Dales High Way

The Dales High Way (DHW) is a Punk Panther (PP) ultra event along the long distance walking route of the same name, which roughly runs parallel to the Settle and Carlisle Railway. 90 miles and 14,600 ft of ascent take you from Saltaire to Appleby-in-Westmorland via Skipton, Settle, Dent and Sedbergh. As well as being beautiful and at times quite remote the route is distinctly hilly, especially when compared to the more well known Dalesway (Ilkley to Bowness-on-Windermere; 81 miles, 6,700 ft), with the major climbs in the DHW being Ingleborough and the Howgill Fells. For runners who particularly wish to do a 100 miler PP offers the option to do an additional 14 miles looping over High Cup Nick. I had no such desire, especially as this means continuing past the finish which I reckon would be a psychological challenge too far for me.

Four members of my running club Ilkley Harriers have done this race in recent years, with Matthew Kennedy setting the FTK (Fastest Known Time) on the 90 mile route, completing it in 19 hours 37 minutes in 2022. All four spoke very enthusiastically about the DHW with its rugged beauty, as a result the idea of entering this event took hold in my brain quite soon after completing the Dalesway in August 2022.

Fellow Ilkley Harrier and very experienced ultra runner Ritchie Williamson, who ran the DHW in 2021, very kindly offered to support me during my race, an offer I gratefully made use of. Whilst it is totally possible to take part in any PP event without crew, as there are well-stocked checkpoints with the best marshals, and you can use drop bags for kit, it is actually really nice to have someone looking after you when it comes to longer events which go on through the night. It also means you have a car to sit in and keep warm whilst you change your clothes, your shoes, or eat your pot noodle etc., not something I had really considered until Ritchie pointed it out. Even in May it gets pretty chilly once it’s dark and the PP checkpoints are generally outdoors.

I reccied the entire route in March and April, walking it in sections with my friend Gill Myers over 5 separate days (and travelling on the brilliant Settle to Carlisle train). The recces, as well as being enjoyable walks in their own right, really helped me feel confident about the navigation, which isn’t particularly hard with a .gpx file on your watch, but I expected (and this turned out to be the case) to be running on my own in the actual race as the small field of runners would be spread out, and I did not want to come unstuck in remote areas, especially not at night. I used my Garmin watch (Fenix 6X pro) to navigate with. I also bought a second hand Garmin hand held device, the Etrex 32X, on eBay. As hand held devices are mandated as back-up on for instance the Spine Race, and I heard Nicky Spinks saying on a podcast that she used hers all the time on the Montane Cheviot Goat (an event I have entered too, eek!) I reckoned it would be a good back-up device to have. However, on the recces I found it difficult to get on with despite practising with it quite a few times, I definitely prefer using my watch for navigation. I took the Etrex with me on the race but never used it. In addition I used the DHW route guide which fellow Harrier Andrew Merrick kindly lent me. It contains a very comprehensive description of the route, as well as maps for each section which contain all the information needed, including grid references. On the recces I also carried the full OS maps but did not pack these for the race (the guide was sufficient as mandatory kit), though I did carry a compass which I could have used with the maps in the guide if necessary. I also carried a paper copy of just the Howgill Fells section on the full OS map, just in case!

The weather forecast for the race on May 13 was better than anyone could have hoped for and I kept fearing it would change to more typical Yorkshire conditions (as we had certainly experienced on our recces), but I lucked out with bright sunny weather, a little warm on the Saturday (but nothing compared to the Dalesway last August when it was 30 degrees), no wind to speak of, at least not in the valleys, a clear night and zero rain.

15 runners lined up by the Victoria Hall in Saltaire for the 6 am start on Saturday morning. I was very grateful to Hilda Coulsey who had given me a lift there and waved me off. At least she was now up in time for the Saturday Ilkley Harriers road efforts! The first section takes you to Addingham via Ilkley Moor, and I was pleased to see more fellow Ilkley Harriers on the moor who had kindly got up early to give me encouragement, Jane and Andrew McCarthy and Jill Ezard. Gill Myers, on her way to spectate at the Fairfield Horseshoe race, came to cheer me on in the fields above Addingham. By the time I reached check point (CP)1 in Addingham just after 9:00 the sun was out and my windproof came off (and stayed off until Ingleborough). Nice to see Harrier Simon Stokes on the CP. I reached Skipton around 10.30 and quickly manoeuvred my way through a busy market with too many people in the way, I was glad to leave it behind and head for Sharp Haw and then the next CP at Hetton (25 miles) which I reached at about 12:20. Not the Angel 😂( which is a Michelin starred gastro-pub) , just the standard PP fold-out table in a lay-by! But very welcome it was. Being in a competitive mood I checked when the leading female runner, Jessica Jones, had come through and was told she was already an hour ahead of me, so that straight away told me she likely was in a different league to me which was good to know (she ended up winning the 90 mile race, finishing 4 and a half hours before me).

Onwards to CP3 at Feizor at 42 miles where Ritchie would be. This was quite a long section taking in Weets Top, Malham Cove and Settle. If you are not into crowds of people then Malham is definitely not the place to go on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in May. I fought my way through the ice cream queue and past painfully slow moving walkers (and it’s not even as if I was running in any literal sense of the word, it’s uphill so I was walking too!), including crotchety parents and complaining children. I was glad to move on to the open moor and Attermire Scar before descending into Settle. On this steep descent my quads first started to make themselves known and express with signals of pain that they were not happy. Like having early onset muscle soreness instead of the familiar DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). This was about 35 miles in and as I have done a number of ultras and never had this issue it was an unwelcome surprise. Still, at this point it was all manageable. Through Settle to Feizor where there was a warm welcome from the CP3 marshals and Ritchie based in the car park of Elaine’s Tea Rooms. And there were toilets of course! These things are important 😉

I had a brief stop only at Feizor and then was off again to tackle Ingleborough, it was now about 17:30. Having had quite bad weather for this section on my recce I was pleased to now climb it in glorious sunshine. It was busy with walkers coming down off the top having done the 3 Peaks walk, they were all nice and encouraged me, they must have met some other PP runners ahead of me as they all seemed to know which event I was in. I found the climb OK, reaching the summit at 19:30, and enjoyed the view from the trig point and the lovely early evening light for a moment before descending towards Chapel-le-Dale. This is the path the 3 Peaks race runners come up and it is very steep. I am a particularly poor descender and hopeless on this kind of terrain. I had hated this descent on the recce and I hated it even more now. I longed for a nice track session instead. Utterly alone I had to be especially careful. I pondered how all the fell runners in the club would laugh (in a kindly way I am sure) at my pitiful progress here. At least it was dry and a lot warmer than on the recce, but my quads were now really complaining loudly. I took my own sweet time on the steep section and at least once I reached the stone flags I could run again, though the hard surface gave my quads another pounding and I was glad to eventually reach the grass.

At Chapel-le-Dale Ritchie was waiting for me in the lay-by, by now it was chilly and I sat in the car for a few minutes whilst swapping over my soft flasks and putting on another layer of clothing. The next CP was at Broadrake, only a couple of miles away where no support was allowed so I would next see Ritchie at Dent. I pushed on quickly to reach Broadrake in the last of the daylight around 21:00. Here PP provided hot food, I chose veggie lasagne and a cup of tea, followed by some melon and a banana.

I then donned my head torch and set off for Dent. Initially I liked this section, I loved seeing the Blea Moor signal box (which is Britain’s most remote signal box) beyond Ribblehead Viaduct lit up from miles away, but after that the climb and descent soon became tedious on narrow rocky paths which made for slow going. A brief meet-up with Ritchie at Dent (and the toilets were open, bonus!) just after midnight and I pressed on to Sedbergh via Longstone Fell. Only 5.4 miles, initially climbing on a minor road, but once up on the moor it became very boggy. I did not really remember the bogginess from the recce, I think we had a dry spell then and I had certainly enjoyed that stretch, but looking again now at the guidebook it does mention the prevailing wet underfoot conditions. Having kept my feet more or less dry so far, my shoes and socks soon became beyond soaked and I found it a bit of of a miserable section. I guess the time of night may also have impacted my mood a bit, I was tired after more than 18 hours but still a long way from daylight or the finish. I gave up trying to avoid the bogs as my feet were wet anyway and it’s quite difficult in the dark, so I just slogged through them, quietly observed by the sheep and their lambs. I wondered how often they see runners pass at night. Probably not very often. I managed to run again once I reached the road in Sedbergh. At the CP I opted to change my shoes and socks, deal with a surprise blister (I never get blisters, but there’s a first for everything) as well donning my long leggings, thick jacket and winter mittens ready for the Howgills. Ritchie had made one of my pot noodles which I wolfed down with enthusiasm, after which I set off for the next and last major climb. By now it was 02:30 and 67 miles into the race.

I am sure the gods had added height to the Howgills since my recce a few weeks ago. That’s how it felt anyway, it was so tough going up with the mileage already in my legs. Still, I loved every single minute of crossing the Howgills. It was exciting and I felt empowered that I was doing this, ‘running’ on my own on these majestic hills, in the dark. I was also looking forward to seeing the first glimpses of light that would appear very soon. I was happy with my navigation, it is easy with the .gpx of course but still, we had made a couple of small errors in the recce on those vague grass tracks which we then corrected and I remembered them all. Take the right fork, not the left, at the spot where we talked about the recipe for a ‘Weetabix cake’. Funny how those snippets of conversation stick in your head. There are also points where your watch will bleep ‘off course’ but actually the tracks soon converge again and you can ignore the alert. It’s knowing which ones to heed and which ones to ignore and here the recce paid its dividend again. As I climbed up the sky started to have a faint glimmer of orange and pink in the east, even though it was only 3:30, with a small orange crescent moon above it. I knew sunrise would be at 5:10, it’s amazing how early you start seeing some light appear. By the time I reached the trig point on the Calf it was 4:15, there was quite a lot of light and the birds were singing. It was an amazing place to be by myself. Later the sun rose above the hills as I travelled the long descent and I looked down on a beautiful inversion in the valley. Perfection only marred by the pain emanating from my quads which were now threatening full on industrial action. Not even working to rule, but a complete strike.

By the time I reached the Wath CP and Ritchie at 06:30 I couldn’t really run at all any more. Stiles had become complete torture, especially stepping down from them. Still, only about 14 odd miles to go, which is walkable. I had another pot noodle, some hot tea with sugar, swapped my cold weather clothes for the cap and sunglasses and set off for Newbiggin-on-Lune via the road, turning off onto the moor towards Great Kinmond, a last (1200ft) sting in the tail of hills in this route.

I passed through fields along Great Asby Scar, which is a lesser known but fine limestone pavement, and descended towards the final CP at Great Asby. Just above the village lies a decidedly messy and indeed unsanitary looking working farm which had not won a beauty prize from me when I saw it on the recce. The public footpath goes through the farmyard, and this Sunday morning it was filled to bursting with cows and their calves eating hay. Twice I opened the gate to try and go through and several of them came towards me. And they didn’t look as if they wanted to discuss the merits of ultra running with me over a hay bale. They looked as unfriendly as the entire farm did. Now what? I wasn’t going to risk life and limb but at the same time I had to get through. I knew another runner had been only just ahead of me, how on earth had he gone through? Was he good with cows, or had they only just been released into the yard? Anyway, pondering that didn’t help me here. I tried to find a way round, walked along the stone walls, there was nothing scalable. Certainly not with my barely functioning legs. Tried to shout in case the farmer was around, no joy. I was getting cold now too. It was a low moment in the event for me. Already reduced to walking, now I had ground to a complete halt. I knew there were runners behind me but a long way away. Thankfully my brain kicked in and I realised that with the CP and Ritchie just down the road I could just phone for help. I rang Ritchie and in due course he appeared in the car at the other end of the farmyard with one of the CP marshals, Emily Newton, who is also a PP runner, and unbeknownst to me, really good with cows! With one or two ‘shoos’ they all scarpered. It’s all in the arm signals apparently, making yourself big! I shall try that next time. I was grateful for the tracker and technology, which meant Ritchie knew exactly where I was. And of course the tracker had accurately recorded the time I had waited there (it turned out to be 37 minutes!) and afterwards Punk Panther RD Ryk Downes kindly adjusted my finishing time.

Cow crisis over I visited the last CP and kept on power walking the remaining 6 miles to Appleby. Completely unable to run, certainly not downhill, I could still walk at a good marching pace and I managed it in an hour and a half. Whilst I was a little disappointed not to be actually running down Boroughgate for the finish I was delighted to finally touch the Moot Hall in Appleby. Whilst I will never run a Bob Graham Round and touch that most famous of Moot Halls in Keswick, this did feel like a very special moment to me. My time, adjusted for the cow-induced delay, was 28 hours and 48 minutes and I was the 2^nd female out of 5 as well as 1^st (and only) FV50 (results here).  Out of the 15 runners who started in Saltaire 3 completed 104 miles, 6 completed 90 miles, 4 who had entered the 104 mile event stopped at 90, and 2 runners did not finish. This was a tough event, even tougher than I had expected, but I loved (almost) every bit of it. The only real problem that plagued me was the more than usual painful quads which made running in the later stages of the race impossible. I will be revisiting my training and the race to try and and work out why this happened, and hopefully prevent a repeat. In a more mountainous environment this would have been a race ending problem, and I do have a mountain race coming up in the summer!

Training

I recently wrote some thoughts about the training I do in my previous blog post. I follow a Higher Running 50 mile ultra training plan. This training block was 16 weeks and started at the end of January, with a weekly volume of around 50 miles over 6 days, increasing to 60 to 65 by week 13 before gradually tapering off. My base training before the plan was around 45 to 50 miles a week anyway. During training I record running and walking separately (for instance all recces were walking) but I do include the walking in my weekly total mileage, which I feel is appropriate for this kind of ultra which necessarily contains a lot of hiking. As part of my training I also did an ultra event of 35 miles every month from November onwards (having already done a road marathon in October), then a 50 mile ultra in March, but no event in April. I also did several short road races in this training block. I do strength training twice a week and try and do yoga once or twice a week too.

Nutrition and hydration

I think I got this fairly spot on, as I had no major issues apart from a few passing episode of slight queasiness. Hydration: I had 4 soft flasks, 2 to carry in my race vest and 2 in the kit box which I gave to Ritchie and we kept swapping these over at every check point. It was great to have someone mixing my bottles in advance, I felt like running royalty 😁. In my water I had Science in Sport GO Electrolyte powder, or Active Root powder (just because my SiS tub has run out and I am trying out Active Root for a change) delivering around 35 g of carbs per 500 ml. At the check points I drank a lot of coke as I always do, and later on in the race some tea with sugar. Nutrition: I started eating straight away, 30 minutes into the race and then continued to have something every 30 minutes. I had actually set an alert on my watch to sound to tell me to eat. I found this very helpful because as the hours wear on it is easy to forget. I fuelled on a mixture of things, for readily absorbable energy I had Turkish Delight, Veloforte Chews or Active Root Chews. I supplemented this with several pouches of baby food, crisps, mini cheddars, nuts, and various chocolate based bars from the checkpoints. For hot food I had pasta just after 50 miles and later on two pot noodle type meals. It was warm enough on Saturday to be concerned about maintaining enough salt intake hence the crisps and mini-cheddars. On the approach to Ingleborough I started to feel somewhat queasy, I have had this before and increasing my salt intake generally settles it. My tried and tested (last year on the Dalesway in 30 degrees) method is to nibble on bits of stock cubes. This may seem unusual but I stole the idea from 2021 Southern Upland Way winner Anna Rutherford and it definitely works for me too. If you wash it down with water it is just like eating some really concentrated soup. All in all pretty good, I managed to keep eating all the way through until the end. I think the cheese toastie made for me by Kate Aspey at the finish tasted the best of all!

Shoes

For this race I started out in my VJ Ultras which are comfortable and have phenomenal grip. I did get a big blister on my heel which has not happened before, and my little toes also felt a little squashed as the miles went on, I started to wonder whether the toe box was a little too small as my feet started to swell. When the VJs got soaking wet on the stretch between Dent and Sedbergh I changed into my Inov8 Trailfly G270. I had worn these for all of the recces too and they did a good job carrying me to the finish. On the whole my feet came out amazingly well for a 90 miler.