Yorkshire Trod, 23 October
Report by Matt Holt
Saturday morning saw the Yorkshire Trod race by Due North Events offer a 50 km and 100 km race starting from Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales.
Both courses follow the same route until Buckden, where the 100 k then goes up Buckden Pike before returning to Grassington. The 50 k route follows a lower level route to Grassington. After the return to Grassington, the 100 k then goes out for another 20 mile loop in the opposite direction to the earlier route.
I arrived at race HQ and got my tracker fitted then started to pack my race vest for the 7 am start only to realise the room was suddenly very quiet, everyone had gone. Apparently the race had started. Doh!!! So I set off just after 7 am in a bit of a hurry, while still looking for the route on my Garmin, but realised I hadn’t sent it from Garmin Connect to my watch, doh, again!!!
I thought “I’ll just follow these other runners”, but then realised after quite a few conversations with the group that they were all doing the 50k route. Cos I set off late, I had tagged on to the early 50k starters (they could start anytime between 7 am and 8 am), doh, doh doh!!!!!!
So, after 15 miles I managed to send the route on my phone to my watch and could finally follow the gpx route – success at last. After a steep climb up Birk Fell I was ascending to Buckden when I went over and twisted my ankle. I managed to hobble down to the checkpoint at Buckden, but decided to pull out
Yes, the ankle was sore and yes I might have made it worse if I’d carried on, but to be honest, I wasn’t exactly feeling it that day. Normally, after a twisted ankle or something similar, you automatically start to think up a Plan B. I’d normally think right, lets tap out this downhill nice n steady, take stock at the checkpoint, then the climb up Buckden Pike is a chance to test out the ankle in a different way by going uphill, plus the cold wet boggy fields will help cool the ankle down and maybe it will feel better in a few miles. Then lets get to the next checkpoint and take it from there. This time there was nothing going on in the planning dept, no Plan B sprang to mind, no desire to try and turn things around, nothing. Just get me out of here was the over riding feeling.
And as with all runs but especially ultras, once the head has had enough, the legs ain’t going to work, like ever, and reinforces that these races are 80% in the head, 20% in physical fitness.
One nice thing though was on my return to Grassington (thanks to a lift from a support vehicle), I got to see RR Alistair Steele finish in first place on the 50k event. I’ve never been at race finish to see the winner come in (I’m usually a few hours back down the course) but Alistair looked like he’d just popped out for milk and a paper, not run 31 hilly, off road, miles in 5 hours 30 minutes, finishing approximately an hour ahead of the next runner who still had about 4 to 5 miles to cover.
Well done Alistair!