Championship Race Report – Eddie’s Revenge
Eddie’s Revenge: 3.8 miles 1,050ft of climbing. Organised by Middleton Harriers.
Just 3 of us managed to make it for this short fell race in Shaw at 7.30pm on Wednesday 25th June. Steven Henderson, Rob Dawes and I met up about 10 minutes before the start and made our way up from registration at Shore Edge Methodist Church to the start. The field was 130 runners with almost half of them coming from just 3 clubs: Saddleworth, Rossendale and Rochdale Harriers.
It was a cloudy but dry evening and the race went straight into a climb up a cinder track. It was quite a narrow track initially and the runners were still bunched together making progress difficult. Steven fairly quickly disappeared from view up ahead and the hill just seemed to get steeper for about 1k. We then crested the hill and dropped back down almost to the level we started at, just to begin a longer climb. Having had only a short respite from the first climb, the second one was a real lung-buster. This one went up for about 1.5k and after just 3k we had climbed 750ft. At this point I’d started wondering about who Eddie was and why he felt the need to exact this kind of revenge.
We were then rewarded with a long downhill stretch for the best part of 2k. While some of this was on grass and it was possible to lengthen your stride, towards the end of the descent it got steep and was back on loose cinder track which made it quite difficult to keep your footing. We’d been warned at the start by the race director that at the bottom of this slope there were some wooden posts about 18 inches apart which you had to pass through. The organisers had wisely wrapped towels round these posts to cushion the impact for any runners unable to control their descent.
Having managed to avoid this obstacle, the track then started climbing back uphill and it was at this point that you knew that Eddie must have been a very bitter man when he devised the route! We came up a rise and saw the finish 20 metres ahead only for marshals to point us off to the right for a further mile up and around a quarry. After a steady climb, the path doubled back on itself to the left and I saw Rob was not far behind me climbing the hill. There was one more good descent into the quarry and then a slight upward incline to the finish line and a very welcome drink of water.
It was a really enjoyable race with enough downhill gallops to offset the pain of the climbing in the first half. Very well organised and marshalled by Middleton Harriers.
Our results were as follows:
1. Steven Henderson – 29:52 – 20th
2. Dave James – 36:33 – 85th
3. Rob Dawes – 38:13 – 95th
Report by Dave James