Ok, so Last week I ran the Cross Bay Challenge and really struggled. I got annoyed with my running; I was sick at
the end and felt like ending my running career there and then.
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| Perry and Paul on the start line raring to go. |
So what’s the best remedy for that? Well,
mine was to do the ridiculous, try a 30k Fell
race with 2300ft of climb. I
found this race by accident in the Runner's World events section. My aim was to just do
a long run as I prepare for a mountain marathon next month. But this race just
kept calling me, “DO ME DO ME DO ME” it shouted akin to the Christian Gray
novels !! (btw I haven’t read them). So as it kept shouting and I had a weekend
off from work I shouted back “YES”. Everything I had read about this race
suggested I shouldn’t do it. It was described as tough and “back breaking” in
the on-line forums, but I just thought, If I had survived the Leaden Boots
challenge I could do anything. I took the details down to the club on the
Wednesday run to see if anyone wanted to do it with me, no interest there but
lots of encouragement as per normal from the Striders.
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| Starting the big climb. |
So I was prepared to go it alone, Gels and
Jelly babies packed and getting my kit together when the familiar bleeps went
on my phone. It was Perry texting to see if anyone else was going with me, I
knew at this moment that I had a victim, I sold him a few swerve balls about
the free ride and great Techie T shirt and “Bang!” there he was, outside my
house with his running kit at 07-15 Sunday morning.
On arrival at the starting point in Belper
Derbyshire, something struck me about the other runners. They had come from all
over the country, parading their shirts and not a tiny bit of fat on any of
them. It was like I had turned up to an Olympic event for elite athletes. As I
read the club shirts from Doncaster, Perth, Redhill to name a few I commented
to Perry that any thoughts we had of winning this race should be put to the
back of our minds for the time being. Any how we paid our monies and joined the
start after being given a good talking too by the marshall.
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| Finding time for a laugh at one of the checkpoints. |
Before we knew it we were off, at about 300
metres there were a couple of guys sprinting toward us like Usain Bolt looking
like they had forgotten something. However, it transpired they were the lead
athletes and had gone around the roundabout at the top of the road already and
were now well into the race. The first mile was relatively flat as we ran
past the sewage works, but all that was about to change. We looked up at what
looked like a mountain to see runners running and walking up it, boy we were into a steep hill. This continued for some time with lots of kissing gates that
required us to wait for some time for people to get through. Time wise it
wasn’t going to be pretty, with an hour coming we were just about reaching the
5 mile mark with a load more climbing to do. At about 6 miles we were off
climbing again, another 358ft energy sapping field and mud run.
This continued
to a point whereby we soon had to run downhill, off we went picking up the pace.
The only problem with running down the hills was they generally were all rocky
and needing careful navigation running down them to avoid any sprains or falls.
Some poor gent from one of the local running clubs seemed to struggle with
this. This guy must have either fallen slipped or tripped at least 5 times that
I saw.
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| An athletic looking chap manning one of the water stations. |
As the run progressed the heat sitting at
about 25+ degrees really made for tough progress. Perry was really struggling
to keep going and it was a change from it being me. I felt quite strong and
Perry urged me to go ahead without him. However, being that he had come and
joined me on the run that was never going to happen. I devised a way of keeping
us going for the last few miles, it meant walking 30 seconds and then running a
minute, we kept going like this until we could see the finish line. At this
point I opted to sprint for the line and came home in a more than happy 3hrs
51. Sounds like a long time, but it most certainly was one of the tougher runs
I have done this year. Perry followed me in a few seconds later and we got
ordering our T-shirts for delivery. I'm relatively pleased with the time, I felt
quite strong and wasn’t sick but most importantly, I really enjoyed the run and
the scenery. The weather could have been a little kinder, I have done 3 runs in
the Peak District this year, every one of them has been in record breaking temperatures!!!
I was slightly put off by the chap running towards us when we had 6 miles to
go. He had already finished the race and was doing the route again the other
way round!!! Show off.
As for the race itself? Fantastic marshalls,
really friendly people and a nice event 10/10 and a must do for next year. I
can now go and rest these legs for a couple of weeks as I’m off on holiday.
Some more information is available here.
Paul N.
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