Burnsall Classic

When it comes to taking part in classic events, you can’t get much more classic than Burnsall – the clue is in the name. The race has been a fixture in the fell-running calendar since the 1870s after a group of pub-goers decided to plan a race route to the top of the hill and back down again; one of them, a young whippersnapper named Tom Weston, decided to give the course a quick trial and allegedly ran naked to the summit and back. The race then became an annual event and is truly one of the most revered races in British fell-running history. At only 1.5 miles and 850 feet of ascent, Burnsall is one of those ‘must-do’ races, a piece of genuine running heritage on our doorsteps – well a forty-five minute drive away (thanks for the lift Paul).

There have been numerous legendary performances at Burnsall; a race epitomised by a lung-busting ascent to the heraldic ‘flag on the fell’ and then a soul-searchingly ferocious descent over some of the roughest, heather-bashing terrain known to man (or goat). As a geeky junior fell runner I spent plenty of time looking up accounts of Ernest Dalzell’s 1910 record where he ran an unbelievable time of 12 minutes and 59 seconds, including allegedly nailing the whole descent in 2 minutes and 42 seconds. Dalzell eventually passed away in the Great War but his legacy lives on, albeit his record was eventually beaten by Fred Reeves in 1977. It has only been bettered twice: by Reeves in 1977 and Jon Wilde in 1983.

Records and performances that would be the stuff of legends weren’t my focus for this race. I knew that this was an important one in the Hyde Park Harriers Fell Championship. Early championship leader Richard Edwards was on holiday and I have been engaged in a little tussle with Michael Vargas over the first few races. We both had two wins apiece and this would be a rare show-down between the two of us. I felt that the rough nature and technicality of the course would suit me once we got to the descent but I also knew that Vargas’ ability to power through the pain barrier could lead to a really gut-wrenching chase on the ascent. To make matters even more interesting, Dan Cross (who had finished 7^th the year before) turned up – I had a rabbit to chase.  There was a really good turnout in the end: myself, Dan, Vargas, Colin (back from Portugal and having done the 10 miler), Sam, Naomi and Paul, with Dan Waas and Toby on chief cheering and burger consuming duty.

We got there in plenty of time as Paul and Sam were going to do some miles before and myself and Mike decided to recce the course (complete with coffee and cake). I had done the junior race in 2009 so I had a general idea of the starting ascent but I quickly realised that the junior route had all the easy running and that what lay beyond that was the real test! A quick walk up the hill revealed what was in store and we scouted out the descent to try and find the best route off. We even managed to accrue some local knowledge and eventually were content with the optimum way.

The race started off at a hell of a pace and myself, Dan and Vargas all were running together through the first (STEEP) field, I was tucked in behind Dan and Mike was just behind me. I could see the elite of UK fell-running streaming off into the distance as Sam Tosh took the race out hard and Victoria Wilkinson was doing a fine job of possibly being the best female British runner around, she was comfortably in the top 10 on the climb. As the climb got steeper I noticed Mike had dropped off a little and I was still managing (just) to cling on to Dan as we made our way through the heather at the top; I was feeling ecstatic with my position, especially knowing that the rough descent on the way down would favour me.

Now I have a dodgy right ankle. I also really like horrible, nasty, technical and foul descents. The two really don’t go hand in hand at all so this time I had a great idea; I’ll tape my right ankle up. As we got onto the descent I managed to take two runners straight away and was just getting back on to Dan’s shoulder when SNAP, my left ankle went. This had never happened before and I felt like I’d lost an air of invincibility – it’s my right ankle which is screwed, never my left. I immediately eased off and thought I’d have to walk back in and screw up what had been a good run up until that point. I realised that I could still run-ish on it and a quick look behind and no Vargas spurred me on through the last couple of fields and into the finish – it was a super painful ending fuelled by adrenaline. I was very happy to get over the line in 20^th place in 19.03, around 20 seconds behind Dan. I had my customary collapse over the line and waited for the others to come in.

Mike came in not far behind in 31^st place, impressive considering he’d also destroyed Oakwell Hall parkrun that morning. Colin was next (after completing the 10 mile road race) but appears to have been omitted from the results. Naomi was followed in closely by Paul and then Sam came through a couple of minutes later to complete the HPH set.

Even though I ended up missing the best part of four weeks whilst my foot recovered this was one of my favourite and most anticipated events of the HPH calendar. It’s akin to being able to run in the Prefontaine Classic or riding a queen stage in the Tour De France. I really hope it is in the Fell Championship next year and I think the 10 mile road race is a good shout for the Road Championship too.  This is one of those ‘must-do’ races, at least just once to say you’ve done it, so hopefully I’ll see a few more HPH there next year (and this year’s contingent returning).

Beamsley Beacon race - 22nd June

Ten Hyde Park Harriers made the short trip up to Addingham for the latest round in the Fell Championship: Beamsley Beacon. A serious crash on the A65 had myself and Paul (who had kindly picked me up from work so I could race) sweating that we would miss the start but in the end we got there with plenty of time to spare. The subsequent 15 minute delay to the start of the race was well received as we caught up with the eight other Harriers.

I have been extremely excited for a long time about racing on the fells for the club as it’s really my first love when it comes to running and I feel like I’m much more comfortable at home on the fell than on the roads. My day at work consisted of plenty of excited bouncing around and the odd extra cup of tea, with a few more custard creams for vital hydration and pre-race fuel. I even exploited my running of the Year 3 and 4 cross country club to make sure I got an extensive pre-race stretching regime with some good drills in – I was really up for it and the nervous wait in the car as we hit traffic and obstacles only heightened the anticipation. The evening before I had looked at previous results and decided that a good target would be to try and get under 40 minutes for the course – running watchless I had no way of tracking this but it was something in the back of my mind as a good gauge of fitness.

The race route itself was mostly a straight forward affair from what I’d heard in the previous days from browsing forums and the FRA page, with the exception of some murmurings about a shortcut on the descent worth up to three minutes. It combined all the great aspects of traditional Yorkshire fell racing - runnable climbs, technical descents and route choice – with some really fast trails and roads leading out and back to the fell. I particularly enjoyed the ascent as I managed to get into a good little group and we worked our way up the hill steadily overtaking people all the way. I was trying to judge my effort by keeping a couple of runners I knew in my sights, they were about 30 metres clear of me and I held that gap solidly for most of the climb. I died a little about 3 minutes from the top but managed to grind out a lower gear and just about get there in a decent place – I reckoned I was about 15^th.

The descent was all about trying to find the ‘Golden Ticket’ of the shortcut. I’d heard that it was a twisty technical run through an easy to miss ginnel. At the top of the climb I could just about see a Wharfedale vest disappearing into the distance so unashamedly I hung back and waited for an Ilkley vest to come past me and he confirmed that he could indeed show me the way. We managed to get past a Wharfedale runner just off the summit and then plunged down the technical descent. I’d said that I wouldn’t just follow him then sprint him at the end but I very quickly realised that his descending skills on the rough stuff were far better than mine and once he’d duly shown me the way he disappeared off into the distance.

The run down to the finish was a fast affair back through the fields. There was one little sting in the tail – a footbridge and climb up some switch-backing stairs back up onto the road. I managed to slog it up the last uphill realising that I was in a no-mans-land, the runner ahead was too far gone and the runner behind me was considerably far away. I kept pushing the pace all the way back along the road as I felt really happy with my run and when I finally made the last push over the line (just a street corner outside a pub – you have to love fell racing) I was told I’d finished 13^th and in 39.14. I was ecstatic and bounced around more avidly than even before the race.

I then jogged down the road to watch all the fellow Harriers finish. Jimmy defied the sleepless nights and lack of miles to come in second Harrier, then Scott (who had taken a wrong turn when trying to find the ginnel) came in just ahead of Robin who had a storming run for 11^th lady. Jonathan Mason was in not long after looking incredibly fresh. Andrew Mitchell was next in just a shade over 55 minutes. Two Harriers stormed through in under an hour with Richard Edwards and Paul Dickens finishing in quick succession. Rick Pullan followed a couple of minutes later and then Dote Stone, having made a navigational error, came in to complete a successful outing of all 10 Harriers to the top of Beamsley Beacon and back.  

A quick drink in the pub with an inspirational tale from Dote about her recent fell exploits in the Lakes (I need to try that Buttermere Horseshoe route) and then it was back to Hyde Park to pack for my Paddy Buckley adventures with Steve Rhodes and company! It truly was an awesome start to an incredible weekend.

Top stuff everyone.

Hyde Park Harriers Results Below.

 

Tom Thomas – 13^th – 39.14

Jimmy Sheldon – 53^rd – 45.00

Scott Watson – 93^rd – 49.47

Robin Culshaw – 96^th – 50.17

Jonathan Mason – 125^th – 54.18

Andrew Mitchell – 132^nd – 55.42

Richard Edwards – 144th – 59.05

Paul Dickens – 148th - 59.50

Rick Pullan – 156^th – 1.02.40

Dote Stone – 162^nd – 1.05.53

Something about running uphill (and my struggles to get better).

Got carried away writing a response on a forum. Please note that all of this is probably rambling useless pseudo-informative opinion but for what it is worth my attempts to get faster uphill has made me think a lot about how to get better...this is kind of what I've tried and has worked for me. I'm no expert and it's a long post but there might be something of some use to you.



1) If you want to run fast hill (you finished in the top 40% so any real improvement would be taking you probably into the top 30 at least) so you first of all have to look at the amount of real speed you have to play with. Fast hill runners are fast runners on the flat and there's a definite correlation. There's the odd runner who has an uncanny knack for ascending quickly (usually with a caveat like super steep) but generally your top end climbing speed is well linked to flat pace. There's a little deviation but not as much is made out sometimes.



2) Running uphill is certifiably the best way of improving uphill speed. Hills at any time are great in training. I try to put them in pretty much every run in some way, except for the odd flat tempo session which will probably have less than 30ft of climb per mile. Hill reps are good, as is running uphills in steady runs as tempo efforts and even slogging around a long hilly run. I'm lucky enough to enjoy running uphills so I don't mind it too much.



3) When I do this in conjunction with some faster running at some other time (usually a flat tempo run or an interval session on the road) I reap the benefits of this even more. I've been running strongly uphill- by my average standard - on two occasions in the past three years, both times I was combining good speed work on the flatter stuff and a lot of hills in my running. I don't do silly-short reps or but I mix up track and road stuff to get a bit more top end speed.



4) Strength work is a massive help. One of my biggest problems with running hills has always been a tendency to keel over a little and probably have too weak quads for the picking my legs up. I've tried to sort that out by doing a fair bit of core work: various planks, supermans, pull-ups, press-ups and also deadlifts. I've always done a bit of outright strength stuff like a chest day or arms and stuff but really that's maybe a couple of easy days a month - it does help though and you won't get ridiculously big like some people think. A lot of fell runners think they'll do a few press-ups and then all of a sudden they'll be getting cast as Arnie in the new Predator reboot and no longer able to get around a BOFRA on a Saturday afternoon. Strength work is a really good thing to look at seriously as a way to improve, it's certainly helped me loads over the past three years I've been doing more of it with my running. It's one of those things where as I've improved at it my running has always improved as well...it's also a good thing to do on a rest day! I don't really do any leg specific stuff like quads, calves, hamstrings etc because I like to rest my legs so I can run hard in more sessions...it's a choice made at the moment out of what I enjoy doing more but if I seem to plateau I'll look to add more in for certain. The one thing I do frequently (sometimes daily) deadlifts with a light weight (bodyweight), generally I do it when I've had a bit of a niggling injury in my leg as they seem to be a miracle cure and they really hit the legs.


4) Recently when I've been thinking about my uphill running I've noticed a lot that I can blow up quite hard from running too quickly at the bottom. I've started trying to make sure that when I'm climbing my breathing is completely regulated and I'm not blowing too hard. Usually the speed difference between breathing heavily on a climb or keeping it calm and controlled isn't too far apart in terms of speed and it's always better to be getting time back at the top than trying to clutch onto seconds as people reovertake you after half the climb. I've practised this a lot on running a lot of steady hills at tempo pace but concentrating on being on that edge for breathing controlled. Obviously you might have the mental pain to push on that much harder side of hard on a climb and not bonk - for me I'm working towards that but it's a long slog (much like most hills.

In short, to try and get better uphill I've had to do more uphill running, do strength work and also seriously look at improving my absolute pace on the flat. Improving and calmer breathing seems to have been a good tactic when racing hills and might be worth a look at as well whilst you're doing those things.



A really long answer that I enjoyed writing more than intended. I'm no expert either so take it with a pinch of salt, they're pretty logical though and loads of people would recommend them, I'm pretty much just repeating various things I've read and tried myself - these are the ones which I enjoy and seem to help me improve. I'm always trying to consider what to do improve more, usually as a side thought when I'm running up a hill and I promise myself I'm going to do more yoga, more leg strength work, more reps, more everything. Just pick some things and try them - eventually you'll find some things which work and are fun.

Happy running.

LS6

Disclaimer: This is not a blog post inspired by Arthur Lydiard- LS does not stand for long and slow, nor does 6 mean 6 miles, 6 kilometres or 6 lots of anything. This is a blog post in tribute to and inspired by a humble postcode.

There are not many postcodes in this world whose simple combination of letters and numbers have an air of excitement, mystery and maybe even infamy. I can think of a few off the top of my head, SW19 is famous for the hallowed turf of Wimbledon, Stockton 209 for the hallowed toughness of the Diaz brothers.....then I'm left scratching my head. Perhaps it is the case that postcodes are secondary to place names, street names or even names of individual buildings. In this age of false news, divided communities and general disillusionment are there any new postal giants waiting to put themselves on the cultural map, not just on some now disgruntled privately-employed postman's delivery list?

For a group of runners living, training and making ends meet in the shady backwaters of the student wastelands of Leeds one such postcode is firmly placing itself as the scene of an athletic counter-culture. Away from the great fabled training locations such as Boulder, Bloemfontein and Chamonix this post code, composed out of parts of Beckett Park, Burley, Headingley, Hyde Park, Meanwood and Woodhouse, is taking it's place as an icon of modern running; a mecca in a place fit for a Mecca Bingo. Looking past the fears of a 'Broken Britain' and overcoming the shadow of 'Trump's America', we have a place where dreams become reality, where every terraced row is a Strava segment waiting to be conquered and every lamppost has claimed a victim on a pack tempo run. It's easy to think of a postcode as just being comprised of cold, hard geographical facts but as great jazz maverick Howard Moon once so memorably replied when asked the question "What is LS6", the only true analysis of this peculiar location is to say "LS6 is a place, LS6 is state of mind."

It is easy to see how the locations named previously have installed themselves as the monumental locations for running. Boulder is simply stunning, a community built upon the principles of living high in the mountains, a place where every lunch time runners head out to put in serious mileage. Running isn't just part of the culture there - in many ways it is the culture. Chamonix has altitude, views and some of the best mountain running in the world. My all time favourite place - The Chew has some of the finest trails in the UK and views to match. It is a little harder to capture the spirit and clamour of LS6 in such simple terms; the place is for the most part a slightly gritty, run-down student area with more of a reputation for being a drug runners hotspot rather than one for serious runners - on the face of it it's very much like a bespoke area designed to be the locale for a Shane Meadows film.

Perhaps it is the characters of LS6 who are emblematic of the spirit of the postcode. I don't generally  mean the zombified students, snope sharers and the bedraggled figures who congregate outside the Brudenell but they in some part do encapsulate the spirit- a stoic attitude in the face of new interest charges on student loans, an attack on liberal values and the on going relentlessness of Brexit attitudes. LS6 endures. These are the stories and fables of LS6. It is a place looking inward but projecting outward, it's a hive of activity - gigs and social justice on every street corner, loud house parties and yet for a few it's about unlocking their running potential. The stoic attitude is the same, a grim reality - dodging dangerous drivers, clueless stragglers and pot holed pavements in search of self-improvement. Being waylaid by the pesky traffic lights at the bottom of Cardigan Road, the abuse of the local drunks outside Sainsburys - 'pick those knees up' or the catcalls of the drunken girls misspending their youth in an Uber.

Since moving to back to Leeds in August, I have been blessed with the good fortune of meeting some absolutely fantastic people through my running. My new club Hyde Park Harriers is made up of a couple of hundred members who are all amazing and made me feel very welcome from the start. I've found a great training group of runners who are all committed to self-improvement and also to the improvement of the runners around them. I think this is one of the things which has instilled a new found love for the area. I love the fact that in a relatively small area there are so many highly performing runners with as much of a passion for running and training hard as myself. I've come on leaps and bounds in the past 8 months and that is in no part down to the fantastic people who I've met through running in Leeds and I'm now extremely lucky to say I've got some really good friends at the club.

I've had my fair share of running clubs over the years. I started out training at East Cheshire Harriers but they weren't really for me. Then I tried Sale Harriers - same thing there. Saddleworth came next and they were the perfect fit for me at the time. I feel like they did a great job of reigning in my over-zealousness for long distances at young age whilst also giving me the push and support I needed growing up. Other clubs included Calder Valley (for a couple of years) and a short spell at Bingley Harriers. After a few years injured, I made a Wilfred Zaha-esque return to Saddleworth Runners and ticked over. Until I joined Hyde Park, I hadn't really felt that the clubs I'd joined, other than Saddleworth, had really fit with my aims and ambitions. First and foremost, I'm a running enthusiast, I love running and everything about it from race stats, training hard, going to new locations and reading anything about running I can get my hands on. Over the past few years, I think Saddleworth has kind of changed its focus  and increasingly has become less top-end performance-centric and more about being social and running as a part of that, so maybe I was coming to the point where I had to find faster people to train with.I love the club and the people but admittedly I'm hungry for improvement and competition. Certainly, I found joining Hyde Park to be very refreshing and to be able to consistently train with a decent number of runners who are all around or above my pace has really brought me on leaps and bounds. I'm even managing to be very sociable by my standards. I'm currently helping to organise the Calderdale Way Relay teams for the club so I've been doing lots of research, reccying and getting to know everybody...I even think it's going alright for someone with about as much organisational consistency as the guy from Memento. If you are ever in Leeds for any reason on a Tuesday or Thursday night then you should get yourself out with HPH- they're just wonderful!

Then we get to the actual locations. For many inhabitants of the 6, this area is comprised of raggedy, damp terraces and the impending feeling that the TV License people are going to check on your false claim of not owning a TV. For a runner, these streets provide a comforting home of discomfort and fatigue. Akin to the favelas of Rio, the terraced mountains of Royal Park Road and Manor Drive rise high above the primordial soup like beacons of hard work and determination - former residences for many successful students but the stuff of dreams for the aspiring hill runner. The relentless red brickis punctuated by a plethora of green spaces; ranging from large parks to small snickets like going from uncovering treasure chests to hard-found trinkets, it's a canvas for training creativity and it's all out there to be discovered. Want to do a hard interval session, head for Burley Steps, want to go for a fast trail run then head to Meanwood, want to do hills then choose a direction. You truly are spoilt for choice here and as they say variety is the spice of life.

The great marathon runner Wilson Kipsang commented in an interview a while ago that one of the things which makes him so determined and able to endure pain for such a prolonged time is his living conditions when he is training hard for his events up in the mountains in Kenya. LS6 has that element to it- run down houses with uncaring landlords, a reputation for being able to see your breath indoors even in summer, Soviet-style kitchens with as many as six people sharing one toilet in a house. It's practically the perfect location for the discomfort needed to thrive as an athletic performer.....but if it gets too much then Grove Café is just down the road and it has a fantastic menu (you can even get vegan pizza) so it's not just for the masochists.

I haven't wrote anything on this blog for over a year now so I thought it was time to get something new (and not very serious) written - I don't believe everything that I've put here but I do put this to you - If Kipchoge lived and trained in LS6 then he'd have definitely have found that 26 seconds.