Dales Trail Series race 1, Reeth – 4th April

Dales Trail Series – Race 1 – Ali Nash reports …

A reasonable 8am set off in the morning mist heading for the wilds of Swaledale, 1 ½ hours drive away for an 11am start time. Reeth was already buzzing with scores of runners clad in club colours from across the country, the amiable chit chat and banter rudely brought to a stop by marshalls eager to point out the flags at the highest point of the route way up atop Fremington edge……… uncalled for I say….. The race briefing was refreshingly short and to the point –  ‘there’s loads of ways to hurt yourself really badly’ and ‘if you see a fellow runner in trouble, get them off the racing line and leave them in the ditch for the tail runner to collect’ (my interpretation)…..three two one go!!.

Now I did catch some mention of ‘a bit of a puddle’ after the first field….. more like knee-depth with copious floating green ‘evil’ around the edges for good measure…..  after field number two, with the less hardened/ southern/  urban runners still retching from the ‘evil’, the route started the 1000ft climb up the scree ridden cliff that is Fremington Edge. There is a perfectly good track up it…but no, we followed the route flags, tackling endless mining screes and burning calves, up onto the ridge…..  At this point the route ignored yet another perfectly good footpath and followed a ‘trail’ carved out by decades of grouse feet  – but not forgetting to take in the spectacular views and listen to the wonderful skylarks and curlews twittering as you ploughed on through the peat hags and across skiddy sections of ‘snot moss’.

A huge banner ‘DANGER – Technical Section’ after several miles of pretty fabulous ridge running, signalled the start of the descent.  A mile plummetting at full tilt down steep rock-filled mining gullies and more scree, swearing like f**k for the most part, down to Arkle Beck –  just bloody brilliant. The huge climb of Calver Hill  followed all too soon, crossing dry (er) moorland sections, powered on by jelly babies from the half way marshall, who politely told me I was bleeding quite heavily from my face… a mere flesh wound. Two false summits ended with the ‘Hillary Step’ a hellish 150ft incline to reach the summit cairn and two apparently quite contented lunatics swinging Swiss cowbells.

More technical descents down mining scree off the south face of Calver, and finally a decent track. By this time there I was passing runners brought to little more than a hobble by the terrain, and spotted one delirious chap heading off towards the horizon – in the wrong direction (I did call him back – honest….). The final stretch of wet, rocky, muddy track was a complete _________ (insert profanity of choice), with a second helping of the ‘puddle and evil’ before the joy of seeing the finish tents and a huge cheering crowd. A really testing route, brutal in places,  superbly  organised and marshalled, but well worth it for a 16th place finish in 1:48:37. Chuffed to bits. A race not to miss in 2016.

<a href=”http://www.dalestrailseries.uk/dt20results1.pdf“>Full results</a>