Win Hill Recce - 10.11.19

Win Hill Recce - 10.11.19

A suggestion late in the week that we do Win Hill on Sunday was never going to get the whole gang out, and as it turned out, there was just me from the 3 Peaks team, and Matty (my husband). Given all the rain earlier in the week it was nice to be out and about in the sunshine for a few hours, and to do a bit of a recce on what Henry says is an important practice walk.

Henry says Win Hill is good 3 Peaks prep because of the climb. At its’ highest point, Win Hill is 463m above sea level which actually seems a bit insignificant when you consider Ben Nevis is nearly 3 times that at 1345m. What’s so good about this climb then? Well, Google tells me that “the ascent from Yorkshire Bridge to Win Hill is a steep climb of 300 metres (980ft) in 1.2km (¾ mile) by Parkin Clough, first through woods then over the moor to the top”. A decent challenge then. Although, I’m pretty sure that when I told Matty the key to doing this was to be slow and steady, what he actually heard was that it was a race against time. And so I just had to keep telling myself it was all good training as I furiously tried to keep pace with him!

So about the 300 metre climb for a full three quarters of a mile…. What this actually means is about 25mins of unrelenting lung and leg burning hell! You definitely feel the physical challenge and at times, almost enjoy the pain. But it’s the mental battle that makes it more rewarding, particularly as you’re going up through the wooded bit and have no concept of just how much further there is to climb! And then you have those moments where you just stop and have a look around, and well… I think the beauty of the view and the surroundings in this picture speaks for itself!

 Also, I was really ‘lucky’ that I had the ‘motivating’ words of my husband being yelled down at me to keep me focused on getting up the climb; “come on, hurry up!”, “get a wriggle on”, “just let your legs do the work” (they were like jelly at this point!), and “look, we’ve been overtaken now” were some of his more memorable moments. Although I would point out that we were overtaken by two seriously professional fell-running types so no shame here! As much as I love my husband, I couldn’t help but think Coach H wouldn’t take this ‘make ‘em or break ‘em’ approach to our training!

Anyway, once we got to the top the walk down and back along Ladybower Reservoir was much less physically taxing so our overall pace picked up quite a bit. And I guess that’s one of the tactics we’ll apply in the 3 Peaks challenge.