Haworth Hobble Sat 10th March

Crikey bobs that was tough, but suppose when your first proper 'long' event of the year is nearly 33m (53K sounds even worse) and over 4000ft of climb then lot of people could utter 'I told you so'.

Serious consideration last month was to rescind the entry fee, but a more than ok-ish run at Black Combe last week meant a 5 o'clock alarm was set this morning. I know most of our wfdbwgua contributers have done the event but for the benefit of our readership (?) here's a route map

(Thanks to FSS for the GPS trace (blue line) and apologies for the quality of the copy.)

The forecast had seemed quite benign yesterday, but in reality we had a strong westerly and pretty poor visibilty until about 11.00am. It was a stuggle at times keeping the runner in front in sight, after the first checkppoint anything more than 50m and they diasappeared. However by the time I got to the third manned checkpoint (technically the 4th cp) at Stoney Lane, things had improved weather-wise.

It was here I caught up with T'Y and his partner for the day, Geraldine. A quick hello and off I set with a doughnut in one hand and a hot-x-bun in the other, an improvement on the broken biscuits offered at the previous cp's. I started to do alternate left and right bites, but conditions under foot were getting a bit slippy, so the h-x-b went in the pocket for later.

A big sigh of relief having made it to the main road crossing without a hitch, and then onwards and upwards to Stoodley Pike. Some improvements to the paths in the area, including some stone slabs in the really boggy field section helped ease the forward momentum.

By this point I'd gathered quite a posse of runners, all keen for route guidance to save them the bother of studying the instructions. On the climb out towards Crimsworth Dene check point things started get a little tough. I remembered running more last year, and needed a stong talking to, to get the motivation going. By the time I got to the last tarmac section before the quarry workings on Pennistone Hill I'd had to resort to 3min run, 1min walk.

Took the alternative route through the churchyard on the last bit, avoided knocking any shoppers over and returned to base in 6hrs55mins.

A little quicker than last year, but definitely found it a lot tougher mentally. Talking your way through the tough bits with a good partner definitely makes them easier to bear. So my thanks to YJ for making my first attempt at the Hobble last year the more enjoyable one. I'm sure he'll be interested to see the split times and where I gained a few minutes on last year so from memory

Times @
CP 1 - Reservoir Embankment (7m) 1hr 31mins
CP 3 - Car Park Long Causeway (13m) 2hrs 46mins
CP 4 - Stoney Lane (15m) 3hrs 6mins
CP 5 - Mankinholes (18.5m) 4hrs 5mins
CP 8 - Horse Bridge (25m) 5hrs 23mins
CP 9 - Road/Track Junction 6hrs 3mins
Finish (32.9m) 6hrs 55mins (?approx, definitely under 7hrs)

TF