Je suis cream-crackered. 12 miles through West Yorkshire mist and drizzle today, from Flockton to Huddersfield, across the tops.
Gasp, there’s nowt but bloody hills here — as I discovered some years ago when I lived in the area, and had the great idea of buying a bike. Murderous.
The original plan to come up last weekend (when the long run was only 7 miles) was modified by a glance at the football fixtures. I realised I could delay for a week and combine the trip with the ever-uncomfortable sight of my football team in Huddersfield. Well it seemed a good idea at the time, and just worth the pain of an additional 5 miles of hill-running. It was a bad bargain.
M dropped me off in a layby in the middle of nowhere, somewhere past Flockton. I’d no idea where the odometer-lottery would dump me till it clicked round to 12 miles, and I found myself looking at a tree. That’s all there was. A tree, and a dry stone wall and thousands of acres of empty moorland. Just getting out of the car was hard enough. I sat there for a few moments, gazing first at my goose-pimpley legs and then at the thick grey curtain of mist and rain on the other side of the windscreen. But it had to be done. And I did it.
The rain was heavy to begin with but slowly eased. It never actually stopped however, and I was soaked through within ten minutes or so. Being damp isn’t a disaster, regardless of what your mother used to tell you, but it’s inconvenient, and it increases the chances of blisters and chafing.
The run started apprehensively. It was no surprise to feel the usual aches around my ribcage but I decided to take it easy and see what happened. By the time I was halfway through the second mile the pain had eased and I was able to settle in mentally for the long run ahead.
I’ve always liked this area. When people came for weekend stays, during the summer months, I would often take them for long Sunday afternoon walks around here. The countryside is raw and authentic. I want to say “gritty” but I don’t know if you can have gritty countryside. It’s an interesting mixture of stunning landscape and that bloody tiresome surliness you get everywhere in West Yorkshire.
This countryside is bleak and lonely. Moorland, dry stone walls, mist. It reaches into me and tweaks something. I would never be accepted here as one of the locals, but unknown to them, there is something here that strikes an atavistic chord. Just what it is, and why I sense this in lonely moorland environments everywhere, is something I am unlikely ever to understand.
I saw another runner coming through Emley. I gave her an effusive greeting as we passed but she responded only with a suspicious glance. On through the village, past the Working Men’s Club and the Post office, on past that final uphill stretch leading up to Grange Moor and over the roundabout onto that lonely cut-through above Hopton. As I crossed the main road, a group of pissed-up Wakefielders stumbled out of the Blacksmith’s Arms and shouted something unintelligible at me.
The next couple of miles were the best part of the run. The rain had stopped hammering me by this point, and had turned into a delicate mist instead. It was like running permanently through the fine shower of a garden sprinkler. The scenery was stunning though the pavement had given way to a treacherous, puddle-studded muddy track by the side of the road. There was just too much traffic to run in the road and I found myself sploshing and sliding through wet mud and sodden grass.
Not long after this I became aware of sharp pains on the sole of my left foot and under the toes of my right. They felt like blisters, a consequence of wet feet. Perhaps foolishly, I ran on as far as I could until, after about 6 or 7 miles, I had to stop to take a look. I leant on a dry stone wall to remove my left shoe and sock. Sure enough there was a blister with a deep red weal at its centre. I had a plaster with me but it was really too late. There was nothing I could do with the other one. It was hard getting the sock back on but eventually I managed it, and pressed on down the hill into the outskirts of the town.
Huddersfield is an even grimmer place when you enter it on the Leeds Road. It’s two miles or so of dilapidated factories, terraced housing, really grotty-looking boozers and secondhand car pitches. In the sheeting rain, after 9 or 10 miles of running across the tops from Flockton, it seemed immeasurably worse. I was on autopilot by this time, barely aware of the plastic-wrapped townsfolk hurrying past. I could just see the blurred stream of car headlights through the drizzle to my left as I pounded on and on, but I couldn’t really understand why they were there. My mind was empty.
Past the municipal dump, past the football ground, past the retail park, till I finally reached Hillhouse Lane that would take me up towards the end of town I was staying in.
Hillhouse Lane isn’t a whole lot more salubrious, I thought, as I ran under the bridge where the Yorkshire Ripper murdered two of his victims. A few minutes later I was on the Bradford Road, less than a mile from home.
The last half mile was really hard and I probably walked most of it. But that was then, this is now. After a plate of pasta and salad and fruit, and a long soak in a hot bath, I feel just wonderful.
I don’t want another long run in Yorkshire. The hills and the weather made it extremely hard and quite debilitating. But the scenery for much of the first two thirds was stupendous, and it is without doubt the most memorable run I’ve had so far.
My one regret is that I can’t go to the pub and down a few pints now. I know it would spell disaster for the next few days if I followed my instincts. But it’s exactly what I feel I need to do.
The finishing line still seems like a very long way off, but I can already smell the hops from that celebratory pint. And from here in the frozen North, I can only dream of those patient beakers of the warm South.
