Snickleways

Last night’s club run was through the Snickleways - which is York-speak for ‘gap between building just narrow enough for one person to fit down semi-sideways’. Not the most obvious route for 20-odd runners to pound through, but effective - it’s not particularly fast, but as you don’t spend more than 30 seconds at any one pace in any one direction, it very rapidly gets heart rates up. Not just of runners, either - there were more than a few wandering tourists who were startled by a line of runners who exploded from a 3-foot wide alley exit, ran two doors down the street and almost immediately dived down the next gap between buildings.

We were out for about 1h20, and the consensus was that the distance came to about 10 miles. I’ve no idea if that’s anywhere near correct or not, by the time I’d been in the lanes for 10 minutes I was completely disoriented and lost track of where I’d been let alone where I was going. But the route back took us down the main road past the racecourse, and by the time I’d reached that point I hit the wall. It’s the first time in a very long while I can remember this happening (which probably means I’m not going far or fast enough), but within the space of about 30 seconds my legs turned to lead and my lungs became about as much use as a pair of paper bags. The thing that amazed me was the sheer speed that it happened - one moment I was feeling relaxed and in control of the pace, and the next I was reduced to hobbling along while the rest of the group accelerated off into the darkness. The last mile or so was at least half the speed of the previous nine, as I shuffled over the railway bridge giving a reasonable impression of having had a hip transplant.

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