British Fell Relays

Race: British fell relay championships, Pendle, Lancashire (Leg 2, 15k+/800m)
Time/Position: 1.22.52 (64th from 150)
Our fifth time at this excellent team event, one of the most enjoyable on the calendar. As usual, we struggled to get a six-man team together, but a last minute intervention by Peter saved the day. The venue this year was the delightful village of Barley, under Pendle Hill, a place we knew quite well after doing the Tour of Pendle in 2011. This famous race had taken us round every inch of the massif, so we had some prior knowledge of the route. I was on the long pairs leg (for the fourth time: never with the same partner). This year, I ran with Andy P and we set off from the windswept start above the village after evergreen Pete Roberts ran a fine first leg. We were outside the top 100 when we started, very similar to the long leg in Cumbria last year when Steve T and myself were able to move through the field a bit. After the initial descent down to the valley of Ogden Clough, Andy and I started picking up places. We picked the pace up for the long and boggy haul along the Spence Moor ridge, which led to a steep descent down Howcroft Brook, terrain I remembered from the Tour. An arbitrary and very steep climb followed, before a descent back down to the valley! Then came a very long pull over awkward terrain (with some tricky route finding) to pick up the little path at the top of Ogden Clough, then the flagged route to the stony 'Big End' summit of Pendle itself. This was excellent: we worked well together at a good pace and continued to pass teams the whole way. I remembered the descent to the south well, it is fast, long and exciting. We handed over to Dave and Huw having made up more than 40 places, and Peter continued the good work on a tough final leg. The sun began to peek through the clouds as we descended to the village for our post-race chilli.