GRAND TO BE BACK AT IT

Wednesday 26th April 2023
FOE EDGE FELL RACE
Cowpe, Nr. Rawtenstall
4.1 m/1100ft
Time: 40:10  Pos: 16/59

Although having pinned a number on at last year's Cross Country Nationals for more nostalgia than anything, it's been almost four years since I last ran a race in which I felt in decent enough shape. My last proper appearance was an injury inducing mess of a run on the Fairfield Horseshoe in the heart of Cumbria. It's been a rough road back since then. Plantar faciitis for eighteen months, knee troubles and niggles elsewhere.
Age + wear + tear = total crock.
However, I've never given up on it. The fells have a huge place in my heart and running and racing on them is, for me, simply the most exhilarating feeling. Fell running is the absolute sport of Kings and Queens and I say so without any doubt whatsoever.
After a fairly solid, uninterupted period of running so far this year and a regular Monday run on the moors, the time had finally come to look at the fell race calendar with more than just a wishful curiousity.
This evening race in Rossendale ticked all the boxes. Low key, turn up on the night without all the online pre-entry bollocks, pay a fiver and crack on.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, put a decent shift in and although feeling I could do a bit better with a few more races under my belt, didn't get any hang ups about it. I came unstuck a bit on the main steep climb up to Whittle Pike where an old rival of mine, Steve Smithies and impressive Rossendale Harrier veteran, Mervyn Keys, powered past and I couldn't get back at them in the latter half of the race.
Foe Edge was a cracking little race with a super steep downhill finish and overall was a good blast out.
There were some folk there who I hadn't seen for years and looked at me as if they'd seen a ghost.
Clayton-le-Moors Harrier Wayne Mackintosh was looking quite trim and has been doing well the last few years and improving vastly. But on the back of a road Marathon about nine days earlier, was he really telling me he was not only doing this sort of race so soon afterwards to "See how my legs feel", but with an intention of being on the startline of the Yorkshire Three Peaks Race in just three day's time? Maybe I've mellowed or been out of the game too long, but it seemed like utter insanity to me. Not surprisingly I didn't see Wayne's name in the results at Horton-in-Ribblesdale and I'm not sure he would have got his hefty entry fee back with such a late withdrawal either. A reminder of how nuts runners can be. 
Calder Valley veteran Steve Smithies couldn't quite grasp that I was almost a minute and a half behind him and that yet I was buzzing. But I'm in a much better, more realistic place after all that time out and I was simply grateful to be out there having a go, running hard but sensible enough to stay within the threshold of injury threat to hopefully roll up at another race soon.
Crown green bowls may have stolen the sharper edges of my competitiveness, but I absolutely love fell running. I'll never give it up so long as I can get out and do it.