Langdale Horseshoe race report

[Tom Whittington]

Nine Harriers ran, stumbled, slipped, tripped and flipped over the 20km often rocky, often boggy but always soggy course. God that was hard, but utterly brilliant in a slightly masochistic way. It has to be one of the toughest and most relentless routes in the fell running calendar as every climb is followed by a full throttle descent through waste high bog or gnarly wet scree covered mountain, moorland and crag. A trail race it is not. Definitely not for the faint hearted either and anyone who got home with their bodies fully intact did well. Bloody scrapes were bountiful, bruises became well earned stripes and the aches and pains today serve as a reminder for why we love this sport so much. After all, it gets you off your backside albeit sometime slamming you back onto it. And despite the gruelling conditions underfoot it only rained a bit and even the flag wasn’t down for long. Sometime later and after the full leg cramp subsided in the car park, the Harriers regrouped for pies, pints, smiles and shared tales.

A trio of Harriers in fine form got back in under 3hrs; Nat Booker (2:47), Richard Hudson (2:53) and Mark Burley (3:00 - we’ll let you have that seeing as you didn’t have pacers to draft you). Then the next bunch followed 20mins later; Tom Whittington (3:19), Steve Swallow (3:23), Graham Brown (3:26), Neil Pettie (3:28), Simon Fox (3:53) and Dennis Kentrop (4:30).

That concludes the High Fell Series for this year. Results will be posted later in the week. Thanks to all those that took part.

[bollygill]

What a fantastic write up Tom! Sorry to have missed it. Well done all.