Whinberry Naze Dash Fell Race: 26 December 2007

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#  Pos arrow Name arrow Time arrow Cat arrow Club arrow Pace arrow
1 1 John Cullinane 39:26 V35 Serpentine 9:51

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Boxing Day in the South Pennines means the Whinberry Naze fancy dress fell race in Rawtenstall, just north of Bury. Billed as 4 miles, with 750 feet of climb, it seemed like a good way to burn some of those eggnog inspired calories from the day before. Dressed as a soft southern fell runner, I clearly couldn't compete with the sumo wrestlers, dalmatians, dinner jackets and cats in the fancy dress stakes, and it was clear soon after the start that I wasn't going to live with them on the fell either. Too much time away from hills showed, I was walking where I should have been shuffling, and that was before the steep bit on which my Garmin kept reverting to auto pause as it thought I had stopped!

You know you are getting old when Santas look younger than you, and there, at the top of the hill, was a 4 ft Father Christmas handing out tubes of Smarties! From here, it was all downhill, and fully marked too, by the Smarties dropped by desperate fell runners trying to tip the tube straight down their throats - this is a skill you don't find in the coaching books. The downhill was fun as usual, over before it began and a lovely sharp tarmac corner to finish.

A Garmin comparison at the end revealed the distance to be more like 3.4 miles but the climb over 900ft. Never trust a race organiser. If you're in the area next Boxing Day, give it a go, it's a good intro to fell running. And where else can you get beaten by a man in a kilt for £3? In London it'll cost you 100 times that.

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