on bent round to the left and we followed it....however this was not the track I was following on the map, it was in fact a white line on the map - which I expected to be a forest clearing type track, not a massive obvious surfaced one. I started to notice things not really fitting but couldn't work out where we'd gone wrong, as far as I was aware we'd hit the track in the forest and followed it as the map suggested we should. On we ran - straight off the map.

So about 20-25mins and a lot of head scratching later we stumbled upon a forestry sign with a 'you are here' marker. Possibly the best relocation feature out there! Score! We were back on track....well to no26 at least as we were about 1.5km off track for no29. Not the greatest start....

Way too much water left in the bottle at the end! 

 The rest of the run went smoothly, although I was increasingly aware that Rosemary was not best pleased with my pace setting and was ready to get her own back on the bike. We hit transition in 1hour57 having picked up 165points, I'd just about scraped it back together.
Off on the bike, my legs took about 1km to warm up but then we were tearing along on the road. After 5-6km of undulating road however, hanging onto Rosemary and her 29er was starting to get a bit difficult. Thankfully it wasn't long to a bit of off roading - a breather for me :-). We discovered the thick mud covering the off road sections and had a great time flying down the hill from a beautiful viewpoint.

Sadly this wasn't to last with about 40km of road in our 53km route... Still, my legs were coping for the first couple of hours. After 2hrs 15mins we had a decision to make! There were 3 controls left that we were definitely collecting....and a fourth control on 'Titty Hill'. We could just about make it...maybe...and with such a novelty name we had to try!

How late are we? Doh!

We went for it. Towing ensued. My legs got heavier, with a little over 3km to go we hit the 5hour mark and this is where I really started to worry that my legs were no longer capable of turning the pedals...I felt sick but we had to keep going and minimize the disaster. 5hours7mins and we were on the road to the finish, Titty Hill had not been worth it! 

Somehow we made it across the line and a quick watch check showed we were 14.5mins late - We'd collected 510points but with a 45 point time penalty that became 465points. So, with 20mins lost at the start and 45point penalty we didn't hold out much hope that this was a successful race. It was a massive surprise when the scores were announced and it turned out we had won! 

Once my feet defrosted, I found my right toe joint to be massively painful. Today I spent the day limping around until I visited Kim. Turns out, yet again it all comes down to my SI joint. It was blocked again (and I suspect it had been for about 3 weeks) but this time I was strong enough to only get a bit of discomfort in my hip flexors and back. This allowed me to keep running and meant I'd been running round with a wonky pelvis and a right leg that was substantially shorter than the left, resulting in some bad loading through my toe. I'm all straightened out again now...hopefully it'll stay that way!

So, check list for next time: NO stupid navigation, NO mad decisions at the end of the course and NO wonky pelvis, hopefully = recipe for success!

Wrecked at the finish