Liver Hill 5m/800ft

Preparation for this one was not up to usual standards. I arrived at Marl Pits Leisure Centre with 15mins to spare (courtesy of M66 traffic) and no map. Well never mind I thought, not much hanging about trying to keep warm and the race shouldn't be a problem as I've done it before. It's straight out and back and flagged. So fell shoes on, jacket on (remember this bit) and a sprint to the registration to fill out my form.

On the way out the route was much as I remembered. Past the rugby pitches, up a tarmac track, along a tricky, slippy narrow path next to a barbed wire fence, and then out across the sheep fields negotiating bogs, some very rickety stiles and faster runners on their way back. I even made it to the top clean from the knees up, unlike last time when I fell flat on my face depth-testing one of the bogs. So far, so good.

It's at this point I'll have to admit that I switched off. The hard bit done, I settled down to keep my place in the procession back to the finish. Probably about half way back, I suddenly snapped out of my trance and stopped. I'd a vague feeling that we'd gone awry, didn't know why and therefore didn't shout at the other runners in front. As I looked about, I then became fairly certain I was on the wrong side of the fence, but with no map to cross-check I had to go with gut instinct. As I back-tracked a bit I found a stile we'd missed about 50yds back, the others in front were now long gone. Oops! I made my way back to the finish ready to let them know about a few lost runners. It's not often though that I feel relieved to be passed near the finish, but fortunately(!) two of them caught me up (faster runners who'd started late). So I breathed a big sigh of relief and scoffed my Cadburys Caramel Egg prize as I counted the others in.

Remember the jacket, well that stayed on until I got back to my car where I could remove my vest and number and preserve my anominity. However, I would like to point out that at least two of the runners who went astray were Rossendale Harriers (wearing club vests), so if they don't know the way back to their own club-house I can't really be blamed for that.

Despite the slight error and weary legs from Sunday, I managed nearly a three minute improvement on last time, but not quite under the hour with a time of 1hr 44secs. Winning time was 34mins (Darren Kay, Horwich)

TF

Sounds fun. Obviously it's a mistake to switch off the navigation system even on a flagged course. They seem to do a lot of mud at Marl pits; is "marl" Rossendale speak for "mud"? Ed