The Wadsworth Trog Fell Race

Yesterday I ran the Wadsworth Trog - a 21 mile race from Old Town near Hebden Bridge.

The race is run by Calder Valley Fell Runners (CVFR) who always do a great job in planning and delivering high quality and challenging events.

Last year the race was run in snowy but clear conditions but this year whilst most of the recent snow had disappeared, the weather threw us all a new challenge in the form of thick fog which didn’t lift from the moor tops all day.

In many races this wouldn’t be too much of a problem but in the Trog, fog is exactly what you don’t want as there are quite a few miles of trackless rough moorland to contend with.

Last year I had some success in this race so this year I set off with the other 100+ runners with a personal target of making the top 10.

After a steady start there’s a long drag up to the 1st checkpoint on decent tracks before a drop down through the tussocks to the reservoir. From here it’s a pull straight back up a steep bank onto the moor top where all the tracks disappear and the fun starts.

I was running with 3 Clayton-Le-Moors (CLEM) harriers and the four of us headed out on a rough Northerly bearing aiming for the fence line about 2 miles away. Unfortunately, as often happens on long range bearings we drifted over to the West and had to pick up the return path to find our way to CP3 at Cock Hill.

From here the route is flagged or obvious up to the Top O Stairs but then we were back into the mirk and following a rough track past the Stoop stone and over to the Withins Ruins and CP6.

After CP 6 I dipped into my pack to try a new Maxim gel which comes in a screw top foil packet. This is a great idea as it allows you to take a couple of mouth fulls of gloop then replace the top and put the rest back in your pack for later. As anyone who’s ever used gels will tell you, the standard rip off top packets can leave a very nasty sticky mess in your pack if they;re not completely empty before they’re stashed.

From here right back to Cock Hill myself and a CLEM runner paced each other well taking turns at the front and pulling each other up hill and down dale.

Then came the toughest part of the race - finding our way back to the High Brown Knoll checkpoint and then down to the finish. The fog was still thick and despite running on a bearing we were soon lost once again. Eventually we reached a track that I recognised from my mountain biking days and I led myself and 3 others up to the CP. Here we met up with the other 2 CLEM runners who had pulled away from us an hour or so previously but had then been lost in the mist and all 6 of us set off on the home leg.

Despite another navigational error that added distance to the already long race we eventually reached the last manned CP where we were told it was flagged all the way to the finish. A mad 1 mile dash down off the ridge took us to the lowest point of the course from where it’s a killer 1/2 mile climb back up to the finish.

My legs could not transition from down to up and I lost a place to a CVFR runner but still came home to finish in 8th place overall which I was very pleased with.

Ahead of me my regular sparring partner Jason Stevens from CVFR had a storming race to finish 4th.

My Bingley team mates Ian Hill, Dave Stevenson and Helen Jackson all got round successfully and Helen won the womens race adding to Lee Athersmith’s win in the Half Trog earlier in the day.

At the finish everyone had tales of being lost on the moors and one chap claimed that his Garmin suggested he’d done over 25 miles!!

All in all a good day out and my efforts won me a pair of gloves!

Next race is the Ilkley Moor Fell race at the end of Feb - a short but tough blast around Ilkley Moor - with or without hat

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