Stanbury Splash

Todmorden Harriers’ returned to racing action on Sunday with the Stanbury Splash Fell Race. Featuring 1200 feet of ascent, the 7 mile course started with a mad dash out of the quarry at Penistone Hill Country Park. A short road and track section led the 300 runners onto to a steep grassy descent to the first of several icy stream crossings. After a sharp rise through muddy fields, further height was gained on another track before a turn off for an undulating boggy loop of the moors. Runners then retraced their steps back to the quarry for a finish at the cricket club.

Bingley’s Ian Holmes maintained his fantastic record in the race as he recorded his 15th consecutive win.

Shaun Pickard was the first Todmorden runner to finish in 51st with Dave Collins a few seconds behind, taking the 2nd vet50 prize. Martin Roberts and Simon Galloway followed, both finishing in the top 100.

Dan Taylor marked the anniversary of his first fell race by knocking 7 minutes off his time from last year crossing the line just behind Kevin Booth.

The first Todmorden lady was Sarah Warburton, who also finished 3rd vet35 to take home an armful of prizes. John Preston and Louise Abdy rounded off the Todmorden entry.

Mini Moorland Marathon 2010

Todmorden Harriers’ annual Mini Mountain Marathon attracted a strong turnout of over 50 runners despite difficult conditions underfoot on Sunday. The orienteering score event gave competitors three hours to visit as many controls as possible within the time limit, with heavy penalties for those who were late back.
The challenge relied more upon good navigation and route planning than pure speed and was open to club members and invited guests. It provided an opportunity to sharpen up navigation skills for the coming fell racing season, which could prove vital when Todmorden have the honour of hosting this year’s opening English Championship Fell Race next month, with the Noonstone Fell Race.
Starting off at two minute intervals from event HQ at the Mason’s Arms on Bacup Road, the first task for competitors upon receiving their marked map was to quickly determine which, and the order, of the 12 possible checkpoints they would attempt to reach within the three hour time limit. Depending on their location on the hills above Todmorden, checkpoints were worth 10, 15 or 20 points, with the furthest checkpoint on Soyland Moor worth 35.
Runners competed either solo or in pairs and quickly vanished in all directions.
Whilst the recent thaw made for quicker progress lower down, across the moorland tops there were still considerable areas of snow to contend with, mixed with impossibly icy tracks, and the occasional muddy bog that slowed progress.
James Logue and Calder Valley’s Bill Johnson both managed to reach 9 of the 12 checkpoints, but with Bill finishing 5 minutes outside the allowance he lost 10 points and dropped to 4th place handing overall victory to James, who returned with just 3 minutes to spare, with 130 points. The battle for first Todmorden Harrier was a close contest with Andrew Horsfall and Roger Haworth both visiting 8 checkpoints to score 120 points, but whilst Roger finished 1 minute within the time limit, Andrew completed 15 minutes faster to capture the trophy and 2nd place overall.
Ultra distance specialists Ossie Kershaw and Tim finished 5th overall and first pair with 115 points. Despite arriving back 3 minutes late, Phil Hodgson had done enough to finish first veteran with 104 points. Helen Hodgkinson judged the time perfectly to finish exactly on the three hour mark and take the prize for highest scoring female Harrier with 100.
Calder Valley’s Tim Brooks was the only one brave enough to attempt the long slog to the furthest checkpoint but the slower than normal conditions meant a significant time penalty was incurred that wiped most of them out.
The legendary ‘Golden Pigeon’ award for the lowest Todmorden score went to Kath Brierley and son Jack, after an unfortunate fall led to a late return that cancelled out what would have been a very respectable score to leave them with a negative total.

The prize giving ceremony was finished off with considerable thanks going to organiser Simon Anderton and his team of helpers.

50 @ 50

With fell races cancelled due to inaccessibility to the hills and road races cancelled due to icy pavements, Todmorden Harriers’ had to satisfy themselves with a marathon run through deep snow at the weekend.

The run, held to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of their members, Elise Milnes, had a planned route of 50 kilometres (31 miles) around the hills of the Upper Calder Valley.

Waist deep drifts in many sections and knee deep snow for much of the route meant a much harder and slower pace. A strong icy wind and snow showers throughout the day added to the epic challenge. Highlights of the day included sunrise at Stoodley Pike and sunset at High Brown Knoll.

Many Harriers turned out to run part sections of the route with a small determined band intent on completing the full distance. However, after 9 hours ploughing through the snow the group decided to cut it short having completed over a full marathon distance of over 26 miles, just 8km (5miles) short of the intended target.
Afterwards, Elise vowed to be back to complete the full 50km later in the year.

Ice Ice Baby

Todmorden Harriers saw out the old year with the Auld Lang Syne Fell Race over the Haworth Moors on New Year’s Eve. With the course reverting to the old route to avoid the worst of the icier paths around Top Withins, it was heavy going with significant drifts of snow along the summit ridge. Almost 400 runners made their way around the course, with many of the country’s best fell runners in attendance. World Triathlon Champion Alistair Brownlee made his move at the turnaround point and despite Ian Holmes’ legendary descending skills was able to hold his Bingley club mate off to the line. Younger brother, and European Junior Triathlon champion, Jonathon Brownlee made it a clean sweep for the club coming in third.
First Todmorden man to finish was Paul Hobbs in 56th, just ahead of Dave Collins in 58th who was 3rd vet50. Simon Galloway continued his good run of form to finish in 100th, ahead of Martin Roberts and Clive Greatorex.
Chris Preston was first Todmorden lady to finish, and 2nd vet40, ahead of Jane Leonard who was 3rd vet 50.

The club then welcomed in the New Year with even snowy conditions experienced at the Nine Standards Fell Race at Kirby Stephen the following day. Lauren Jeska had the run of the day beating Holmfirth’s Lisa Lacon to claim first lady and 13th place overall. Sarah Warburton was Todmorden’s other representative battling a near white out snowstorm at times to finish 4th lady.

Also on New Year’s Day was the Giant’s Tooth fell race, organised by Chris and Kathryn Smale, at Ogden Reservoir. The 3 mile circuit around the iced up reservoir featured 400 feet of ascent up to the distinctive stone that the race is named after. A close battle at the front was eventually won by Matthew Roberts of Welsh club Eryri in a time of 18:17, with Todmorden’s Sean Carey finishing in 4th place, taking the junior category.
Shaun Pickard carried on his recent good performances to finish 22nd, 20 seconds ahead of Sarah May who finished 2nd lady behind Eryri’s Sarah Ridgeway. Gareth Vickers completed the Todmorden entry with 37th place.

Three Harriers travelled to Cowm Reservoir at Whitworth for the Joe Salt New Year Awakener. The 4 mile race climbed up to take in a short flat loop around the icy water before second longer loop took them up into the hills above the reservoir, and a final hair raising slippery descent to the road finish. Richard Butterwick was first Todmorden man to cross the line in 27th, with Myra Wells in 90th and Ian Stansfield in 93rd.