Week 19 - Haworth Hobble

I was five miles and 1100 ft short of target on the first week but this didn't bother me as I knew this would be a big week with the Haworth Hobble providing 80% of target on its own.
I ran my now regular training run over Winter Hill to Belmont and back on Monday and finally achieved my sub two hour clocking - by quite a margin - just over 1:52. I repeated the run on Wednesday and further reduced the time to 1:48. I could now rest until the Hobble on Saturday but did decide to make a walk to the library into 7 miles and 950ft by returning via Rivington Pike on Friday.
I'd arranged to travel with one of my training partners over the years so after a 5am alarm picked John up at 6.15 to drive over to Haworth to register by 7.20 for the 8am start. The journey was into blinding sunshine as I drove eastward into Yorkshire.
8am and we are off. I was running solo but John this year paired up with Pauline, making her debut on the Hobble. The weather forecast meant that I chose to run lightly clad with just one thermal below my club vest and in shorts (carrying full wind/waterproof body cover of course in my rucsac - and a over a litre of lucozade sport). As we headed up onto Haworth Moor, the sun had gone and we were in a cool mist and I wondered whether I'd made the correct decision re shorts. I planned to stay with John and Pauline, probably to checkpoint 3 at 13 miles : I wanted to ensure I didn't repeat the my too fast start of two years ago which turned into a hard slog over the second half of the race. They were looking at 12 minute miles which I did think was possibly optimistic but would give a good completion time of around 6 hrs 25 - an hour and a half faster than I did last time - I'd be very happy with that.
As we headed for CP3, I could see we were somewhat behind a 12 minute per mile schedule but I was happy to stay with them and start to work harder from that checkpoint. CP3 (13 miles arrived at about 2hrs50 and I bade my farewell and start to work up the hill.
Got to CP4 and opted for doughnut rather than my usual hotdog then really enjoyed the cruise along the Calderdale Way and caught up a pair of clubmates of my daughter who with others were glad of my direction at one of the two main points for navigation errors. More good climbs to Mankinholes which I reached in just over 4 hours (possibly slowest time since the wild weather of 1992) and then Stoodley Pike and over to Hebden Bridge where for a change my knee wasn't in agony on the steep descent.
By now it was warming up and I was enjoying hauling in runner after runner - it's so much more enjoyable to set off steady and be able to do that rather than the other way round (as was the case two years ago). As we got to the final four miles I was not quite as fresh but still managed to finish in 6:47 (officially - results have just been published), an hour slower than my fastest time, but that was when I was 15 years younger but half an hour faster than my debut 24 years ago and over an hour quicker than two years ago. I suspect my split from Mankinholes to the finish (about 2hrs42) may be my quickest ever. Looking at the results, those who I passed around the half way mark finished nearly an hour behind me : but I couldn't have run an hour faster though as the conservative early pace is what paid dividends in the second half. Hopefully there will be some piccies to link to soon.


Now for a couple of days rest before upping the level again.