One Shire Too Many

Made the most out off the weekend just gone and managed a fell race on both days.

Saturday I did the 3 shires fell race, 12miles and 4000ft of climb. It starts in Little Langdale and visits the tops of Wetherlam, Swirl How, Pike o Blisco and Lingmoor. Three of the 4 tops I had not been on before so Friday night was spent taking bearings with my map of places where I was most likely to get lost.
I normally go quite fast at the start of a race but on this occasion I hung back a bit and settled into the middle of the pack.
The first big climb was Wetherlam and runners started going up the hill side in all directions. 80% of them went up at the first chance they got but I noticed a Keswick runner ignore them all and carried on up along the track a bit, so did I, but at one point I asked myself why in case I lost sight of him ,I would of been lost 20 minutes into the race. Luckily I kept him in my sight and we soon caught another 6 or 7 runners up and eventually got to the path again where the rest of the runners were, I think I made the right choice because we were ahead of other runners who were previously ahead of us.
The climb went on a long time and I was really feeling it, its been a while since I have climbed anything steep and by the time we got to the top I was relieved.

From the summit the running is good and I should of pushed on harder, but with not knowing what lay ahead of me I opted to run at a pace that felt OK, but even at this pace I took a fall on a grass bank, I blamed the fell shoes that I had just purchased from Pete Blends van before the race with the studs sticking in too well.

Before I knew it we were at the 3 shire stone and on to the easier climb of Blisco, which went well but I was aware of a big group coming up from behind so I really did push on up to the summit where I topped out with Gavin Thomas of Kendal who showed me the line down to Blea tarn. (showed me maybe is the wrong words, I followed him)
Once at Blea tarn its only Lingmoor left and whilst Gavin had got ahead of me by about 50 yards I was joined by a Dark Peak runner and a Rossendale runner for the climb, but at this point I was struggling so I faffed about in my bum bag for a drink and by the time I had sorted myself out the 2 other runners were well ahead of me, leaving me to navigate myself of the top.

With my map out I ran along past an old sheepfold or something and then started to descend, but it didnt feel right so I climbed back and ran a bit further until a Settle runner caught me up. He assured me was on the right line and we ran down the zig zagz ( not sure tho if that is the best line tho ) and to the finish together where I cheekily out sprinted him.
Rick Lightfoot won the race.

Good race and with a decent recce maybe I could knock a few minutes off my time, which I think was about 2.20 and 45th position.

5 other Eden runners pitched up for this with Kim Colinson  finishing a fantastic 9th.

Eden after the race

Along the route Steve Angus was out taking photographs, and even so he was shouting insults at me it it must be tough on him to be sidelined with his on going bowel problems, after getting himself so fit again, but after saying that his photographs are very good.

athletes in action

On Sunday I did the Dalehead fell race, 4.5 mile and 2210ft of climbing.
Third year I have ran this and this was the wettest yet. Set of with good intentions but soon became apparent that I was going to struggle and when I finally reached the summit decided to hold position and not loose any more places...... Until Pippa Maddams(who was watching at the bottom of the fell) gave me a right bollocking and told me to start running and I would catch the 2 runners in front, I caught one but the other beat me by a second..... the same dark peak guy who was in front of me at the 3 shires the day before.
I think I finished 15th with a 123 for Borrowdale and Jim Davis.

Monday I biked 13 miles.
Wednesday we recced leg 2 of the Ian Hodgson again.Thursday I ran 6 hilly road miles.

Below is a link for my Flickr where some photos of the Dale head fell race can be found

running pics