The Slow Warts tend to run together and therefore protect themselves from the harsh reality of the high performances of the “standard” Warts and the rest of DPFR. However, we bravely took on the challenge of the latest Cakes of Bread Race organised for the second year by Tom W who took over from Andy last year after many of his editions of the race, So, three very Slow Warts, Moz, Andy, I and with fast Wart Roy S, continued to protect ourselves by starting the race well before the official start time at 6.45, to avoid any early humiliation from the fast runners,
To Tom’s delight, the first check point was suitably ill-defined for us to spend much time in the pub afterwards discussing where it was and how best to get there. It was a stream junction which was obscured not only by a jungle of very wet reeds but also on the OS map by the printing of the letter “e” in Peak, so Roy suggested that a test of whether we’d reached it or not was the wetness of our shoes. There was a more defined point of a shooting butt close to the junction but Tom suggested it would make it easier to find and therefore less “fun”. So, the stream junction remains. Maybe dip your feet water before you start?
The Cakes were our next checkpoint and although there were route options, we all chose an ascent of Lost Lad and Back Tor (almost) followed by a dash along the unforgiving flagstones. What was to come later, however, made us look back with pleasure at running over them. Leaving the Cakes of Bread required sun glasses or a peaked cap to deal with the low bright sun so runners from the later start times and us were shading our eyes with our hand as we fought (it felt like that) our way through thigh high bracken. John Field Howden is interesting in that there are some false plateaus before the one containing JFH. In between the heather can be very hard work, being thigh high and very bushy. Some of the faster and earlier runners, even those with short legs, managed to either fly over the stuff or plough through it with a cheery greeting as they passed. If I failed to respond with a cheery comment, I’m sorry but I was suffering from heatheritis, common amongst older fell runners. Add a very steep descent into Far Deep Clough from JFH into this mix and it was fertile ground for a tumble, which I duly did. The hairy heather softened the fall so, finding myself on the ground, I was able to tie my shoelace without bending down. Every cloud………………………….
Andy’ sharp memory and knowledge of the other side of the clough took him to a narrow sheep track ascending gradually (clever sheep) eventually to the top of Near Deep Clough from where we could easily see Pike Lowe (next CP) in the glorious evening sun. But, still no easy going as we went over more challenging heather to the summit for, then, the left, rather than right hand descent which is possibly faster. We lefties still had a dose of thick heather before reaching the finish bench where I think we felt satisfied. However, our satisfaction was short lived when we found out that the young Tom Saville finished in less than half our times. It’s a good job we set off early.
Even in the pub, there were two separate tables one for young ones and the other for the oldies. Let’s face it, let the young ones enjoy their youth without the grumpy oldies, we were there once!
A superb evening out, Thanks to all.
Graham