Showing posts for Striders
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Bob Graham Round, leg 4 clockwise
Last year I ran leg 1 of a friend’s anticlockwise Bob Graham Round with him as a pacer. This was in the catatonic lee of the Fellsman, and I was letting my fitness drain away a little bit, and my Fellsman training had overindexed on distance rather than elevation, and I was also wearing the wrong pair of shoes: so on the descent down Dale Head I sort of fell behind by a couple of minutes and only barely arrived at Honister before my friend set off again up Grey Knotts.
Nearly a year has passed since then, and very little running in the Lakes in the meantime. I have, however, at least started to pay lip service to climbing in Castle Eden Dene and the North York Moors, so I was keen to see whether I could keep up on a group Striders run on a clockwise leg 4 recce over the bank holiday weekend.
Pleased to report that it went well: either due to company, or fine weather, or dry conditions, or judicious use of salt capsules, I finished the 17-mile run in good fettle, a little tuckered out but not unable to keep climbing if necessary. A Bob is not in my immediate future, but I’m glad to know that I can at least dispatch pacing duties without catastrophe.
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Neptune relays
First ever relay race, a 1.7-mile lap around Hardwick Park in Sedgefield. I love short-distance events like these; I always feel in the lead-up that I’m in the presence of minor Greatness. Young people with joints that can go for days and windswept hair and sunglasses and moustaches and reeking of the privilege of being a lifelong runner. Do I sound bitter.
I finished in decent time, though at the end I felt that nagging feeling that I maybe left a little bit out on the course. Could I have eked another 10 seconds off? Another 20? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll be back next year to find out.