It seems a long time ago now since the Hardmoors55 but I have not been home since the race and access to the computer at my son's house has been restricted by his work requirements. That is only partly the story though - for the best part of the week I had a sneaking suspicion that I had finished last but did not want to own up to it unless I had to. In fact when the results came through I can claim 39= out of 42 with two other determined soles plodding in behind us.

There are plenty of other accounts of the race and the weather so I won't dwell on general points but just aspects of my personal experience. For reasons that I cannot fully fathom myself I had made no arrangements for breakfast on the morning of the race. I knew we were far too early for a hotel breakfast and kept thinking about the options in the preceding few days but failed to take a decision. In the end I improvised with some hot cross buns that we had brought for the drive up the previous day.

I was still a bit anxious at the start about the niggling ankle injury, an occasional knee twinge and the lack of training that these had resulted in. In the end the knee and ankle performed OK though I was conscious of a weakness in the ankle throughout. The lack of training though did show from Osmotherly onwards.

I started in leggings and a windproof top over a short sleeve vest with a warmer top and waterproof in my pack. This worked out OK and I stuck with it until the Lyndale checkpoint when I switched to the warmer combination for the night section.

The run went OK to the first checkpoint though a little slower than planned. A long toilet stop on the leg to Osmotherley did not help but I was still going reasonably well. From there on I was still running but a fair few passed me (though I did pass the odd one also) From Osmotherley to Bloworth Crossing was the only section I knew - from two Lyke Wake Walks and an Osmotherley Phoenix. It was particularly annoying therefore to get lost approaching the Bloworth checkpoint. Just before the old railway line I caught up with Chris Peach who was consulting his map. We turned the right way along the line and then persuaded ourselves we were not on the railway but the track (I think I was mainly responsible for this). This could only mean we were too far south so we turned round, headed north and past the point where we had joined it. Shortly after this I realised we were in a cutting - generally tracks on moors do not have cuttings but railways do! So after a quick check on the compass we turned back south. Just before we did so we were joined, coming from even further north on the railway, by Nigel Braithwaite who had made exactly the same error as we had.

On a positive note it now meant we were a group of three running in miserable weather rather than three individuals in miserable weather. A great help. So we pressed on. I could not help noticing that even the slightest of uphill gradients was reducing us to a walk. I certainly felt I was the slowest of the three but perhaps the others did also. So, slowly on to Lyndale without seeing another soul, a brief respite, a warm and toilet stop and on our way. On our way back down from Rosebury Topping we passed Anne Green on her way up, I estimated about 25-30 minutes behind us. We saw nobody else so I assumed she was the last still running.. Then, just after the Highcliff Nab checkpoint we got lost again. We were looking for a path cutting up right from the one we were on through a break in the forest. But we came directly to the main forest track. We did not see the small path opposite so turned right, looking for a crossing path. Fairly soon it obviously did not fit the description so we headed back down again. I guess this cost us about 10 minutes so it was a surpise to see the light from Anne's torch bobbing up the path, she had made up a lot of time on us since Rosebury. She joined us at the point we had joined the main track anmd the path opposite was immediately obvious. Apart from a few brief stops to consult the notes there were no problems from here and we stuck together to the railway checkpoint. In fact Anne broke away from us about a 100 metres before, as soon as it came in sight. One of the marshals asked if one of us was Dick Scroop. I confirmed that I was and he told me that my wife was getting anxious at the finish. Perhaps not surprising as I had said I expected to be in at around 8.00 and it was now past 10.00. I told the others to press on at their own pace, Chris, who had always looked the fittest of us pressed ahead and disappeared, Nigel pulled a little way ahead but I caught him not far from the finish and we stayed together. As we approached the turn off from the railway I saw two figures who I guessed were marshals making sure nobody missed a turn at this late stage. As I got to them it was obvious it was a couple of local lads and a girl killing time. One said something to the effect of 'What's all this about, what are you doing?' I am not sure there is a sensible answer to this at 10.30 in the evening at the end of a wet day so I stuck with the purely factual - that it was a race from Helmsley to Guisborough and we were probably the last! I am not sure whether he believed me or if I would have believed it if I had been in his place.

Into the cricket club briefly to pick up my bag from the start and a drop bag. I sent my wife upstairs for these on the pretext that I could not go up in my muddy shoes but I really did not fancy the stairs. Then away to the hotel (The Three Fiddles which I would certainly stay at again) and my wife went out to buy pizza and chips for us both. The sleep.

I rested until Tuesday when I did an easy 5 miles followed by 12 on Wednesday. Thgis was a very sluggish, partly due to some extremely boggy ground in an area not familiar to me. Then due to other commitments no run on Thursday or Friday. Yesterday I sdet out with some trepidation to do 28 miles on a route that gave me options for cutting it short and avoided the boggy ground I had found on Wednesday. In most respects it went pretty well at an acceptable pace. But around half distance I had a couple of sharp twinges in the knee. A combination of a sudden weakness and a pain. I had more or less made my mind up to take the next short cut to the house when it went off and was fine for the remaining 15 miles or so. Went for a swim with the grand children today as an alternative to running and will take it very easy over the next week up to the Manx Mountain Marathon on Saturday. I don't expect it to be amongst the best of my races but after that and the Calderdale the following Saturday I can focus a bit more on sorting out the injuries and training rether than racing. But the next race after that, the Fellsman, was my worst of the year in 2009 so I have some serious training to do.

Must finish now to get the grand children into bed.

Dick S

Completely unrelated to the rest of my post I thought I would include a few pictures of the rice harvest in Jyamrung, Nepal.

The Wuthering hike, the first step towards my twin objectives for the year. The Vasque 12 plus using the Lakeland 100 to raise money for a range of projects in Jyamrung. Donations gratefully accepted, see previous post for contact details!

I enjoyed Martin Beales race report, it's nice to know what those up front are doing. But I would crib a bit at his description of it as a 'near perfect day'. It might have been for most of you but for those of us wearing glasses running those peaty paths sprinkled with small boulders in the cloud was a bit of a problem. I couldn't see with my glasses on (condensation) and I couldn't see with them off (that's why I wear them).

He was obviously way faster than me but I reckon I beat him for time over the last short stretch. As he did, as I emerged from the churchyard into the main street and hesitated as to whether to go right or left (I also vaguely remembered something being said at the start about plans to mark this last section?). A friendly local pointed across the road to a passageway almost directly opposite and said 'go down there, its a short cut'. And indeed it was, a few yards down a passageway, down a few steps and I was on the main road directly opposite the school gates. Not much use next year of course if we are back to the Community Centre.

And it did only partly make up for getting it wrong (again) at the road crossing in Hebble End. I found the cobbled lane and the steep steps but then lost it. I think I turned right too soon, finished up on a lower road, asked directions of a builder working on a house and got back to the the Heptenstall road by a route that seemed very reminiscent of last year but left me some way behind a group of 4 or 5 that I had swept past on the previous descent to the road. The only sweeping past I think I did all day.

Overall how was it? Well, my ankle and knee held up - just about, though I felt them all day. As soon as I started I knew my legs had not recovered from the (always mistaken) attempt in the penultimate week before the race to catch up on the training I had missed. Then, towards the end the lack of training due to the ankle injury began to take its toll. Overall the main problem was on the poorer paths from about two miles to around checkpoint 2. Not helped by the mist and conscious that though the ankle was holding up one badly placed foot could finish it. That's my excuse anyway. Plus one trip/fall - I always seem to manage one and always on a relatively easy section of track. And one extended toilet stop, a frequent feature of my races - I did try Immodium for a period but it did not seem to make any difference. I had hoped for about 6 1/4 hours and finished a few seconds over 7 hours. Better than last year when with a worse ankle injury I hobbled in in 7 hours 52. Reasonably satisfied in the circumstances.

So, now it is the Hardmoor 55 (or 54 as it now is due to a last minute route change). My knee is fine now and the ankle at least as good as it was at this time last week. I did two runs of 5 and 4 miles on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, this week I will do nothing so I hope it will be fully recovered. I have done significant sections of the Hardmoor route before (Lyke Wake and Osmotherley Phoenix) and recall the paths as being pretty good. I understand from others that the same is true of the rest of the route. So, I am looking forward to it. The weather forecast for Saturday, rain and a fresh easterly wind, is not too good at the moment but perhaps it will change. And at least an easterly wind will give us a push start.

Good luck to all those running nexct week.

Will it be the Wuthering Hike or the Haworth Hobble?

I set off on the Wuthering Hike last year having persuaded myself that my sprained ankle was fully recovered and that the limp was a figment of my wife's imagination. I managed to remain convinced of this until we left the road onto the stony/bouldery path a mile or so into the race. At this point I realised it was going to be very much a case of the Haworth Hobble rather than a Wuthering Hike but as I had set myself the target of completing the full series I plodded on to finish in not very much under 8 hours.

I picked up a similar injury about a month or so ago running on snow/ice. I had 9 days off, started running again last Tuesday, did two long runs at the weekend and 5 miles today. I can still feel the ankle slightly but my wife has not said anything about a limp so I think I am OK. We will see. I am hoping for better things.

If you do not already know me you will be able to recognise me by the one and only 2009 Grand Slam top with the 100 miles crossed out (as I did not finish it).

For those of you interested in my Nepal fund raising I will have to find a way of getting my sponsor sheet onto this blog. Until then you can email me at dickscroop.talktalk.net for further info or visit the websites in the blog below. The only little bit of news I have about developments in Jyamrung is that they are now moving away from favouring the solar panel solution for getting an electricity supply to linking into the Nepal grid. This will involve laying their own cable to connect with the grid some miles away and providing a transformer in the village. It ties in with another project which is building an 'agricultural road' (unsufaced track) which will facilitate the power line building and also give access to markets for crops and be a first step away from subsistance farming. No final decision taken yet as a report from the Swedish firm advising on this is still awaited.

I might post again next week if I have anything to say about the Wuthering Hike etc.

Good luck to all others who are running it.

I am new to blogging and i think it has taken me longer sitting at the screen to get this far than it took for me to complete most of my races last year.


Just to get the ball rolling I thought I would introduce you to my running background, my involvement in Nepal and how they have become intertwined. After stopping running at university in around 1968 or so, I started again around 1990. Firstly, just to try to stay fit for the mountain walking I was doing then and to shake off the stresses of work. It was not until four or five years later that I ran my first race at the behest of my son, a half maraton in Oxford, and another year or so after that until I was racing regularly and genuinely hooked. Coming to this kind of racing late did have a couple of advantages. I had an excuse for being slow and there was always a new age group category coming up. My racing in this early period was all road racing from 10k to marathons, incluing a couple of London Marathons which Ii got into via the 'good for age' category.

Then, my second trip to Nepal changed all that. After a trek we spent a couple of days in a village called Lower Jyamrung. A group called Tukee Nepal, formed by local people, was doing some great work improving education opportunities, tackling health problems, building toilets in an area that had never had them before. Much of it focussed on two particularly deprived groups, Dalits (untouchables) and women. I was impressed enough to commit myself to a sponsored run before I left them. But what was it going to be? I could not just do another marathon, I was doing them all the time and I felt it had to be a real challenge to me personally to justify asking people for money. After looking around I settled on the first running of the London to Brighton trail run in October 2008. In running terms completely unknown territory for me.

In the months before the race, as part of my preparation, I ran the Lyke Wake race (which I strongly recommend by the way), the Devil o' the Highlands (also recommended) and the High Peak 40 which most of you will know. Then after the London to Brighton, the Round Rotherham 50 which Vasque series runners will have a chance to get acquainted with later this year though not with the December start which added to the experience in 2008. I finished them all, some in what I thought were decent times for a 60+ year old and others in times I prefer not to dwell on. But I did finish.

By this time I was hooked on the change from road to trail, but what next for 2009? It had to be the Vasque Series. I see Nick Ham has beaten me to the concept of 'Quantity not quality' but it was exactly what I had in mind - the full series and finishing them all. Well, if you look at the records you will see that I did not quite make it. Having managed to finish all the early races despite a recurring sprained ankle (see particularly the Wuthering Hike which I started already limping) I finally failed in ther Lakeland 100. I pulled out at 82 miles. Physically I felt pretty good but I was sufficiently mentally disorientated at about 1.00 am on a very wet night to persuade myself that I was lost when in fact I was not. I spent a couple of hours meandering around before realising my error and making my way to the next checkpoint less than a mile away. Even then I could have made it but, again erroneously, I persuaded myself I could not make the cut-off time at the Ambleside checkpoint so pulled out. Failure. But I learned some lessons which at some time over the coming weeks, perhaps in the run up to this year's Lakeland 100, I will share with you. But I did persevere and completed the rest of the series and have my specially commisioned 'almost made it' running top to prove it. Thanks to all at vasque for that, I will wear it with pride in all the races this year.

At this stage Nepal comes back into the story. We (my wife, Jeanette, and I) were back there in October/November 2009 and after some excellent trekking visited Jyamrung again. Tukee Nepal have been doing some excellent work, now extending into a number of new projects. I will leave the detail until a later date, hopefully when I have found a way of uploading material without having to re-type it all. But, before I had time to think about it I had committed myself to another sposored run.

So, again the question of what to do arose but this time there could be no doubt - it has to be the Lakeland 100 2010. Having failed once it obviously presented a real challenge and when I get to 82 miles, with the whole of my sponsorship resting on completing it, I will have no option but to go on, come what may. Also of course, for my more affluent friends, £1 a mile produces a nice round number!

So, my diary is full for the rest of the year. The Vasque series (another failure that needs to be dealt with), the Lakeland 100 as an absoluite priority, three weeks in Montenegro in May/June for a bit of a break and back to Nepal in October/November, hopefully with a wallet full of sponsorship money.

I will have to find a way of getting information about Tukee Nepal into this blog or onto my site. I am sure there must be a way, I just have not found it yet. In the meantime you can visit their website at http://www.tukeenepal.com/ or email me at dickscroop@talktalk.net and I will add you to my sponsors mailing list without commitment.

Tha's more than enough for now.

Dick Scroop