Wadsworth Trog 2024 – “The Beast?”

No muddy shoes allowed when collecting your finishing soup

Procrastination prevented me from getting into the LDWA ‘That’s Lyth’ challenge at the end of January, so I was scouting about for a long race about the same time and came across the ‘Trog’on the first Saturday in February. It’s a BL – 19.3 miles (31km)/3642ft (1110m) race around the moors north of Hebden Bridge.

No opportunity to recce the route meant I felt happier poring over google satellite and the race route map for hours rather than trust the luck of following others. I also trawled other user experiences on the web for clues, so in the spirit of giving something back have added a small one of my own, further down.  Although as a middle-pack runner (at best) there were many people to follow who did know the way, occasionally I was on my own and had to trust my chair-based recce. Like a proper recce it also helped mentally as I knew roughly where I was on the route for most of the time.

One thing I hadn’t realised was how much the route follows main paths, with only a few sections of lesser paths, and so not the nav horror-fest I was so worried about. Interestingly on most of the more twiddly bits route junctions were flagged, which I found surprising. Ok so the organisers don’t want you to get lost, but it does reduce the navigation requirements significantly to the point where it becomes more a race of speed and endurance. Maybe they got sick of rounding up lost runners into the evenings? On a more claggy or rainy day you might be much more grateful than grumpy me, but it did take some of the usual fell running nav out of the equation which, with luck, might give me a few extra positions by the end.

The checkpoints come on you pretty quickly and its varied enough underfoot to give you every type of running terrain. 1/3 muddy bog, 1/3 hard track or flagged path, 1/3 muddy moors. So yes, plenty of mud but also time in between for your feet to almost dry and socks get crusty. The last run south across to Midgley moor and Sheepstones CP12 was the one most worrying me as I found it pretty much impossible to work out a good route until I experienced it – clue: if you can see where you are going aim for the pill-box style chimney on the left then aim at the highest point you can see, which should eventually get you to the trig point.

On this occasion we had high clouds and even occasional sun and, although the wind was a constant (you can see why they put turbines on the moors) blast, it wasn’t cold and made for generally good running. That’s a good title for this blog entry “Generally Good Running”, as almost the entire race is runnable, which is probably why the winning male times are around two and a half hours and female well under three.

This is the point where traditionally people say what a great race/route it was and how much they recommend it. I’d agree with that as the route is fun and varied and makes the distance go by quickly. But with the caveat that in bad weather it would be absolutely minging. For one particular section, uphill across a boggy field like a shallow swimming pool into a strong headwind isn’t the best way to make quick progress. Imagining that in cold, driving rain and the fun factor could drop perilously low. Even so, I think it is one to come back to as each year the weather will make it that much different each time. At least I know the way around now.