Frank Sykes Memorial Chew 13 miles,   2000ft climb     Cat BL    5th March 2000

Another cold but dry day with the sun showing through the clouds from time to time. There was a chill breeze alongside Dovestones Reservoir and again it was a difficult choice between shorts and tracksters, most runners opting for tracksters in view of the probability of cold winds on the tops. The rain kept off and it turned out brighter than likely, proving to be good running weather.

The runners set off at a fair pace along the good, but mostly hard path parallel to Dovestones south eastern edge and this continued until confronted with the steep climb up Alderman Pike, when everyone seemed content to scramble up the best way they could without putting themselves out too much. The pace to Broadstones was quite fast with the path narrow at times through often tussocky grass and this continued from the checkpoint, through several wet patches and small pools down to the road. Crossing the road, there followed a steep descent to Greenfield Brook and a correspondingly steep climb up Ravenstones Brow. The going was fair, then damp, followed by slippery, sloping banks of greasy peat until, after passing the Ashway Rocks on the right, the wet tussocky terrain, water logged with pools at times, began to fall away down to Chew Reservoir. The sky was cloudy but not threatening rain.

The runners were fairly settled in their race order by this time and it was a steady pace along Chew Reservoir and then something of a taxing run uphill to the trig point on Featherbed Moss. A quickish descent back to the stony track along Chew was greeted with a coldish headwind reducing speed and bringing on a "down to earth" feeling. The terrain to Alphin Pike, along the Chew Valley edge at first, presented a tricky run at times, over, through and from boulder to boulder, passing as it did through "Chew Hurdles". As the faint path left the edge and took a more direct route to Alphin Pike, this rocky terrain gave way to tussock grass again with wet patches and occasional pools to negotiate. A sharp descent from Alphin over slippery rocks cunningly concealed by grass, heather and bilberry made descending treacherous and focused the mind on placing the feet safely whilst all the time trying to prevent tired legs from buckling. Back on the track now with about a kilometer to the finish and the mind concentrating on keeping it all going and avoiding any disasters in the last few hundred yards down a potentially skiddy sloping field.

The race was won in fine style by Andy Trigg (Glossopdale) in 1:42:45, finishing just over eight minutes in front of second place man Jonathon Wright of Todmorden. Andy’s time being just a little over one minute outside the race record of 1:41:31. Adi Jones ran well to finish 9th and Simon Entwistle had a good race, finishing in 18th position, half a minute behind seven times Karrimore Elite winner Mark Seddon.   Bill Buckley also had a good race, finishing as 1st MV55, just a minute and a half behalf behind MV60 Terry Eckersley of Saddleworth.

There were 232 finishers and twelve of these were Glossopdale lads, no ladies unfortunately in this race.   Finishing positions and times were as follows :

Brian Shelmerdine    March 2000

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