Rivington Pike is basically a massive tower on a hill near Bolton which I discovered last November. I was waxing lyrical about the hilly trails, ornamental ponds and stone steps-a-plenty when my running buddy Pete suggested that I would love the night trail race which happens there every January. I didn't even check the details, I just trusted him implictly and immediately entered it.
Mentally, I was fully prepared for a bog-fest. Trail/fell running in the West Pennine Moors in January was always going to be damp and cold, but we all know that running keeps you warm so I wasn't particularly worried about it. The thick fog - however - I was not prepared for.
On arrival, the race was much bigger than I'd anticipated with well over 500 people ready to run around the hills in the dark. It was a packed start, as the route headed almost immediately uphill and everyone shuffled around finding their positions.
The first mile and a bit was entirely uphill on a wet, cobbled trail with almost 150m of elevation gain. With the crowd still fairly tight, there was plenty of light around but everyone's headtorches were illuminating the fog and the fine rain, making it wonderfully atmospheric, but creating a huge visual barrier between our eyes and the floor!
We hit the first downhill and I just couldn't see the ground clearly at all. I found myself sort of jogging rather than running and trying desperately hard not to blink as I focused on the tiny bit of ground I could just make out about a metre in front of me.
As the route got higher and higher, the rain got heavier and more sideways whilst the fog continued to thicken. I could barely see the ground I was running on. I started wondering if anyone was running in glasses and how they definitely wouldn't be able to see a thing because I couldn't see a thing through the lenses of my actual eyeballs.
Just under halfway through, the route briefly flattened out and it was a decent surface, so I felt confident to stretch my legs a bit without fear of falling over rocks I couldn't see. This section was all about the puddles and the man running in front of me was doing an excellent job of finding all of them so I could at least hear where they were.
The marshals were absolute life savers, without them I'm 100% sure that there would be hundreds of runners drifting in various directions across the moor; you could hardly see the runner in front of you let alone a left turn onto a different bit of path.
There was one last steep, rocky climb before we emerged onto a short section of road. The tarmac was a temporary relief from concentrating because I knew I (probably) wouldn't fall over anything. Another marshal signalled the end of the section as we turned left across the moor. Here was the boggy bit I'd been waiting for.
I entirely missed a wooden bridge that I was literally right next to and instead found myself calf-deep in the bog it crossed. The chap who was right behind me was very grateful because he managed to see the bridge before it was too late. Lucky for me I'd done my laces tight!
The route across this boggy bit was marked with little canes with reflective tape on top every few metres. Again, these were amazing, because it was so easy to drift off course. The fog was so thick on top you could practically eat it, and I was trying to look directly down with my headtorch to see patches of terrain to follow. There were a few near misses as I entirely misjudged my own depth perception and stepped down huge holes and gaps. I admit I did do some swearing as I suddenly found myself about to fall down a metre-deep step that I just hadn't seen.
So much was the concentration requirement, that I briefly glanced up as another woman came past me and said "it's bloody dangerous, this!", and in that split-second I hit a rock and nearly wobbled over. Cue a tiny bit more swearing and a chuckle from the (same) man behind me who was basically using me as his personal hazard warning system.
The last steeper downhill bit through the boggy gullys was exactly the kind of thing I normally LOVE but on this occasion I found myself trying really hard not to exhale too hard because every exhalation caused a cloud of foggy haze right in front of my face when I already couldn't see (didn't I mention that you couldn't see?).
The last bit was back down the cobbled track to the finish. A downhill end is usually where I let it go and fly down but this was definitely a more cautious approach. It occurred to me that I was physcially a lot less tired than I thought I would be, because this hadn't really been a 'hard run' in terms of going as fast as possible, it had been more a case of going as quickly as I safely could with terrible visibility (which, wasn't that quick).
1. Elated that my ankles were still fully intact.
2. Extremely damp.
3. A strange sense of calm from the extreme mindful concentration where nothing else had entered my brain except how not to fall over the bit of ground directly in front of me.
4. How much I would really, really like to do that again but at a time when you could fully see the ground.
AND you get a glow in the dark medal, so it was all definitely worth it.
If you're interested, event deets here.
