Calderdale Way Relay 2016

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Paul Evans


synchronized. Mid-May has been a special time of the year for this club for years: six of them, to be precise, when a particularly brutal winter froze much of northern England and forced Halifax Harriers to move their flagship relay tour of the Calder Valley to a more clement time of year. Those who had the ‘pleasure’ of setting off in the dark on a frozen December morning are unlikely to forget the experience, but the May setting certainly makes the race a little less niche interest, to the point where we were close to being able to field three teams this year; as it was, I had hopes of Elvet A carrying the baton for the first time in two decades, and Elvet B gaining further race route knowledge and having a good run into the bargain.

Things augured well from the beginning, with the day dawning crisp and bright at Heath RFC on the outskirts of Halifax. No last-minute injuries were reported and we had a solid transport plan in place to ensure runners were distributed at the handover points in good time. Better yet, Penny, Nigel and Mandy all had a certain competitive look about them as we lined up in a small park and were set off for the initial scramble around a field, over a wall and into a long climb through the woods, Penny somewhere behind me after she was gracious enough to let me take the pace on my first competitive run since injury. The ascent was unremarkable bar a Barlick FR runner snapping their achilles, the classic triad of ‘gunshot crack, scream and drop’ in evidence, thankfully directly in front of two marshals, and once onto the open moor we made our way past a few pairs we’d been stuck behind on the narrower woodland path, dropping onto the road briefly to the vocal encouragement of Striders before heading down into Ripponden, back up again, round some farmland, then down into the western edge of the same town, this time to climb out through verdant bluebell woods and onto a road section. It was at this point that I realised we might have over-done the aggression in our desire to give Tom and Jon as much time in the bank as we could (also, in honesty, to overtake a pair we’d been playing leapfrog with) and we had a brief walk before heading into the final moorland section, past an old pillbox then onto the long descent into Cragg Vale, idyllic in the sun and with a baying crowd outside the Hinchliffe Arms. Baton was thrust out in the sprint finish, narrowly pipped by the we’d raced for the last 5 miles, and Tom and Jon were gone.

shrewd use of the pavement there.

Once we’d regained breath and seen Mandy and Nigel come in, just missing the mass start at the cut-off time in which Steph and Richard Hall were despatched up the reservoir track to Stoodley Pike and beyond, it was on to Todmorden for Penny to meet with Paul Foster and Nigel with Jan, both doubling up for the short third leg. We weren’t there long before Elvet A thundered down the track to the school having gained more places and time, and set off to Blackshaw Head with high hopes, albeit hopes nearly scuppered by a little care struggling with steep gradients, tight curves and the combined egos of Tom and Jon, who knew they’d run a near-perfect leg. Having made it to the hilltop village with ScottGraeme (A) and Camilla/Dave S (B) off in good time into the wooded valley between Heptonstall and Blackshaw, A’s baton still present, we took advantage of the tea stall set up by the parents of a local school and moved on to the leg 4/5 handover. Alas, this was where the dream ended this year, the time banked on previous legs not quite enough to cope with the very tight cut-off at this point (a cut-off set when this was a winter race and getting runner home early mattered for safety reasons), Mark W/Jack L (A) and Kerry/Sue J (B) all off in the mass start, though the former pair’s strategy of chasing a pair in local vests served them well enough to see them complete the leg in just over an hour (for comparison, the fastest time of the day for this leg was only 8 minutes fewer). As for Elvet B, let’s just say that Kerry has GPS traces of all her runnings of this 7.5m leg and none of them look particularly similar; for the record, this year was a 9m run!

On to the finish at the rugby club for seeing in Mike B/Louise W (Elvet A, both looking fresh from the fast, largely-downhill 10m leg) and Angela/Diane W (Elvet B, less fresh but without last year’s added canal mileage), pie, peas, tea and a brief post-mortem in the sunshine. Conclusions: 1) Great race. We need to do it again. 2) Given the interest we had, Elvet’s A, B and C are distinctly possible next year, A aiming for baton-passing and B/C roughly equivalent teams. 3) There will be recces next year (not overly-fast, for anyone from any team who wishes to join in). Tom and Jon in particular showed the value of knowing a route inside-out and gained us time and places. 4) For all that I enjoyed this race when in December, actually being able to see the Calder Valley helps one appreciate it all the more.

2017, ladies and gents…

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