Another bumper Heptonstall turnout saw Todmorden Harriers take local honours in first ever Heptonstall Festival Fell Race on Saturday. The race was conceived by local runners Heptonstall Hurriers to support the Heptonstall village festival and was the result of a tremendous community effort as friends, neighbours, and families pulled together to act as marshals, time keepers, and race officials. An informal running group comprised of local Tod Harriers and Calder Valley members, the Hurriers were delighted at the success of the race having planned the event only 4 weeks earlier. Featuring 1500 feet of ascent the race was specifically designed to qualify for Fell Running’s “Category A” status, the highest difficultly level in the sport. The challenging route helped to attract a field of 93 runners from across the region, with many runners travelling from as far afield as Kent and Leicestershire to swell ranks at the White Lion start.
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| Photographs by Ed Lister |
Stephen Heath took the prize for the furthest flung entrant; travelling from Azerbaijan as the only representative of Baku Hash House Harriers he finished in a creditable 63rd place. The BP employee used to running through the arid badlands of Baku oil fields, in temperatures topping 40’C, noticed the Heptonstall Fell Race website and decided to include the race in his preparations for his up coming ultra marathon in the High Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The Hash House Harrier, based in Baku since 2004, was full of praise the event, “I was back in the UK for a week or two for the birth of my daughter and thought it would be great opportunity to have a go at my first fell race – the whole village festival-fell race format made it a great day out, the route was pretty formidable, but the village and local landscape made it a memorable run. The Calder Valley is a wonderful place with warm and generous people”. Stephen’s wife Rebecca gave birth to their daughter Georgia 5 days before the race, both were on hand to cheer him on as he finished the race in 71 min. The much travelled Hash House Harrier promised he would spread the word of Heptonstall’s new race across the hills and mountains of Central Asia.
Both Calder Valley and Todmorden Harriers were well represented to add friendly local rivalry to the event. Calder Valley had previously dominated proceedings at the inaugral 15 mile Heptonstall Fell Race in March, but Todmorden Harriers turned the tables on their local rivals to take the Festival Honours.
As torrential rain gave over to bright sunshine, 17 year old Todmorden Harriers Sean Carey ran a dazzling race to finish in 1st place ahead of Calder Valley’s Andy Thorpe. Leading the field from Heptonstall on the “white knuckle” descent to the Blue Pig, before a 1000 foot ascent to High Brown Knoll, Carey showed he had stamina in his young legs as he skipped up the daunting 500 foot ascent to the finish line, setting a new race record of 53.01mins. The up and coming Todmorden runner has recently won a host of short races, and his victory helped secure team honours for Todmorden as Paul Hobbs and Ben Crowther finished 8th and 9th respectively to out score Calder Valley’s 3 highest placed runners.
Some pride was restored for Calder Valley, as Anne Johnson, Gayle Sugden, and Trudi Entwhistle took the ladies team prize. But Calder ladies didn’t have it all their own way as highly talented Holmfirth Harrier Katie Walshaw set a stunning pace to finish first lady beating off many of the stronger male runners to take 7th place overall in the ladies course record of 55.42min.
Runners and motorists may have been surprised to be confronted by a troop of clowns marshaling the Draper Corner road crossing as the village volunteers were dressed for the their later roles in the Festival fun; not to be out done, a bunch of leading (but unnamed) Calder Valley clowns were heard to have completely missed the well flagged route to find themselves wading through brambles and nettles to emerge 100 yards short of the official road crossing on Lee Road.
Heptonstall Results: 15 Sam Swindells 57:19; 40 Jo Daniels 1:04:26; 43 Gavin Lee 1:04:53; 47 Chris Cavey 1:06:52; 60 Paul Cruthers 1:10:58.
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