All the 3’s – 3 Peaks, 3 Parks, 3 weekends

Ingleborough – Yorkshire 3 Peaks

I love the National Parks in the UK and what better than to visit three different National Parks on three consecutive weekends. My journey began in the Yorkshire Dales where I headed for the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Fell Race, a classic race within the fell running calendar, which has been run since 1954.and described as the “the Marathon with Mountains” because of its 5,270ft of ascent. I had an early start on the day of the race as it took 2 hours to drive to the event in the village of Horton in Ribblesdale. The hills were white over from a dusting of snow overnight when I arrived. I parked up and was feeling nervous and apprehensive. It had been a long time since I had done the 3 Peaks and  the last time was not in a race but at walking pace. I registered and was offered a free pair of Salomon EXO S-LAB socks, great I thought, however at size 42 way too big for my size 36 feet so a nice little present for Darren. Hhhmmmm!! it didn’t go well, I was sluggish on the ascent up to Pen-y-Ghent and felt like I was going nowhere fast. We had a hail/snow flurry which didn’t bode well.  I carried onwards and upwards and then I saw the front runners, who were incredibly fast and agile on descent returning, wow! I wish I could run like that! As I continued we headed on along a new footpath over Whitber Hill. Apparently, this reduced the length of the race by 100 meters! Then it felt like a long slog over to the Ribblehead Viaduct. The sun had now come out and I was maintaining a steady pace. My thoughts were on getting to the Ribblehead in time for the checkpoint. I arrived at Ribblehead and faffed around trying to find my own bottle of lucozade. I had labelled it with my name rather than my number so it was difficult to find. I felt a little hungry too so I started off down the track at walking pace whilst eating a cliff bar. In hindsight, this cost me valuable time, which I’d come to regret later on. After seeing a few other walkers heading in the opposite direction I new these must be on the 61 mile Fellsman event, I continued and headed up the steep ascent of Whernside. The runners in front of me looked like a trail of ants as they steadily climbed their way up to the summit. I was feeling a lot stronger on this climb maybe it was that cliff bar and lucozade that gave me the boost.  The shout of support from the marshal at the summit was a great boost and then it was a swift descent, following the flags down a rocky and uneven path to the Old Hill Inn. As I was descending another marshal shouted that I had only a short amount of time to make it to the next checkpoint before it closed. I tried to pick up my pace but couldn’t go any faster.  As I arrived at the Checkpoint I thought I was ok but was gutted when they said I’d missed the cut-off time by three minutes. I was asked whether I had a lift back to the start, which I hadn’t and was informed that a mini bus was waiting to take those who had missed the cut-off time back. One mini bus had already taken a number of runners back already. As I climbed on board, everyone looked glum and no-one was talking. I took a single seat and was annoyed with myself as I didn’t expect my race to finish here. One guy got on the bus he exclaimed ‘is this the minibus of shame!?’ I got off the bus, handed in my dibber and sloped off back to the car with my head hung low. I was disappointed not to have finished but gained a few valuable lessons to take forward in the future. The following weekend, the sun was shining and it was an unusually beautiful bank holiday weekend, which saw a trip to the Peak District. On the Saturday, an afternoon trip to the Roaches was spent making a den and doing some fun climbing with Charlotte and Ellie. This was followed on the Sunday by the Stanage Stumble. This 25 mile event was organised by and in aid of Sheffield Home-start, a charity which helps support vulnerable Sheffield families. There were both walkers and runners in the event, which started from the HSBC social club on the outskirts of Sheffield climbed up through the Limb valley before heading out into the Peak District.   The route ran past the Fox House pub and old haunt from my student days in Sheffield, where many an evening was spent in here after climbing on the local crags.   After the Fox House, there was then a steady climb followed by a scramble to the summit of Higgar Tor and then quick descent to check point 2. From here I was on unfamiliar territory, and for the life of me, couldn’t remember this part of the route from two years ago. Luckily, I was running at the time with a few other guys so navigation was easy.  Eventually we, climbed up to Stanage Edge and ran on the footpath  under the crags and across the main road to Moscar Lodge.   Heading towards the Rivelin Valley, I was now running on my own and remembered this part of the route well, having done a training run around here a couple of times since 2010. The route climbed up and then descended to Redmires Reservoir where another checkpoint awaited. After a swift cup of juice and a biscuit I ran back up the track heading towards Stanage Pole. I kept on the track until I got to the edge, then had to skip light-footedly across the top of Stanage Edge. Another guy from Hull caught me up and we were chatting merrily about the Bob Graham Round when we realised we had strayed off the main footpath and ended up crossing some heather and bog as we made our way to the final checkpoint at Burbage North.   We ran over Burbage then at the stream turned north west and followed a footpath which brought us back onto the track that we initially took earlier in the day. A fast run back along the track and a swift descent back through the LimbValley  we returned to the HSBC sports club.   I thoroughly enjoyed the run and was pleased that I managed to knock about 6 minutes off my time in 2010. Participants were provided with a meal at the finish and were presented with a badge and certificate. The organiser asked me if I’d had a good time and I commented that I found this event very enjoyable. On the way out we were given a Lush bar of soap, which was delightfully scented.   Weekend three saw me visiting the Lake District. The weather couldn’t have been different from the two previous weekends and as we were driving into the Lakes it was rainy and miserable. I was heading to Ambleside to run the Fairfield Horseshoe Fell Race. This again was a well established race, first being ran in 1966. This year it was a counter in the English Fell Running Championships so there was a big field, The entries had closed several weeks earlier when the limit of 500 had been reached.   When we arrived, cars were having difficulty getting onto the field because of the rain and as a result the start was delayed by 30minutes, which in fact turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Before the race everyone was huddled under a gazebo trying to stay dry, then 10 minutes before the start, it brightened up so by the time we set off  the rain had stopped.   We headed up through the farmyard then out onto the open fell, where the race continued up over Heron Pike and Great Rigg. There was a short shower at this point which gladly didn’t last too long. On reaching the summit of Fairfield, the interesting challenge started with a rocky descent then a short climb up to Hart Crag. The field had now dispersed and there seemed to be runners taking a variety of routes. At this point I was on the left of the wall on the climb up to Hart Crag. There was then steep decent to Dove Crag over rocky terrain and boggy patches. As we descended I knew there was an awkward rocky step beside the wall  and my intention was to avoid this, but much to my dismay I was lured in the wrong direction  and rather than going around to left, I ending up following a few hesitant runners as they made their way down this tricky step.   After a few strides it was back to race pace and a descent through a gateway and a familiar cheer spurring me on. I was surprised to see Darren at this point and didn’t recognise him as he had changed his clothes from earlier in the day to run up the hill to support.   We dropped down through some woods then onto the track and headed back towards the finish line. I had a sprint finish with a guy that was just in front of me and was pipped to the post (only just!) Unbeknown to me at the time, it was a  runner who I knew from one of the local club’s back home. We greeted each other with surprise as I held out my hand to congratulate him.   By this time the sun was shining and it had turned out lovely. Darren met me at the finish and we mingled with the other runners and had a drink of tea before heading back to the car to clean up. I had thoroughly enjoyed the race J