I'm not a particularly keen cyclist, but I do love to watch road cycling on TV. If I have the time (and it takes a lot of time), I can get completely absorbed by the way that the tactics evolve as teams compete over a long day's mountain stage. One thing that I've never quite understood though, is why so many people hop on the bikes and ride up the mountains and then park and watch the racers go past. Presumably, once the road is clear, they ride back down the hill again.
I say I don't understand this, but a couple of weeks ago, I did more or less exactly the same thing - just without a bike. I parked the car at Slippery Ford and jogged up to Oakworth Moor to watch an American in a bright coloured tshirt jog past, accompanied by a few local runners. John Kelly was on his way to breaking the record for the 270 mile Pennine Way - you can read his story here. John is a truly outstanding athlete and it was a privilege to watch him for a few minutes before he disappeared into the setting sun on his way to Cowling. At the point where I saw him, he had covered sixty miles and didn't even sit down till he hit Lothersdale ten miles further on.
I knew when to be on the moor to see John because I'd been watching his progress on the Open Tracking website. These days, when people attempt long-distance events like this, they carry satellite trackers that allow people all around the world to follow their progress. This is the addictive activity of dot-watching. It may not be as spectacular as watching Chris Froome burn up Ventoux, but it has a very distinct (if somewhat niche) appeal.
This summer has been a great one for dot watchers, with numerous attempts on impressive distances. Sabrina Verjee covered all of the Wainwright fells in the Lake District; six days of impressive running for her and compulsive dot-watching for me (her route is here). Then there was John Kelly's record-breaking run on the Pennine Way. Even as I write, Carla Molinaro is into the seventh day of her attempt to break the Lands End to John O Groats (LEJOG) record and fell runner Damien Hall is trying to break John Kelly's weeks old Pennine Way time (though he is running North to South). Having a dual monitor set up certainly comes in handy at times like this.
However, the holy grail of dot watching is not following a single runner on a long run - enjoyable though that is - it is following the runners in a big race, such as the Spine. It is fantastic seeing the speed at which the elite runners move and then following the travails of the ordinary competitors as they slog along through harsh terrain, toughing it out in an amazing way. The great thing about distance running in the UK is that you get such a mixture of people involved and it's a very friendly community. I may not know Sabrina Verjee or Damien Hall, but I've lined up at the start of races with them, only to see them disappear up a hill before I started jogging. Whatever the race is, there will probably be someone that I know somewhere in the middle of the pack and it's great to follow their progress. Of course, what is even better is when I am one of the dots - though the last time that happened, I was running with my son, Dave, and both of our trackers failed, so our dots were stationary on top of Whernside.
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