Abbey 25th Anniversary Fell Race
Posted in Running
After Wednesdays mountain bike race I was tired all day and had a good whine about tired legs and put in my excuses for a poor performance right at the start of the race. Dead legs, tired, its just a training run etc etc. So with my excuses in, all that was left to do was to jack up on strong caffine drinks, nigella lawson flap jack and run the race.
The race starts with a steep hill with loads of false summits. I tucked in behind my Valley Strider club mate Eirik Stanges and started up the hill. About half way up I took over from him as I saw the first runner gaining a bit of a lead. Off I went and at the top I found myself in second with a fair lead on the rest of the field but a considerable distance away from first position. So the race was then could I keep second and will the first person blow up as that was my only hope of catching him. By the bottom of the hill my position was pretty much the same but with a short flat bit at the bottom it seemed like they were catching and first was getting further away. I knew if I was half way up the hill on the way back I could hold off my club mate but wasn’t sure about the rest of the field. I had lost the leader and never saw him again so I was just looking behind me. Its not a comfortable position to be running as there is no-one to chase and all of a sudden you feel like the hunted.
I managed to run all the ascent and it felt like I was getting some of my ascending strength that I had at the end of last season so was happy with that. Even felt I could have gone a bit faster if needed. The descent was great grassy descent, again I could have gone slightly faster but wanted to maintain where I was in the race and not do anything stupid so just made sure I got to the bottom without falling. Job done there was then a stretch of undulating path that I was trying to push on but there was someone catching me up, and FAST! I was going as fast as I could but he was still catching. The question was then could I get to the end before he caught me? Being careful went out the window and now it was eyeballs out, lung rasping and careless running over rocks, through the odd stream and jumping down small depressions. There was the final field up ahead I could do it!
I managed to hold my position and came second! A quick congratulations to the winner who was looking a bit too fresh for my liking and a shake of the hands of third, who in all honesty if we had a bit longer would have taken me and there would have been nothing I could have done. He was flying the last mile! I then decided lying on the ground was the best thing for me!
Great race and great organisation from Abbey Runners! Congrulations on 25 years!
Final result, 2nd out of 41. Winner was Bruce Elsworth from Wharfedale Harriers (Also the winner of Weets the night before.
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