Running up Warden Hill, Luton

Warden Hill, and the adjacent Galley Hill, are situated on the northern edge of Luton. They feature on both the recent Chiltern Way walking/running route and the ancient Icknield Way, and have been designated part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest as an example of chalk downland featuring some rare plants. Since 1993, they have been managed by Luton Borough Council as 'Galley Hill and Warden Hill Nature Reserve'.

They surely needed this protection as in the past 40 years the town has spread closer and closer to the hills with new housing developments replacing previous farmland. Yet immediately behind the houses on the local 'The Riddy Lane Trail' you are next to barley fields looking towards Warden Hill.

 

Riddy Lane Trail sign, located off Old Bedford Road near junction with Barnfield Avenue

 As a teenager I spent a lot of time on and around what we just called 'The Hill', as I lived nearby on one of the encroaching housing developments at the end of Old Bedford Road. And for a period when I was at Luton Sixth Form College me and my friend Nick ran up Warden Hill in the mornings. The healthy effect was perhaps slightly offset by stopping at the top of the hill each morning for Nick to have a roll up, but it was a good start to the day. 

 

I left Luton nearly 30 years ago, and my run up Warden Hill last week (in the course of an 8 mile run from Luton to Dunstable) was only the second time I've run up there since. Just as I remembered it, its trickiest feature is its false summit - running up the main pathway up you appear to be approaching the top but then find you are actually just at the start of the next section. Anyway it's quite runnable, maximum height  is 195m (there is a trig point on the top), and if you wish you can follow the path along the top of the hill and on to Galley Hill next door.

 

 From the top of the hill one direction faces over the town and the South Beds golf course  whereas the other way overlooks the open countryside towards the Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border (as well as affording a view of the Stopsley hill that has figured in the town's cross country course, scene of national championships in the 1970s and 80s). Easy to imagine with your back to the town that you are in an ancient landscape. Neoltihic burials and the Drays ditches earthworks have been found in the vicinity, and Galley Hill apparently takes its name from Gallows that once stood on the hill top.

 

 

Amidst the wild flowers and bird life- swifts buzzing overhead, the song of yellowhammers - I was pleased to see evidence of modern teenage life, even if I wished that they had taken their rubbish home with them.  Schools had broken up for the summer a couple of days before, and burnt remains of exercise books scattered the hill top. But apart from a couple of dog walkers I passed on the way down I had the hill to myself.

 

'let them run riot and scream from the mountain tops'- creative writing burnt offering




Luton Wardown parkrun

While up in Luton at the weekend I also took part for the second time in Luton Wardown parkrun, which has now been running every Saturday since April 2015.  253 people took part this week, the highest number other than at their first birthday run in April. Great inclusive parkrun in a lovely park, this week it featured a group graduating from a Stopsley Striders beginners group to run their first 5k.

 



English National Cross Country Championships at Stopsley, Luton, 1975 -
won by Luton's Tony Simmons (founder of Stopsley Striders)

See previously:

 

Luton running history: 140 years and counting

My not so brilliant junior career: 1970s Luton schools cross country

My (not so) brilliant junior career- 1970s Luton schools cross country

Among school reports and other memorabilia kept by my Mum I recently came across two stapled, duplicated sheets giving details of a cross country race I took part in way back in November 1975, when I was 12 years old.

 

The event was organised by Luton United Athletic Club at Stopsley, with a young boys race for the 'White Trophy', the 'Ninth annual colts cross country race' which I took part in over two miles, and the 'boys cross country relay race' (4 x 2 miles). Not sure of the age rages, the young boys is described as under 12s and I am guessing that the colts was 12-14s and the boys 14-16.

 

It seems to have been quite a big event. I ran for my school, Icknield High, but there were also clubs from across the country taking part such as Aldershot, Farnham & District AC,  Shaftesbury Harriers, Thames Valley Harriers, Hillingdon AC and Havering AC. Prizes were presented by Tony Simmons, the Luton runner who had won the 1975 National Cross Country Championships, also held in Luton at Stopsley, and was to go on the following summer to come 4th in the 10,000m at the 1976 Montreal Olympics (he now coaches the great Kate Avery).

 

'Betting in any form is strictly prohibited'

 

 

 

I've no idea how I did but I doubt if I set the town alight. In PE lessons I usually finished at or near the top in cross country runs around the playing fields and adjacent marshes - I like to think that this wasn't just due to not stopping for a smoke - and this led to me sometimes running for the school team. The only record I have of an actual result is from February 1977 when I wrote in my diary 'I ran in the Luton schools cross country championships at Stopsley. The snow covered course was 3 miles long. I came 79th out of 103, I was 4th out of 15 for our school'.  I also recorded that I had run the most laps for my class in 'a sponsored run for the school mini bus fund' doing '14 laps in 28.5 minutes', as well as coming to second to last in 800m on school sports day.

 

It was to be more than 30 years after leaving school before I took part in another race. I know some people who return to running in their middle age regret the lost years and wonder how well they could have done if they'd kept at it when they were younger. I've no doubt that if I'd trained as hard as I do now in my 20s and 30s I would have got some faster PBs than I am now ever likely to achieve, but in those days staying up dancing was my only endurance exercise.  My school record suggests in any case that I would probably have ended up at a similar level to where I am now. At school I was good enough to be picked for the team, but not good enough to finish near the front in competitive races. And today I am usually one of the first in age category at parkruns, but towards the back quarter in serious club competitions.  In fact I haven't made much progress since the mid-1970s - my 1500m PB when I was 14 was 5:52, last year I ran the slightly longer City of London Mile in 5:55. Perhaps I could just about take down my 14 year old self, but then again I am at least six inches taller!

(see previous post on Wardown parkrun and 140 years of Luton running history)

Update

Posted on 'I was, or am a runner!' group on facebook this is a  preview of the 1975 English National Cross Country Championships mentioned above, held at Stopsley in Luton: 'Runners who believe in real cross country should have no complaints about the course in Luton today... The three miles lap takes in a very steep hill and a long section of plough as well as grassland. Conditions will be muddy'. Luton's Tony Simmons ('The Man to Beat') won this race, while Steve Ovett (described here as 'dark horse') won the Junior race.