Haworth Hobble

25% of the way there!

The long climb up to Top Withens from the start once again felt hard due to the near constant climbing plus the general tightness in cold calves not yet warmed up and trying not to get to carried away in the first half hour of a 6+ hour run.

The climbs up to Stoodley Pike, out of Heptonstall and up through Hardcastle Crags all felt long and torturous but actually, looking back at my times for the sections they weren’t as slow as they felt at the time.

Running through the valley above Crimsworth Dean Beck I was looking around for the giant Hollywood style lettering for “DRINK BEER” that was on the other side of the valley back in 2014. It wasn’t there and when I spoke to other runners they looked at me blankly so I’m starting to think that I was just hallucinating it!

Cutting across Penistone country park just before Haworth I was feeling strong again and managed to push harder, overtaking quite a few people across there and down into Haworth.

Coming back into Haworth we were reminded that the course is meant to go back down the cobbled street to the bottom and then back up and along to the school rather than down the stairs through the GP’s surgery. Jogging down the cobbles some of the supporters pointed out that pretty much no one else had ignored the obvious shortcut so I felt pretty dopey when I saw a large chunk of people I’d passed in the last few minutes finish ahead of me.

I’m pretty happy with it though, as with last time in 2014, I felt pretty comfortable throughout and afterwards (although I’m feeling a little more sore today than I did the day after last time) and I finished in a better time than expected despite taking it slowly. This was always going to be an event I wasn’t going to push too hard on because I’ve already got one eye on the Fellsman next month which is going to be the hardest race of the year.

Hopefully I’m going to be able to find some time to get some actual long runs in before Fellsman but I’m equally pretty terrified of injuring or aggravating even the slightest thing right now. I’ve just ticked off 3 decent ultramarathons and come through injury free so far so hopefully that will be enough even without getting a proper long run or two in.