REPORT ON THE ARNCLIFFE FETE 4 MILER

SATURDAY 12^th AUGUST 2006

I picked the flyer up for this race from Lytham, (the last one in the file), and decided it seemed like a nice one to do. I even persuaded Carol, my girlfriend, to join me to make it a day out. Anybody who knows her knows it is very rare that she watches me in races so it must have seemed like a good idea.

I thought it must be a newish race seeing as it wasn’t advertised too well and I had never heard of it. When we got there – it is about 10 miles north of Skipton – it turned out that the race had been going at least 6 years.

There was only one other runner from the Fylde there and he wasn’t a Lytham runner. It was Greg Seddon who runs for Blackpool and Fylde. I was told twice that I had “travelled a long way to go to the race”. The second time was by a runner from Queensbury Harriers, which is half way between Halifax and Bradford, who told me that he had done the Wesham 10K last year. I would think that that is a further distance, (or at least similar), and our race is at 11 a.m. and this race was at 1-30 p.m.! I did a bit of reminiscing as they ran past were I used to live.

The weather was breezy but otherwise reasonably nice – not quite the August heat wave that was promised by the Met office but O.K., (having said that I wouldn’t have wanted a heat wave – can’t run in the heat!).

The start was on the green were the fete was being held and we ran along the country lanes that were the original setting for Emmerdale, (according to the literature on the flyer and the picture and wording in the Amerdale Hall, where the reception was).

It was a one lap, undulating course, which took us over the river and back into the village. The scenery was breathtaking, (and I do run slow enough to take it in!), which is borne out that there were a lot of fell races for all age ranges as part of the day’s activities. Some people did the road race and the fell race but I’m not as stupid as that.

There were 49 runners in the road race and I was 29^th in a time of 29:21. Greg was 3^rd, I think, in a time of approximately 21:30, (the first 8 or 9 were under 22 minutes, I believe)

I have to say that I really enjoyed the race. The fete was OK but Carol did say she wouldn’t come again. However, on the way up, Carol’s hawk eyes spotted a scarecrow festival in Kettlewell, (about 6 miles from Arncliffe), and she really enjoyed that. It was quite a decent walk and the whole village really get involved and spend a lot of time making the scarecrows. The festival was on for 8 days between the 12^th and 20^th August.

We stopped off at the Calf’s Head Inn, Worston, nr Clitheroe, (also to be recommended), for a meal. This is where we stopped for the night on my 40^th Birthday.

All in all it was a very good day and both Greg and I said that we would do the race again.

Written by: Peter Cooke

Submitted: 6^th September 2006

Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor