Shutlingsloe fell race is a part of the Staffordshire Moorlands Summer Series (1 of 10), which are held on Thursday evenings over the summer. 'Shutlingsloe', is the shortest of the summer series, just 3 1/2 miles accent to the top of Shutlingsloe and down again.
I arrived at Maccesfield forest visitors centre to a hive of activity, about 150 runners were present for this one, from local running clubs around Staffordshire and Cheshire.
The race is a 'race within a race', with a junior 3k race first of all, followed by the main senior race, with separate results for men and women. I entered on the day (£7) and had a warm up, which didn't take long as you had steep hills whichever direction you went. At 7.10pm we were directed along a gravelly track to a clearing in the trees, the race organiser said a few words, and we were sent on are way.
There's no gentle introduction to a fell race, its basically an hard uphill grind. The first kilometre took us up a fairly steep hill through maccesfield forest with occasional levelling off, this soon sorted the men from the boys and strung the runner's out with many people being reduced to a walk on the steeper bits, including myself briefly. We then came out of the tree's to moorlands nearer the top, to my right I could see the impending 'Shutlingsloe', a vertical steep mound. The course then followed a mixture of cross country across boggy fields and along slabbed pathways. I was able to pick off a few runners as we circumnavigated Shutlingsloe, and started to descend a little. My spirits started to lift as I now thought we were now starting the downhill descent back home, no such luck! we then took a sharp right and started the uphill crawl to the top of Shutlingsloe.
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| Shutlingsloe |
The race now became all quite undignified as you were reduced to clambering on all fours to the top of the mount, it was just a case of scrambling to the top. Once reaching the top there's no time for sightseeing or taking in the views, it was simply a frantic downhill dash to the finish.
The downhill run is almost as hard as the uphill, where concentration is the name of the game, one poor footfall can result in a nasty accident. Hurtling down the hill, I was able to hold my own and reach the finish in double quick time.
I finished in 30 mins and 40 secs, coming 22nd out of about 100, and was quite pleased.
The Staffordshire Moorlands Summer Series, makes a refreshing change from the traditional road races, taking you along trails and up hills into some stunning scenery, there not easy runs but very rewarding and you may need to invest in some trail shoes, but well worth doing.
Tony