A Sting In The Tail

It always take around about a year for the pain of a Lakeland Trails race to dull enough in order for me to feel ready to enter another one. Today we are at the Staveley 17k race, which is where the Lakeland Trails Empire started out 10 years ago. So happy birthday.

They direct us to the car park from where we walk to the start on Staveley Recreation Ground, which takes us past the conveniently placed Hawkshead Brewery. Which is conveniently, at least for today, no longer in Hawkshead. I smile at it in a ‘see you later’ sort of way.

As we arrive, the 10k-ers are arriving back from their little bit of torture and the children’s fun trail was just setting off. Which looked temptingly simple and gentle because I’m not sure how fit I am for this. 

There’s the dodgy knee of course and to make things worse, I hurt my back pulling some tents pegs out the other day. No idea how, and they say sport is how you get injured. Not true! That has taken a couple of days to recover but seems ok now...

As we register they hand us our souvenir technical t-shirts. They have a nice range of these for all their events. The only drawback being is that we have picked the only event with an orange one, again. They did this to us with Ullswater in 2011.

Then its 1pm, the Kookaburra All Stars Samba Drumming Band are in full drumming mode and L is about to start. She’s in the ‘Challenge’; I start at 2pm in the ‘Race’. Gulp. Before which the Kookaburras oddly go AWOL and then reappear short handed. Presumably the rest were still getting acquainted with the Hawkshead Brewery.

I sort of enjoy the race at first. It’s all uphill but the first few miles are on some blissfully un-Lakeland type tarmac. I bet L hated that bit. Even after then, it's the least rocky, least muddy race of theirs that I've done so far. It's also the hilliest.

When a marshal announces the 10k point I think phew, we’re over half way but no, he means it's 10k to go, not gone. Oh dear and my feet hurt. I probably have the wrong shoes on, I’m wearing very un-cushioned trail shoes but as the ground is so dry and hard normal running shoes would have been fine.

Near the end, they have promised us a ‘Sting in the Tail’. At first I think this is the sequence of unwelcome stiles across the last few fields but no. What they mean is the ascent of something called Reston Scar, which has a grinning photographer at its summit. I don’t grin back.

The plummet down from there to the finish is almost as painful as the climb up was. All that for a secret pudding from the Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Company. Although this proves to be not so secret and is actually the chocolate one L got at their Christmas race. Still I would have given that up for more water and some sports drinks out on the course. It was very hot and I was parched because they only had two water stations out on the course.

I also couldn't find the water at the end and wandered around in ever decreasing dazed circles until L grabbed me and trust a cup in my hand. She was not a happy bunny either, mainly because she'd only just finished, having had an hour’s head start on me. Oops.

Apparently Jonathan Brownlee's training partner won the race. Enough said.

With the race complete, it’s a choice between the proffered complimentary dip in the River Kent or perhaps a dip in the brewery instead. No prizes for guessing what we chose. Let me introduce you to Brodie's Prime, almost makes it all worthwhile.

We even had chips and then curry when we got home. Naughty folk are us.

(Saturday 1^st June)

A (Slight) Sting In The Tail

We head to Congleton via my parents house, to collect my Dad who does like a 7am start. We take him to all the glitzy places and today’s its Congleton’s turn.

Now I’ve had a bad knee all week, well longer actually, so I’m not at all sure how this is going to pan out. I intend to start slow and not build up to a faster pace.

As is now the norm, someone with an Olympic torch helps start the race. Then as we leave the start at the High School, we find the first few miles to be a bit hectic, very busy and we all end up crammed on a pavement next to a busy main road. It was a bit like the ark, two by two, as the field hadn't had chance to thin out by then. Although I suppose this did it. There was the grass verge but I didn’t want to get my trainers muddy and I think everyone else thought the same, so congested it stayed.

Then across a busy roundabout heading into a supermarket before we finally quit the built up area. Thereafter it’s mainly country lanes, villages and plenty of room to run or hobble. Where I’m sure the view would have been really pleasant, if it wasn’t for some high hedges and a covering of low lying mist that didn’t lift. Actually perfect conditions for running, just not for sightseeing and despite a few undulations it seemed a fairly fast course. Not that dissimilar to Ipswich the other week, in fact that was probably hillier.

The race is chip timed and well marshalled. The drinks were in cups but for once I didn’t mind easing down to walk to drink from them, to give the knee a rest. All the drinks stations also advertised sponges, but they proved elusive, I never saw one. There was an extra drinks stop, set up outside the Black Swan and I eased up, just in case... but it was only soft drinks.

The race is called the 'Sting In The Tail' which is because, on the map at least, there was a huge dip, or may crevasse is a better word, at 12 miles, that you would think you’d need full climbing gear to get out of. Ahh, the wonders of map scales. The dip was not that severe. I didn't have to crawl.

L is racing too, she’s chosen the Quarter Marathon option, which I think is a first. At only £6 it’s bargain. Although she doesn’t get the t-shirt, which was a bit dull anyway, to be honest. Instead she gets a teddy bear and a much better goodie bag than me. There’s not much in mine at all.

I queue up for a massage but it’s not looking like a proper leg breaking sports massage, just two women playing patter cake on peoples’ legs. Which is always welcome but not worth queuing half an hour for, so I go to join L and my father in the cafe.

We head back to my parent’s place and collect my Mum before heading to the Canal Warehouse in Shardlow, where it turns out they serve a poor Sunday lunch but some excellent Hobgoblin.

After a bit of late afternoon R&R we decide to check out a beer festival that is happening at one of our local pubs, the Admiral Rodney. It’s nothing to get too excited about but they do have Otter Ale and that takes us back to many happy days spent in Devon. The pub are offering a discount for us Camra members and a loyalty card scheme, which is rather poor as you’re only allowed one stamp per day, rather than one per pint as is the norm with these things and it’s only valid for the fortnight of the festival as well. So not much of an incentive to revisit.

Back home, the knee is throbbing again and I rip open a sachet of jointeeze or something, which was one of the things in my goodie bag. L and the dogs immediately start choking from the aroma of the stuff and Doggo even momentarily gets off the bed. It’s all in a good cause guys, my dodgy knee, as is the Savlon for other areas that have taken a bit of chaffing.

(Sunday 7th October)

Not Quite A Full Elephant

Today we drive up to somewhere near Hull for a ten mile race known as the Ferriby 10. A race that turns out not to go anywhere near North Ferriby, which is its spiritual home and the place that gives the race it’s name. We are directed to a car park at a High School in a place called Cottingham and then we have to walk to the start in nearby Skidby but no sign of Ferriby. We line up to start in the shadow of Skidby Windmill. Well there would be a shadow if there was any sun, which there isn’t. It’s not terribly warm, around 2 degrees I believe.

A glance at the history of the race tells me that this race has been held every winter since January 1954 and originally started at Hull’s Costello Stadium before passing through North Ferriby en route but only eight years later the race was rerouted, avoiding Ferriby due to increasing traffic levels on the main roads. The race did though remain close to Ferriby until 1991 when construction of a new road rendered the race route unusable and the whole event was moved out to Skidby, where it remains today.

The fastest time ever recorded across any of the routes used is an impressive 48.01 by some chap called Brendan Foster in 1980.

I say it’s cold today but, of course, running was colder in the 80’s.



I hesitate to use the words ‘fairly flat’ to describe the course. Those words have been misused quite a bit recently but this course does indeed fit that description... if you start running from around half way. In fact it’s probably even slightly downhill from there. The problem is the seriously ‘rolling’ first five miles. Did I say ‘rolling’? Because it felt like almost constant uphill at the time. Oh and I’m forgetting the sting in the tail, a final uphill section back to the finish by the windmill.

At the finish I’m handed a very nice technical tee shirt with quite a striking design on it that tells me I’ve just ran more than seven lengths of the Humber Bridge or 2,200 African elephants, if that’s how you prefer to measure things, or even more bizarrely 126,700 sparrows. How the hell did they work that one out?



I was pleased with my performance, mostly. I felt in quite good shape all the way around and my time was slightly quicker than the only other ten miler I can recall doing, the Chesterfield Spire 10 last year. The only real down side was that I’d been battling all the way with a ‘senior’ gentleman and was slightly gutted (ok massively gutted) when he skipped away from me on the final hill and beat me by, well, too many sparrows to mention, although probably not, thankfully, by a full elephant. So as the t-shirt says ‘1 happy runner’ (moderately).

I walk back to the next village, where the car is parked, to collect the dogs and then we all head back to meet L. We don’t quite get there before she crosses the line. Although the dogs get the good walk that they desperately needed, whereas I get a ‘good’ walk I didn’t need at all.

After the race we head down to visit an old school friend of mine somewhere near Market Rasen and they kindly do us a cracking Sunday lunch. Great post-race recovery food.

(Sunday 30th January)