On the 8th August Emma and I headed up to Arncliffe to take part in the Littondale Fete ‘4’ mile road race. This race was returning after a 2 year absence, thanks to Alan Buckley (former winner of the race) and Leeds City stepping in to organise it.
A nice field of about 40 runners set off in the direction of Kilnsey from the village of Arncliffe plotting a route which would take them across the valley bottom and the River Skirfare to Hawkswick before making a return journey along the north of the river back to Arncliffe.
On the outward leg we encountered an over-zealous driver of a blue van (sorry, I’m no petrol-head so no whizzy names from me – it had wheels) travelling in the same direction. Unfortunately for the times of us mid-packers blue van was, on at least 3 occasions, occupying (or trying to) the same space as runners as we all tried to squeeze past cars heading in the direction of Arncliffe. Thankfully I think most of the cars heading into Arncliffe were fell runners so they showed a great deal more patience and common sense otherwise it could have got messy.
Luckily the bridge over the river was closed to traffic so even if it had been a blue-van-man’s crusade against the race he had to take a different route to the runners at this point.
I last ran the race in 2011 and not only had my memory conveniently packaged up the section of road to the river crossing into a little 200 metre stretch – it was closer to 1km – but it had also implanted a ‘ford’ crossing – there was no such thing, just the bridge.
Conditions were okay for running, perhaps a touch on the hot side. I didn’t get overtaken in the second half of the race and caught 3 or 4, so I was happy the legs kept strong. My time was about 26 minutes (sadly a lot slower than 2011).
Emma finished on about 34 minutes having missed most of the traffic nonsense.
The fell race followed about 2 hours later and I entered this too, once I figured the legs could take it. For this race Emma took a spectating role whilst Gavin joined me for the race proper.
Here we are after/before our respective races, courtesy of woodentops.org.uk:
The fell race is a fast start along a track until you meet the steep sided fell to a flag then a traverse along the ridge to a cairn and the return home, via the steep descent, along the outward track. I spent most of the climb closing the gap that Gavin and others had opened up on the track only for the gap to open up as Gavin sped away of the descent. I recorded my slowest time on 3 visits but only by a small margin, which is comforting, in a way, given the road race.
The next day Gavin returned to take on the Cray Fell Race; a run up Buckden Pike from the Cray side. Of this race, Gavin writes:
“….[it has a] steep start, and it didn’t let up. Fun though! Especially the make your own way back. Lots of people choosing different routes, some with more success than others. A nice little tumble for me, which I’m sure actually made me quicker!”
I’ve never managed to pick myself up for the Cray race after the Arncliffe one so much resect to Gavin.
