50 Wold-erful miles



"Welcome to the Wolds"

 Wolds way memories

People I know, particularly runners can probably attest to the fact that I talk about doing the Wolds way in one go last year a lot! It was a real experiance pitching myself against the 79 mile undulating point-to-point Long Distance footpath. Running over a cool, drizzly summer Friday night, into a peaceful raining morning before completing on a cool, but sunny Saturday afternoon. With just a packful of food and drink and no outside assistance (barring a lift home from Filey at the end) it was one of the most fulfilling experiances I've ever had.

With this in mind an entry in the Woldsman 50 event this year seemed well overdue. With a circuit running the flat countryside away from Driffield, into the hills and almost unique Wold-land chalk valleys with trademark steep, short, ascents in and out of the almost symetrical and V-shaped valleys, before returning to Driffield. Another draw was that this would also be my first 50 - I've done 55 miles at Hardmoors a few times and several longer events. Finally there was the lure of LDWA hospitality.

Saturday morning and things didn't start particularly well, perhaps too relaxed with a rare, short 30min drive to the start line of a long event I set off in good time, but then on the edge of Hull remembered I'd left my pre-mixed energy drink, water and recovery drink bottles in the fridge. I'm a bit peeved with myself, but remind myself it's no big issue and even after retuning to collect I step into the hall at the Driffield showground nearly 45 minutes before the start.

A nights dining in Driffield and the Nemesis

After check in I caught up with Mark (Dalton) and Dave (Cremins) who travelled down together to this event and "bunked" in the hall. They filled me in on their interesting night attempting to tap in to Driffield's fine dining scene and finding a high carb feast of Chinese takeaway followed by cakes from tesco.

They'd had a disturbed nights sleep I learnt through the day of one guy who turned up to bunk without a sleeping bag, cover or cushioning and proceeded to almost freeze, his shaking audible to all. There was also a "cougher", who had driven the room mad of course (always one).


But a more mysterious presence was that of "the smoker" at the bunkhouse, recognised by Dave. Stories of whom make me think about the mysterious character from the X-Files. I wouldn't have thought long-distance running and smoking really worked together and this disconcerting mix - according to Dave - had wound up Jon (Steele) and Dave a bit a few weeks previously at the Calderdale Hike. He'd turn up before them at each check point, look all casual having a drag whilst Jon and Dave worked hard to find their way around the new route. I guess he was much aided by good nav choices as Jon and Dave aren't slouches. Though the teenager in me likes to imagine he actually stepped out of a blacked-out limousene a few hundred yards from each CP and trotted up.


Ready for the off



There was then fun and games with event HQ toilets. The blokes had one cubicle and a long queue, the womens had about 5, but were blocked. Thankfully I'd gone "a bit" before leaving home, but still had the feeling I was takiin g something out onto the course with me.

 So it begins



8am and we were off, I got an uneasy feeling (no, not the guts yet) as there were only a few in front of use in the first few hundred yards off the showground. Was I going way too fast? as I was almost involved in the cat and mouse game at the front of 'I'll follow you for a while so I don't have to bother navving as long as possible'.



Sledmere's Eleanor Cross



But as we left the outskirts of Driffield on a good track Dave, Mark and I formed a small second group. The group in front contained speedy Chris Brown, who usually finishes events ahead of us - he's having a bad day or me a good if I'm near or ahead. The others I didn't know and they were soon ahead and a few others caught from behind and ran along with us. Our early pace was fast, faster than 6mph and settled slightly as we reached more undulating ground towards CP2 at Sledmere and many fine momuments and statues - location of the grand Sledmere House stately home. The indoor CP further held us up with a delightful array or food. Mark was barely exaggerating when he said there were weddings with poorer buffets!

On towards the hills and after a steady track descent the first real climb, which took us to a farm with dogs which barked at everybody who went passed, this was even pre-warned on th route-descrip - they must have drove the owners mad that day as maybe 100 woldsman-ers would have passed through in dribs-and-drabs.

One of the early climbs

We must have climbed a bit in the route to here as we had a fairly big drop down towards an outlying eastern tentacle of Thixendale - the village of the dales name sits in a central part of the dale which the extends out in many different directions. A bit about Thixendale here.

But we didn't head into Thixendale yet, but the hills were here to stay for awhile and we started the walk-steep road climb out of Fairy Dale, which the levelled out at the car park for Wharram Percy and CP3.

The Wolds

Climbing Fairy Dale

After snacking at CP3 it was a downhill track to the site of the Medieval village of Wharram Percy. I need to spend some time looking around here one day as I always seem to just "pass through" on runs (this is part of the Wolds Way long distance footpath). We passed the foundations of medieval buildings and the major remaining structure, the roofless church, which has in part existed here since the 12th century. About this time my bowels made it known that I could really do with a pit-stop at Thixendale.

Wharram Percy Medieval church

We then climbed the muddy bank up to Deep dale. It briefly started to rain again as we plodded along the muddy dale top track. It soon stopped, but this didn't make trying hard to maintain a forward momentum on a mud path any more fun. After quite a long section Dave, Mark and I were glad to turn south and cut through another dale before the picturesque descent into pretty Thixendale.

An unexpected pleasure at Thixendale was a choice of hot food! Barely before I'd mixed another bottle of energy drink and changed maps my pasta with spicy sauce was served up. Very nice - Mark and Dave even found room for desert! I was also pleased to make use of the indoor WC to shut my bowel up.



Along plod along the top of Deep dale

 Outside it had started raining quite heavily so it was also time for all to don waterproofs. We took a walk down Thixendale main street and outta town digesting our early lunch and dodging puddles. We were soon off-road again and following a sedate southward bound dale bottom path out of Thixendale.

The heaviest shower of the day was soon over, but I chose to keep my waterpoof smock on and just adjust the zip-neck to regulate heat. It wasn't a warm day and the cold, strengthening wind from the north sea - often channelled through the dales - and frequent showers made the smock very useful as wind and cold protection. Being the kind of day it was I never overheated sufficiently the rest of the day to take off this protective layer.

Irrisistable lamb picture

It was a mostly dale bottom path to the next CP. First Thixendale south and past a large earth sculpture (which couldn't really be appreciated by running past it and must have been designed to be appreciated by Wolds wayers descending into the dale. Then a right branch to Bradeham dale, left branch to Wayrham dale - past an army of molehills - before climbin g to cross the A166 (York to Driffield road). After a climb up Callis wold we had the most fun descent of the day into - another - Deep dale. We then followed, pretty, Deep dale until a brief right turn to the Givendale scout hut, CP5.

Swooping down to Thixendale

The hilliest bit

We briefly retraced our tracks to then leave Givendale via an initially fairly steep plod uphill to then drop into Millington dale. My Grough route made this the toughest section of the route by climb - less than 5m but over 1000ft ascent makes this about as hilly a few miles as you can run in East Yorkshire.



The most fun descent of the day, to Deep Dale.... 2



Through Millington including down the drive of somebodies swanky modern pad before taking a snicket path - am I in Calderdale? - to the big grassy bank which is the other sidewall of the dale. We pretty much walked all of this near 350ft+ in less than 1/4 mile climb. Joining the Wolds way at the top for our second stint along this route.

Much as I like the Way this section is a bit of a head-doer. A slight climb along a field edge before a descent to cross, striking, Sylvan dale with 150ft stepped and on toes climb to bruise the calves a bit. Then follows another gentle rise and fall along a field edge before descending and ascending semi-steeply across a second branch dale from Millington dale. Once this levels out you then rejoin the main dale running on a muddy, narrow path (Huggate Sheepwalk) along the edge of the dale, slightly climbing and today into that wind!

A tough climb from Sylvan dale

I got my head down and decided to run this bit to get it over with - I'm happy enough running into a wind and seem to find it easier than some who seem to switch to walk mode when faced with a headwind. Nevertheless I was glad to reach the end of the dale and exit across a road to a tend picthed to block the wind and the next CP.

All downhill from here...



Grey sky consumes Millington dale



....said somebody at the checkpoint. After a chat and a yoghurt (nice change) it was on again along the Wolds way to roll over the fields above 700ft, often in wind and then drop down to meet a small road north of Huggate where we branched off the Wolds way for the last time today and took a pleasurable gradually descent along Cow dale, before branching left into Rabbit dale for a long stretch of running straight into "that wind". It doesn't look long on the map, but against strengthening resistance, Mark, Dave and I even took it in turn front running peleton style to share the workload and increase efficiency.



Some welcome light on a grey day



This only half worked as I put a fair bit of effort into getting through this wind tunnel quickly and probably went into the red that bit too long. Once we'd climbed out of the dale and along the road into Wetwang I struggled to keep up with Mark and Dave as they bounded down the road to the next CP.

Another good-humoured CP and we had a good laugh about the conditions and a few double-entendres as Mark got a vaseline rub-down on his back where his pack was chaffing. A bit of rice-pudding gave me some energy to go and it was on we go.

"Healing hands" at Wetwang

After a slight climb from Wetwang on road and hard track , there was a Driffield-bound turn and then a very long straight section of trail and track for the best part of the remaining distance, punctuated by a final CP at around 5m. Our pace had slipped a bit from looking like sub-10 earlier in the day, now to likely 10:30. And whilst I could still run my plod speed had dropped a bit below Mark and Dave's on this section.

As we cut through Little driffield in the last few miles I found some pace again and we all had a good run in. Chasing down another two just in front of us to finish joint 8th, 10:35, about one hour behind the first back. Quite happy with that as the wind made things hard work in sections, but with better pacing I probably should have gone under 10 on this course even this day. On the other hand.... a pat on the back, joint 8th of 166th finishers ain't bad.

After a bit of stew to put something back quick, our little group took advantage of quite an early finish for a long event and headed off home. A good soak and a good sleep the order or the evening and awake up refreshed on my birthday the next day, when I lavishly indulged in a breakfast and pub lunch out.

The Woldsman - 28th April 2012 - 10'35" - 50m - 4535 feet asc and desc (90.7 per mile)

Big three for March - 1: Golden Fleece Circuit

All is going well so far this year. Having completed two good months training with just a few LDWA challenge events in the mix it's now time for the switch up with back to back weekend events over marathon length.

1. Golden Fleece Circuit - 26.5m
2. Wuthering Hike - 32m
3. Hardmoors 55

The first of these events was the Saturday before last. I entered this new event organised to commemorate a local man and an opportunity to run an LWDA challenge-style event on my doorstep. But having done it I've realised its the first step back up to longer distances and days out. My legs also confirmed that on Saturday!

There was a really good turnout for a supposed 26.5m event from South Cave despite a grey, overcast sort of day. We'd be out through local villages and parkland into the agricultural rolling hills of the East Yorkshire Wolds. Returning to face its toughest hills in the closing 3 miles. The 'supposed' comment comes on the back of me plotting the route and finding it to be at least 27m on the map - maybe 26.5m was a string measurement - which usually means more when on my feet. Anyway, no complaints here about a bit of extra mileage, all a bonus to me.

I set off out with Mark, a conservative start worked well to have a catch up and for me to digest the last of breakfast. Over field edge tracks to Everthorpe - a little hamlet which unfortunately shares its name with a nearby prison - and then to North Cave. Here we emerged into the car park where there is a Rudolph's Romp refreshments checkpoint. For some reason I had it in my head there would be one here today, but consulting the map set me straight. No issues, I don't particularly like to eat so soon into a run.

Over the road and through Hotham Hall park, a good tarmacced track and continuing along fairly flat land meant we could keep up a better than usual pace for an LDWA challenge. Hotham village offered first refreshments, a nice piece of shortbread and off along field edge tracks into the woods paralleling the Rudolph's Romp route still. This then changed as we turned right after a short while following a long straight track-cum-road to North Newbald, through and round two of refreshments. A water top up was appreciated as despite the dreich conditions it was fairly close so I'd sweated a fair bit.



A typical Wolds dale on a somewhat sunnier, summer day

 The flatness of the course can best be summed up when I tell you the first walked climb came after this checkpoint as we scaled to a small hill brow and round the field edge to then drop down into what Mark and I agreed was a typical, if small, Wolds dale with its typical, almost geometric cut out of rounded hills above.

A good steady climb followed, we passed a few other runners and I felt like we were going quite strongly, though I could tell the distance already covered quite fast could make the latter miles of thism one quite tough.

Through another checkpoint at and it was now around a few field edges to eventually join a track into Bishop Burton. This was a section I'd covered once in a longer training run before, so I shouldn't have got lost and didn't.... really. Mark and I simply got carried away with good pace and followed several runners in front on auto-pilot, I soon realised something wasn't right. I knew we wereen't far off right so consulted the map and found we'd turned left rather than right a few hundred yards back, following a better track which then curled round to parallel the correct route anyway. Our navigation check meant that the runners ahead were now too far off to call back, so we continued parallel and then cut right along a field edge track edeging two small plantations to pop back on the course for the addition of no more than half a mile - definately going over 27m today now!

It seems that Mark and I and the guys in front who were now probably heading to the north of Bishop Burton rather than south for a ~2m extension, weren't the only ones adding distance today. I was quite suprised to see Jon Steele and Dave Cremins pass along the road in front of us shortly before where the track hit it. mark and I had thought they'd have galloped off well into the distance by now, but it seemed some degree of detour had allowed us to nearly catch up.

We mad good progress south along the undulating road before hitting field edge paths again into Walkington and the next CP. More confusion reined in Walkington with people seemingly not knowing the right (or best) way through the village. I steered us in the right direction, picking up another who seemed unsure along the way. On heading out of the village, Jon and Dave appeared from a side track now just behind us, local knowledge was serving me well now. In fact, at around this time I told Mark I knew the rest of the route like the back of my hand and that he could shoot me if we went wrong from here on in. I think this was well received news, as he offered a response suggesting he was not worried and didn't have a gun on him anyway.


The penultimate descent, To lovely Woo Dale, on a Sunnier day

More Wolds undulations and Skidby came and went, taking us to the often painful stretch of track which is Riplingham road. Straight ahead for the best part of two miles all the while slightly uphill. We were both glad when we joined an adjacent track climbing away over a hill to the main road. At this point its fair to say we were feeling the miles, going on for 25m now, but at least we were holding our own in what was now a well spaced field. With one exception we didn't see any other runners in the last hour, a reflection of what the length and navigation of the route was doing to quite a decent sized field - for an LDWA challenge anyway.

We got to the last CP - at a pig farm. At the recent Filey Flyer we'd had a CP in a barn next to munching cows, there appears to be a theme here.... what next? The CP lady and girls were very enthusiastic, which is also true of all volunteers today and generally in these events. From here it has up and over a small hill to the "muddy cross roads" - a local tag for this somewhat muddy, dale bottom, confluence of tracks.


The final and toughest hill of the day (taken on a sunnier day)

With a right turn we were on the Wolds way and heading on a very steady uphill to tackle the final few and hilliest miles of the day. Rain broke out from the otherwise non-offensive drizzle and murk for the first time, but lasted almost no time as we pushed ourselves up the path, road and track to the top of Spout Hill near Brantingham. Coming down Spout hill, on a clear day gives you arguably the best view of the area as you look down over flat lands north and south of the humber and into South Yorkshire. Part way down we switched off the tarmacced drive onto a fenced path which runs down through pasture to meet the road at Brantinghams pretty church. Up the road and it was time for two short but steep climbs - pictured above. Firstly up and down into romantically named Woo Dale. Then on up the initially steep walk to top of Mt. Airey.

Looking back down this hill as we disappeared into trees we were quite surprised to see somebody at the bottom of the hill. We were finishing ok despite the mid-run pace, but these guys were obviously very strong. This made us pick up our pace a little towards the top of the hill and put a spring in our step as we rounded the farm, followed the drive sweeping downhill and then cut off onto the downhill path into South Cave. I kept having a look back during the final mile towards the finish, but we'd done enough to hold our hard earned place in the field.

So lots of quite fast pace for trail and the calves felt this over the next few days. But next up, my first attempt at the slightly longer - 32m - Haworth Hobble/Wuthering Hike over in Bronte Country.

On the first day of Christmas....

Ok its not the first day of Christmas, but as a gift to myself I did East Yorkshires own LDWA challenge, Rudolph's Romp. Having done this last year I know its a decpetive course, giving you a few teasing climbs at the start, then mile upon mile of flatter stuff, followed by longer steady climbs beyond halfway and razor sharp littel climbs mixed in beyond the 20m mark. One might almost call it cruel. I'm sure if it were a half marathon the speedy, race-winning, PB-hunting, talented type would avoid it. Or do it once and moan about the hills at the end when they missed there target time by 5 minutes.

I digress - anyway it was a sunny and rather pleasent, calm December morning. Which was just one ingreadient in making my day. Having done a few hilly LDWA events of late I feel I'm mostly recovered from the Atlantic Coast challenge / Snowdonia marathon tag-team so I stuck to my plan to try and crack 4 hours today. Looking at last years 4.27 this may seem ambitious, but last year I don't think I was 100%, suffering from 12m which I rarely do in a longer event these days. Also, the aforementioned weather this year, it was pretty muddy in places, but I think this is preferable to last years colder conditions which meant ice in places (especially roads) and ice covered snow remnants which can be dangerous. I also knew the route this time.

I was scarily task focused in some ways. I knew it was 24.5m from last year so set the ol' faithful 305 to give me lap splits at 6m intervals. My focus perhaps failed me in other ways, I forgot my pre-mixed energy drink so had to totally rely on CP water or cordial. Nearly worse I dropped my Rombalds plastic mug a few miles in so could have been cupless and I didn't see any plastic cups at CP. Luckily I was on road when it happened so it made a clatter.

Before the start I chatted with the large City of Hull AC crowd assembled for this "unnofficial" club event/day out. I then preceded to get carried away running the first mile or so at about 8min/mile pace as the speed bunny's and racing snakes dragged me along. This starts with a road section to thin the eventers a bit, then the first soon the first short steep climb, I walked this, others around my position didn't, with recent experiance I felt like saying to them "chill out, there's a long way to go" and running on a muddy slope at this angle is barely faster than walking. But, I minded my own business and soon passed these guys again ;¬)

A few climbs and drops later and time for the most prolonged flat section of any LDWA challenge I've done. Not to say its boring though, fields, a food stop, acountry estate, woodland tracks dodging monster puddles and then the welcoming site of a church spire. This is usually the first tell-tale sign of an oncoming village in LDWA challenge-land. As I arrived I saw Chris Brown, who I'd briefly chatted with earlier, leaving the barn CP. I topped up on liquid (as much as I could get in cup), sweet goodies and walked on nibbling and supping.

The challenge now kicked in. The false sense of security was reaping its vengeance all around me. People walking, slowing down, having a breather, this bit got me last year but I wasn't stopping today. The "lumpy" grass/mud path soon gave way to a long and steepening slog up Arras Wold. We turned into the wind along a road briefly and then reentered muddy trails on and off, up and down for a few miles. Including the much appreciated sandwich CP - sandwiches have become my top up food of choice for these things. My pace was good and I was starting to catch people up regularly. My pace had barely dropped in the second half upto 3/4 distance, any difference being down to the hills. Hitting the roads again near the High Hunsley beacon was reassuring, I can never quite figure why this is the highest point in the area as I hadn't seem to gain much height after loosing a lot from about 16m off Arras Wold.

Then came the sting in the tale, dropping into Drewton Wood was briefly quite steep and muddy = hard work. Then followed a long woodland drag before the penultimate section of climb, drop and checkpoint near South Cave. I'd planned around walking this muddy climb but found enough grip and energy to jog most of the way up (without being inefficiently slow). The climb from South Cave takes in a bit of tarmac drive before "Devils staircase", a muddy, rocky, steep climb enclosed by skeletal trees and criss-crossed by there routes. I mostly walked this as the combo of 23 miles in legs, steep incline and rough path made running overly hard work. Back at the top of Mt Airey and then that brief drop before the last climb through pretty (muddy) Woo Dale. Off the last climb I even tried to race in the runners ahead of me along the road into Brantingham village, didn't quite get em ;¬)

I completed a very satisfying, hard-worked performance in a better than expected 3 hours 48. Most people I talked to afterwards seemed pretty happy and had enjoyed the event even if they'd not met an aspirational target. A few tea's and some hot soup later I headed off to relax on a sofa for the rest of the day, very contented. If only the Tigers could have won!

Reinvention

The post title and picture are perhaps a bit OTT. Its not like a major change, but nevertheless I feel like I've just closed off one chapter of my running adventures and started another one.

9:30 - I lined up on a warm and windless start line for a flat 10k where I could give my PB a serious dent, plan was starting at near pace and gradually winding up to something under 41mins. Didn't happen - all the km's were somewhere in the 4:05 to 4:20 region as I just saved scraped under 42. After talking to a few other runners I headed back to the car and as I sweatily-stretched, I mulled over that this is my last planned road run until about October. A bit of a disappointing one but I now had a single focus on off-road, distance training until October. A 40min 10k is a long term target of mine but doesn't fall in with plans this year.

10:45 - On the way home I pulled up at the quarry access road turn off. Got out the car and started to run up the stoney road up onto the Wolds. Not totally sure why, warm-down? pick-me-up? maybe... but I think I actually wanted to give my new training plan a starting point, or start a new chapter. I ended up doing nearly 5 more miles on undulating trails and roads. Slow going, but I felt good again, felt I had saved the weekend from being just 6 hard road miles and now had a good session in the bag to take me into next week when I'm going to start my hardest training plan yet.

Marsden Moors Meander up next week, anybody else doing?