Race Date: Sunday 4th February 2018

This race has everything you could possibly want from a fell race. Starts flat and sends us through the woods before a long but quite gentle climb takes us along Mickleden Edge and above the snow line. There was about 2 or 3 cm of fresh snow, dropped overnight, so going was a little tricky and I ended up losing a couple of minutes after having to rescue my shoe from a deep sucking bog.

The next part was my favourite as it was a rather fast descent down Bull Clough (I think) into Howden and the path along the reservoir (this was the only bit of the route I actually knew). A nice flat mile or so before the climb back up Howden Clough to rejoin Mickleden Edge. However, a lot of this climb was traversing the hill with long gradual climbing rather than steep intensive climbing. As Louis put it, ‘there was no place where you could walk without feeling guilty’.

Once back on Mickleden Edge it was a long descent to the end. Similar to Long Line at Tigger Tor last week, the flat return along the path seemed to go on for quite a long time and I, as usual, managed to lose a couple of places to those runners who can sprint at the end and obviously haven’t tried hard enough during the race.

For £9, we got an excellent run, a 500ml bottle of Bradfield Rescue Ale and enough food to sink a ship. I really cannot recommend this race highly enough and it will become a permanent fixture in my calendar. Mickleden or Dewsbury – well whatever floats your boat – but for me there’s only one clear cut winner

There were 194 finishers with the first male being Steve Franklin of Totley AC in 1.46.14. First female was Caitlin Rice of Ribble Valley Harriers in 2.02.06. Well done to all 9 participating Striders.

Striders results: