Stanza Stones 2023 - from behind the scenes.

In 2012 I lived in Silsden, Keighley. One day I was running along a regular route when I was stopped in my tracks by a stone. Two stones actually, with a poem carved on them. It was the Dew Stone, the 4th of the Stanza Stones. That year the poet laureate Simon Armitage had written 6 poems on a theme of water and placed them in locations along the South Pennines between Marsden and Ilkley.

From the start I wanted to run the whole lot in one go.

But in 2012 I wasn't running ultra distances, and my life wasn't really set up to do that. So it waited.

In 2022 Daz told us he was organising the Stanza Stones ultra. We knew he'd need all the ultra experienced crew he could get, so we decided to forgo running it for now in favour of helping.

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We'll quietly elide months of planning. Ideas being put forward and carefully written down (or completely forgotten). Early draft art work. Watching Sientries lists growing. Recces and GPX files.

Planning out the route - 2022

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Let's resume at 5.45 Saturday morning. Claire had choir practice Friday, so we'd driven down to Marsden late Friday night and just about managed to get to bed for midnight. At 5.45 the loud birdsong from the recorded robin I use as an alarm tone dragged us out of bed. Daz had messaged the team Whatsapp late the night before to say that we couldn't get into the building until 6.30 rather than 6, then again at 5.30 to say that they had vehicle trouble and were running late. So I made some coffee.

By 6.15 we were in the building and waiting. It turned out the vehicle hire firm had let us down, so we were down a vehicle. This is the kind of thing that happens, and adapting quickly to hitches - hopefully without any of the entrants noticing - is part of the fun.

Early doors at MCC

We'd used the extra waiting time to work out where to put kit check and registration, so when Daz and Joolz arrived we were able to unload and set up very quickly. Karen and Bob appeared with the Runfurther flags and I lent a hand setting up.

Coming up to 8 the bus arrived from Ilkley and we started kit check and registration. A few people had registered on Friday night in Ilkley, but the majority were registering Saturday morning. I had time for a couple of kit checks then I was heading out to flag the descent from Pule Hill to the Snow Stone. This is a faint trod that allows easy access to the quarry from the south, and we wanted to make sure it was clearly visible to keep people away from the cliff edge. It was chilly and windy on the way up, but I was climbing reasonably quickly so I wasn't too cold. Once that was done I placed the clips and kites at the stone itself (taking care not to block the stones in case anyone wanted to take photos) then followed the route down to the road crossing at Manchester Road.

Snow Stone

On reaching the road crossing there was a ewe and lamb on the wrong side of the gate. I popped to the farm next door, where I was told "it's just like this in Marsden. They wander around all over the place. We've only got four in the field".

Claire on a recce earlier in the year

Promising to keep an eye on the four in the field while 78 people came through, I went back to my station at the side of the road.

Thankfully it was too early for the road to be particularly busy, and I was able to wave most of the entrants straight across, keeping an eye on both gates and all four sheep as much as possible.

Road crossing - picture courtesy of Nick Ham

Towards the end of the rush, Claire popped up needing the keys to my van to get some stuff out. Once she brought them back I trotted back up to the quarry, gathered in the flags and kites and returned to the van to get to my next assignment. Plans were shifting and, instead of going to Haworth to set up, I was due in Mytholmroyd. I turned on the radio and got a R3 program about 'Peter and the Wolf' and dragged my way up Scapegoat Hill and back down into the valley.

At Mytholmroyd it was absolutely baking. The volunteers there had everything set up, and I spent half an hour or so filling water bottles and fetching food, then Claire turned up with her van which had been parked at my house and we loaded up with food and kit for the finish. I set off for Haworth, with Claire not far behind me.

The traffic through Hebden wasn't awful and I got across to Haworth fairly promptly. The CP was already set up and Ricky, Louise and Anthony were there, along with Andy Smith from CVFR cheering on some of their members, Steve Foster (who was supporting Sally) and a lad from the Scouts helping us with the village hall facilities. The next couple of hours mostly consisted of fetching jugs of water from indoors and filling up runners' bottles. Kev Hoult turned up and hung around for a little while eating and rehydrating. We had a few retirees early on, including James Chapman who had been in the top 3.

Still fresh and cloudy - 8.30am on Pule Hill

Once things were definitely settled into a rhythm at Haworth I headed down to Bingley. I still had the food for the finish to deliver and time was getting on.

At Bingley things were fairly quiet still. Claire and Joolz were just about to leave for the finish, Andy Brookes from Peak District Ultras was helping out, and Mick and Alan appeared soon after. The first couple of runners came through, then a very frustrated Kev Hoult turned up having struggled to find us. Navigation through built up areas is always a pain, and the map we supplied was an OS 1:25k rescaled to 1:50k. I've noticed before that printing OS Explorer symbology at 1:50k makes it really hard to read. Next year we'll have better signage for the Bingley CP. This time we quickly put out some signs we'd collected from earlier in the route, and that seemed to help.

A hectic spell of filling bottles, cooking pizza and checking on people. It was mid/late afternoon and a lot of people were coming in much the worse for the heat. Jono Wright appeared and quietly lay down in the back room, so I was kept occupied checking on him and feeding him water & electrolytes for a while.

Kites in place

Generally though most people were in pretty good order. A lady came in asking for blister plasters. We don't generally keep Compeeds or anything like that - foot care is really personal. We also have to be quite careful about 'treating' people - I'm first aid trained so I'm equipped to deal with emergencies but I am not a doctor. Mostly I clean up grazes and cuts, and check for anything more serious. I checked her blisters and they were pretty bad - blister plasters most likely wouldn't have helped anyway. In those circumstances what I'd do for my own feet is to tape the area with gaffa tape to reduce friction. I have some gaffa tape that isn't too madly sticky, so it comes off after a race fairly easily. I checked she was happy with that then taped them up, and I did see her at the end so I guess it worked ok. Quite a few of us are first aid trained to some extent, but Helen W and I are the usual FRA trained first aiders and Helen wasn't around, so I was pretty busy.

Jono was still not well, and I wasn't convinced he was going to be finishing. But with the CP open until 11pm, 17 miles to go and the temperature dropping rapidly things could (and did) change. Around 7pm or so I got a call to go to the finish as there had been a couple of falls on the final descent, and they wanted me around just in case. Just as I was packing up to leave and cleaning the bars of the oven  Laura and Sarah arrived, and Jono was on his feet looking tired but fully functioning. I checked he really was functioning properly, then off he went, and so did I. We had 2 retirees (one was Bernard, I'm terrible with names so unfortunately the other escapes me) waiting to head to the finish, so we all squeezed into the front of my van and headed for Ben Rhydding. We had a nice chat on the way over and my passengers were full of compliments about the event, which was great to hear.

It took me a while to figure out how to get onto the field, but once I was there I parked up and went into the school to help out. Claire and Joolz were looking after the timing, so I got on with distributing water, tea and chilli to the finishers, gathering in trackers, occasionally taking a finish with the scanner when the others were unavailable. The Opentracking scanner wasn't working quite as expected, so we tinkered with things a bit and worked out a reliable process.

Dave Garner had put up the Runfurther banners along the finish funnel which looked great. Later on when we took the flags down I put up some fairy lights as well which made for a nice atmosphere.

Runfurther flags (just before Karen finished)

The night spell is a bit of a blur. I was bustling about most of the time, making sure people were fed and looked after, removing trackers and checking occasional finishers in, and keeping a close eye on some of the finishers who were more than just tired. I spent quite a while with one guy who had some slightly worrisome symptoms, but seemed to be just exhausted and hypoglycaemic. He was actually suffering very much the same effects as I sometimes get. After a lot of tea and some food (and several warm layers) he was fine. Merrian (LDWA stalwart and regular at the last CP of the hundred) was around helping (while she waited for partner Dave, but actually mainly because she enjoys being involved).

There were other impromptu helpers around the course - partners of runners helped out in various ways, one guy was handing out water at Warley Moor reservoir. Chris Driver of the Fellsman set up an impromptu water station in front of his house in Riddlesden while his kids guided people in and kept them company.

Various Runfurther friends showed up at different times: Karen, Nick, Jenny (Ken had retired at Bingley with knee problems while I was there). Imtiaz Ilahi came in looking only slightly tired. Other Craggrunner & Tod friends too: Jack Cooper, Guy Whitmore (who retired but made his own way to the finish), Mark C. Jono came doggedly in, and around 3am or so Dianne & Kieran arrived, very tired and footsore but glad to have finished (and only a couple of weeks after the EBB100 at that). A little later Dom Camponi was greeted in by some CVFR members who had been waiting up for him to finish. I read about Dom's backstory in a blog post a couple of years back and noticed he'd had a couple of DNFs due to injury last year, so I'm always happy to see him finish a tough race.

Hedgehog a-gogo

At 4:15 we only had 2 people left still on the course. They were over by the swastika stone and I estimated their remaining time at 2 hours. Claire and I crawled into bed for a couple of hours, and at about 6:20 I heard the final finishers walk past our van. We popped into the hall to see how things were going, then went back for 'a couple of hours' more sleep. Unfortunately we forgot to set an alarm and slept until 10. By that time the hall had been cleared and we were pretty much all done and dusted.

The feedback we got on the event was fantastic, everyone seemed to have a great time in spite of the weather. The hitches we had were handled smoothly and hopefully weren't apparent to the competitors. Next year's event looks assured - in fact as I write this there are 12 confirmed entrants, and less than a week has passed. By Sunday afternoon Whatsapp was already crackling with suggestions and ideas for next year's race.

I've volunteered at a lot of races, particularly Craggrunner ones but also other ROs and our club races. The Stanza Stones was intense and exhausting to be involved with but enormous fun. Being able to look after people while they undertake something like this is an absolute joy.

Next year we'll be back. Claire and I will probably run the course ourselves in the interim so we can be part of the organisation of the event. Maybe we can get a few more walkers aiming for that quiet 20-24 hour slot, especially if we're a qualifier for East Anglia 2025. Hopefully it'll be a bit cooler!

Yes, I made Daz run all the way round them as well