Wadsworth Trog

Wadsworth Trog, Hebden Bridge, Saturday 7th Feb 10:00

At training the week after Mike Hill, Adam Neale and I did the Tour of Pendle, one of them mentioned doing the Wadsworth Trog and as a sucker for punishment (and good training for the Wasdale X Ironman in June) I put it in my diary to enter as soon as the race opened. As it turned out, on the day I was the only Wilmslow runner and was somewhat apprehensive after Andy Dodd said the Half Trog was one of the hardest races he’d done! The route is about 20 miles long with 1100m of ascent, so was going to be good value for my £7 entry fee.

The weather gods were smiling on race day and I turned up to a crisp, clear low wind day for the start just North of Hebden Bridge. I’d not done any long runs since my abortive Abingdon Marathon in October and have a niggle with my right knee, so started off at a steady pace to get the feel of my Inov8 Mudclaws and the snow/ice on the paths. Despite the ice, my shoes gripped reasonably well and I was soon into my stride. My plan had been to rely on the route on my GPS and follow other runners, but with so much ice around it was difficult to take my eyes off the track immediately in front and so I did a couple of short detours to give the guys behind who knew the route a chance to catch up. The terrain was much kinder than at Pendle with much easier descents, although the surface was very unpredictable as you could never tell if the black lump of peat your foot was about to land on was going to be rock solid ice, or if your foot was going to disappear into a bog. One hairy moment came on a descent down a track where I looked up to see where the runners ahead were going, only to find I was about to run over a long piece of sheet ice. There followed a Bambi like display as I frantically looked for some grip while sliding down the track emitting high pitched squeals of ‘ahhhhh’. My lack of long runs caught up with me in the second half and I lost a handful of places, but was delighted to finish 42 out of 153 finishers. I then went home and booked on the Edale Skyline on 29th March – as I said, I’m a sucker for punishment.

 Position           Name              Club                             Cat      Time
1                      Karl Gray        CVFR                          V40      2:27:24
32 (fem 1)       Emma Bain     Northumberland FR    FV40   3:09:15
42                    Robert Wilson Wilmslow RC              V40      3:13:22

Rob