TUESDAY 9th SEPTEMBER
HADES HILL
5m/1200ft
WHITWORTH

This was the last midweek night race on the fell running calendar and it was for that reason, coupled with the depressing realisation that summer was almost over, that made me line up for my first appearance at this one.
Looking around at the start there seemed to be only the young Todmorden lad Sean Carey and Calder Valley's Steve Smithies to trouble me. Does that sound arrogant? Well I seemed to be in that sort of frame of mind that night for some unknown reason. Welcome John Sutton, arrogant fell runner. Straight from the off I'm thinking, ''I should win this'', that's right, not just can or could, but ''should''. Frankly I have no right to think such a thought at any race. I am, afterall, just John Sutton. Right now I needed to just get a bit of consistency back and run my own race. Instead I began to run the race of my alter-ego for the evening.
After watching the big leggy action of Sean up the first hill and hearing him huffing and puffing more than me without hearing any huffs or puffs directly behind me, I tucked in behind the young leader as we got on to the moor and then made the outrageous decision to forge ahead and take the race to him. I was absolutely loaded with false confidence and gave myself a considerable lead at one point. However, a couple of short climbs later I began to suffer what is essentially known in the trade as a stitch, although the egotiscal me was convincing myself it was just a bit of wind or a slight recurring pain from those stomach cramps at Sedburgh. I was kidding myself, this was a stitch! I had blown up and yet I couldn't accept it for some reason. Sean eventually came past to regain the lead before the climb up to Hades Hill and soon enough as the race retraces it's steps back from where we came, Steve Smithies breezes by whilst I am still suffering this mysterious sharp pain in my abdomen. I was pretty much annoyed to lose another place and Steve shot away from me down two descents so by the time my mysterious abdominal pains were subsiding, it was too late to even dream of recapturing second spot. At least I managed to find my composure and hold on to third, but even at the finish I find myself telling Sean and Steve that they were lucky and that i've torn a stomach muscle or something. What crap! 
Like all runners I have the odd excuse in the bag, but I pride myself on genuine ones and on this night I did myself a great disservice. I blew up, I got a stitch, I thought I was much better than I was, just for tonight anyway. 
At least I refrained from any dummy spitting though and so stayed for the presentation; an entertaining affair in the local working man's club where race organiser Derek Clutterbuck (now there's a proper Lancashire name) delivers his sermon from the snooker table which is costing the Newburgh Nomads contingent in the corner a fortune to keep the lights on at 20p every five minutes! After it was alledged by the Rossendale posse that I had sent the whole field of runners looping the wrong way on the top of Hades by shouting Sean to where I thought the next marker was, there were some playful howls of foul play when Derek finished with the words, ''Now finally, is John Sutton still here?''. Fearing a very public disqualification, I was instead handed a generous running tackle voucher to accompany the beers I had won because Steve had already taken the Vets prize and so leaving me with the prize for second. Phew! It got a laugh though, I thought I was in the dog house.
On the way home and settled back in to the mould of my humble self, I wondered just what the hell had got in to me that evening. I concluded that I shall not be letting it happen again and pondered that if I had just tucked in behind Sean and stayed there, maybe my more humble self might not have been so far from victory afterall.
Time: 35:26   Pos: 3rd/78

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