How on earth did I end up up back here!? But I did and I survived……………just!
That was the question I asked myself so many times last week. After last year’s episode of scrambling up the side of Eel Crag and coming next to last I swore to myself that I would not get roped into the British Championships this year!
And we all know I’ve had a few map reading and other running incidents this year! 😂
The request was made for team members for a V40 ladies team. My strategy, with my 53 years of wisdom and experience, was to go into hiding and keep quiet………………..very quiet. 😆 We have lots of good 40 something year old runners in the club – certainly enough for me to dodge this one.
All was going to plan, teams were selected and I was rubbing my hands together with glee to not make the list and my silence go un-noticed! I would just surprise them on the day with cakes and support.
Then one by one people start getting better offers, getting injured, or probably just realise what they’ve let themselves in for and start dropping out. And that’s when I see the dreaded message on the club social media page………………”Why is your name not on the list Joanne? You’d be fantastic.”
Now which excuse do you want, I have numerous……….I’m 10 years older than the rest of the team…………I might be tough and resilient but I’m not overly fast …………….. I get hopelessy lost and this race involves maps ……………….I’m waiting for surgery…………….which excuse do you want? I could have sworn that I had sufficient excuse to get out of this one, but NO………………….apparently “You’ll be fine on the last leg…..Leg 4……on your own as it’s a flagged leg so you can’t get lost!” (Believe me when I say I can get lost on a flagged leg!) So here I was again, in the position I did not want to be in.
I got my map given a couple of weeks before and went for a little recce with a couple of friends. Five and a half miles does not seem too bad. Then I saw the altitude climb ……just short of 1,700ft…………then I have a closer look at the route and spot the appropriately named ‘Hell Hole’, ‘Trollers Gill’ and a bright orange bad weather route in case of bad visibility. This is going to be fun!
Then I have one of those weeks at work, which I could have just done without, two days prior to race day………an OFSTED inspection! But actually it just gave me something else to worry about and take my mind off the race. As is so happens the inspection went really well, so by Thursday OFSTED have left the building and I’m back to getting anxious about Saturday’s race. Then the race day timetable comes out………………Leg 4 is not running until 3:30pm! That’s all day on Saturday to get worked up into a frenzy. Not only that but Prize Giving is at 4pm!!! I won’t be back then………….I’ll still be running my 5.2 miles of uphill, I might not even be back for field gate being locked at 5pm by the farmer! 😂
So Friday evening was spent baking cakes to take my mind off it because cake is the answer to all lifes worries and always goes down well at a race. Then I remember that two of the team are vegan. I’m not vegan but am very accepting of anyone that is but I failed to see how a proper cake can be vegan so I had huge reservations as to how this little Friday night experiment would turn out. Anyway, one tin of vegan brownies and a courgette and lemon loaf later I was quite pleased with my little effort. I can honestly say that it just tasted like normal cake and I shall stand corrected and no longer make fun of vegan cake.😆 The cakes got top marks from the team.
Friday night was a sleepless one with lots of dreaming which involved me running down a deserted field in the dark with a farmer shouting at me and waving a stick because he was waiting to lock the gate. Seriously…………this is what happens when I get anxious. It’s awful.
Race day arrived with a very pleasant drive to the gorgeous little Yorkshire village of Appletreewick. It’s around 2 hours from home in Upper Wharfedale and is Yorkshire at its finest. The village has a lovely little campsite by the river and holds lots of happy memories because this is where the family tent was christened when the boys were around 6 and 4 years old. The day started a bit grim, but then the blue sky and sunshine came and the visibility was good!
Team chairman Steve was on hand at lunchtime to give me a little pep talk and reassurance. “You know why you are stressing don’t you?” he said. “Yes, because I’m not at this level I said.” This was all because I saw Jasmin Paris casually walking across the road. If you don’t know who Jasmin Paris is then I’ll tell you. She is the only woman to ever finish the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee which she did in March of this year. She is in another league to me completely and an absolutely astounding fell runner, quite possible the best of all time. She would not get lost in a wood 2 miles from home and have to call for help! If she’s running I’m going to look like a tortoise! 😂
“No, it’s not that” he said, “You are anxious because it matters! It all matters to you, the race, the team, everything. Just go do your thing and as soon as you set off you’ll be fine.” And the thing is I knew he was right. I get so much more nervous when I’m running as part of a team, it’s just the thought of letting the team down. If you enter a race on your own there’s not as much pressure, you can only let yourself down. But in a race against the country’s best as part of a six woman team, there’s a lot more at stake.
The start came. I was sufficienty fuelled………….cheeseburger and cake ………………. the food of champions!😂……….And off I went. Well, not so fast as the start was up the biggest hill imagineable! My legs were like jelly at the top and we were only 300 metres into the race.
What followed was five and a half miles of the biggest, muddiest, steepest, ups and downs imagineable. Now, it’s meant to be difficult, it’s to decide Britain’s finest, toughest fell runners. I kept having a quick glance behind me over the fields to see lots more runners. I’m doing ok I thought……..just keep going……..don’t give up…….just one foot in front of the other.
After five minutes of crawling my way up Trollers Gill on all fours I spotted the checkpoint, dibbed my dibber and carried on. By this time I was covered in mud, had inadvertently placed my hand on some thistles and stunk of sheep excrement.
Just as I was trying to run down the other side of the almost vertical Trollers Gill I could see opposite me, the side of the crag to Hell Hole looming above, with a line of fell runners crawling along like ants clawing their way up the side. I downed some electrolyte and chewed a couple of gels to give me a little boost. The climb up to Hell Hole was horrific, it was all fours up the side and then a crawl under a barbed wire fence at the top.
From that point the last two miles were not as lung busting. It was undulating, it was knee high boggy, but some sections were runnable. I finished in 1 hour and 19 with a little sprint at the end and 11 minutes ahead of my expected time, 40 minutes before the final runner and more importantly, well before darkness and the locking of the field by the farmer (who didn’t have a stick and looked quite friendly).😆 Penistone can be proud to have the 12th fastest V40 ladies fell running team in the country……………….yes, we weren’t next to last this year! I was too sick for cake at the end………..I did not know whether to cry with relief, cry with pain or vomit.
However, I did feel incredibly proud to be part of a team of such outstanding ladies and runners. We all work, we all have families and we are all trying to juggle everything life throws at us. We did amazingly well and I feel so lucky to even be able to run, never mind be on the startline of something like this. But this year will be my last……………unless we can rustle a V50 team together! I hurt so much all over my body today……………….. the V40 team will have to find someone under 50 as I’m now too creaky to pretend to be 40 …………… I’ll just donate the cakes from now on!
