The race was won in a time of 4h18m10s by Adam Perry and Ian Philips (who crossed the line together: they run for the same team in the Runfurther series). A standout performance was Kate Bailey's winning time in the ladies race. Her time of 4h34m17s was more than half an hour faster than Sarah Rowell who was second lady and was faster than Lizzy Hawker's winning time of 2008. Kate Bailey looked pretty fresh as she crossed the line and is clearly an ultrarunner to watch. The pairs event was won in 4h30m27s by Martins Beale and Indge.

The Wuthering Hike is a fast ultra race, being held over good Pennine tracks. The race usually plays out with a couple of runners running off quickly at the start and extending their lead at the front to win by a comfortable margin. This year's race was different, possibly indicating that there is increasing interest in ultra-running from a wider range of participants. The race started with a group of six runners with a 2 minute lead over a second group. The lead runners in this group changed frequently, but no break from this pack succeeded for the first 20 miles. The race totally changed character on the long climb up to Stoodley Pike where Adam Perry broke away from the leading group and Ian Philips broke through from the second group to share the lead. After Stoodley, Adam and Ian pushed on hard and those who chased split the groups apart. This decisive push from Adam and Ian probably won them the race.

I started the race in the leading pack. I was feeling pretty comfortable and just pushed on. We started in bright sunshine, but we ran into the fog on the run up to Top Withens. This was totally unexpected. It was pretty cold on the run over the top towards Widdop Reservoir: the best way to get over this for me was to push on harder to heat up. We ran well across Pennine tracks down to Widdop and then across to Long Causeway. There was a diversion past Stiperden Farm where we ran along a boggy footpath through fields (whereas people have always previously unwittingly run down a good track to Stiperden Farm). Once on Stoney Lane, we were back on terra cognita. Stoney Lane is a great path: initially wide, it constricts to one of those beautiful old Pennine paths where the flags have been worn by countless people for hundreds of years. Intricate navigation saw us into the Todmorden valley from where there was the hard climb up to Mankinholes and then Stoodley Pike.

I felt we climbed quite well up to Stoodley Pike and we summited just behind Adam and Ian. Adam and Ian put their feet down at Stoodley and they soon opened up a quarter mile gap on the run down into Horsehold Wood (from where they extended the lead to this finish). I was running with Martin Indge in the pairs event and my main concern was that we were pulling away from Bingley runners Andrews Jebb and Nicoll. It appeared that we were indeed easing ahead and that was good.

There is a brutal run up from Hebden Bridge to Heptonstall. You should be happy at Heptonstall, but there is then an uncomfortable steep run down to Horse Bridge followed by a second interminable and brutal run up tracks on the west side of Crimsworth Beck. These tracks are at that uncomfortable gradient where there is really no getting away from the fact that you need to run despite the pain: this is really tiring at this late stage in the race. After another nastily angled run up to Top of Stairs, there is a long descent past Leeshaw reservoir where we started running well again, followed by a steep climb up to Penistone Hill. Once running round Penistone Hill (which was in the sun by this stage), we were nearly home. We pushed hard from here down into Haworth. We thought we were far enough ahead of the Andrews from Bingley, but still wanted to finish well in order to maximise our points in the runfurther series. We had a moment of indecision in Haworth (due to a new finish location: Haworth school). We elected to go left which was an excellent decision, getting to the finish line at the school without extra ascent.

The school provided a great event centre where the finishing runners and walkers could relax with some nice warm food provided by the race organisers or some homecooked cakes cooked by the school kids (for a donation). The talk at the event centre was of the great race that we'd had, but also of the eleven races that are ahead of us in the Runfurther series.

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Here's some more photos from the event T

o see all of them click HERE for Mark Hartell's

or HERE for Karen McDonald's

and HERE for Nick Ham's