Lantern Pike Dash 2016

Caity and I numbering up

Last of the 3 days in May, and my legs are really feeling it.
Over to the Lantern Pike Inn and the usual suspects are beginning to turn up. This is a proper race. Sign up is in a horsebox in a field, there is a stream crossing, a fence to jump and the potential to be mauled by some aggressive looking geese before climbing an absurdly steep hill to the top, turning around and running back down it again.

Not a lot to say about it apart from the insanely fast dash down the first field - my hamstrings were letting me know that they weren't really appreciating the fact that I was making them run hard for the 4th day in a row. Si Bailey shot off ahead and leapt over the fence, taking the lead from whoever had the opportunity to get through the tiny gap in the fence first.
I must have been about 6th going over the stream, just with Lucas, who I was battling with on Friday.

Photo bomb from Joss

I walked up most of the hill, keeping up mostly with others, but Chris motored past, as did Will M from Pennine. Working as hard as I could I just couldn't keep pace with them. Over the first stile, and onto the second, Lucas, Will and Chris had pulled out a decent lead on me, and Nat (the guy I sprinted against yesterday) was hot on my heels.

Made nothing up on the final ascent, and Si came storming past down the hill, followed after a considerable margin by Alastair Campbell - the winner for the past 2 days.
More people coming past on the way down, and lots of supporters shouting at us at the top.

GDH

I made the turn at the trig, blowing hard, and set off down the most direct line I possibly could. Lucas was long gone, but others were just about catchable.
Made no places by the first stile, but was gaining ground, ditto on the second and was right behind another guy.

Caity giving Daz a run for his money

The ground steepened and I shot past him, then Will, then Chris, and was chasing down another guy. We came across the stream and he slowed radically, I put the hammer down and pulled past him, coming in for 5th.
Just under 13 mins.

Si Bailey cruising in for the win

I had to shoot off to something else, so didn't get to stay for prize giving.
Just like to say thanks to the organisers and the marshals for the fantastic races they have put on. Its shown a gaping hole in my training, and thats always a good thing.

Me on the last corner

Well done to Caity for beating the womens record today, and to everyone that has run over these days. Hope you all had as good a time as I did.

This is just how much fun it is.

Thanks to Lynne for the photos and video.

Apologies its not better quality- blogger wouldn't let me upload the original....

Mount Famine Fell Race 2016

The Middle of 3 days of Madness in May. Longest of the race, and certainly the most suffering. Mount Famine is 5 miles of high amusement and leg burning ascents.
After the pre-race banter we had a bit of a wander over to the start to scope out the best line up Elle Bank, which was particularly squidgy this year.
Daz and I chatted for a bit about the best line (there isn't one) and how to not completely blow yourself up in the first 4 mins of the race.

Soon enough we all lined up, I was over to the far right this year, and on the Go we hammered up the bank, slipping and sliding all the way.
By the time we had got through all the brambles and trees and vertical turks heads on perhaps the best start to a fell race anywhere, we hit the top, with the guy that won yesterday way out ahead, essentially doing a Simon Bailey.
MarkO was just in front of me, along with 2 others, one of whom I managed to overtake- then on the next little uphill section Tom Brunt came ambling past, as did Ross Litherland. Down and up, I managed to get a little bit of time back on the first hard climb, went past a load of guys who were walking, and was even catching up with Tom ,but then the climb went on for longer... and I started going backwards. MarkO and the others came past and I ended up chasing them all the way along Dragons Back.
Tom was disappearing into the distance as were the gaggle of 5 in front of me, there was another 1 or 2 in close attendence behind me and there were huge thoughts of just stopping and having a bit of a sit down.

The pace didn't slow, and ahead of me, it was certainly speeding up a bit, so I lost some time, and I tried desperately to eke out a decent rhythm up South Head and Mount Famine, keeping my place intact.

On the descent into Dimpus Clough I let go, and passed one of the guys on the gnarly turks heads, and chased MarkO for the rest of the way down, eventually catching him at the bottom as we circled past Geoff on the checkpoint.
He led for a short while, and then I managed to overtake, and realised why it was easier to follow... bit of a headwind. Across and over the stream and onto the climb proper.

Lots of breathing going on behind me, and not many in front. I managed to tap out a decent pace, and passed someone on the way up, not giving away any places. Ross Litherland was way up ahead, and I was unlikely to catch him.... the key was keeping people behind me.
The top came eventually, and it was straight back into the running. Someone was close behind me, and I managed to keep the pace up enough that he only came past me near the downhill of the first part of Dragons back, where he fumbled a bit going down and I shot past on the rough downhill.

Clear away down the hill and up to the second half of the Dragons back, I was on my own.... it was taking the guys behind quite a while to catch up to me. I certainly wasn't going all out... my legs were feeling tired, and really letting me know they didn't want to go faster. It wasn't until the final descent that there was breathing behind me, the same guy again?
Then a Pennine vest appeared beside me and got half a metre on me on the first part of the descent. Not being particularly happy about that I responded and dropped as quickly as possible down the grassy slope, without being too crazy and hit the gate and the path first.

We were pretty much neck and neck right the way down the Bridleway. Rocks and cobbles and goodness knows what were all over the place, and we did pretty well to not come a cropper. I led through the whole downhill, and managed to keep ever so slightly ahead.
Constant thoughts of just how nice it would be to slow down and chill out were going through my head, so I kind of ignored them and kept it up.

Down to the final turns, and the last 200m, through the playground and I could feel him dropping back a little, over the stream and the final field, I stuck it all on the line and sprinted for the line, just crossing over a few seconds behind Ross who had massively slowed down because of a stitch.
5th overall, in about 48:21 I think.
Pretty happy with that.... I wonder if I'll ever get to the point of hitting sub 45? That'd be quite something. 

May Queen 2016

Lovely little 3 miler this evening. First of the Hayfield series, and my first short race for quite some time.
Originally I was going to be doing the Old County Tops this weekend, but unfortunately circumstances have dictated that to not be the case. There was also an invite for the Scottish Islands race, which would have been amazing, but things didn't quite come off there either.
In preparation for next weeks Jura, I decided that a bit of short fast stuff should be good, especially to see how I go at speed, considering the stitch that keeps re-appearing.

There was a decent turnout over in Hayfield for this little Friday evening race, more than 100 runners, which I think is a record for them. Glossopdale had a fair few out as well, with a good number of them having their first taste of non-road racing as well. Well done all.

The start down the road was a kind of inbetween state, not all out sprint, but certainly not sedate. I knew I had to get near to the front as it gets very thin very quickly, and if you're behind the wrong person going up the single lane your time/placing gets hammered through someone elses pace.

I fell in behind Mark Burton (flashbacks to the last time I ran this race in 2012) and kept with him up the first incline. It had started raining just as we were lining up, which, although the temperature had dropped to a more acceptable level, had made it a bit greasy underfoot, so the first fast descent on hard track was a little interesting.
Across the bridge and over a couple of stiles, and I eased past Mark on the ascent up the cobbles. Taking a bit of a wide line (as I was a bit oblivious to the actual line enabled Mark to get back next to me, but I was first out of the field, nearly took a wrong turning (thanks to Roger Ashby and his humungous dog for pointing out the right direction).

Up through the trees and I can hear breathing right behind me, which basically continued right the way up the hill towards Lantern Pike. 2 Buxworth guys were ahead, and basically out of reach, but I could feel people bearing down on me.
Lucas from Pennine overtook just as we climbed the final steep section to the top of the Pike, which surprised me as I was fully expecting it to be Mark, but he slowed down immediately, so I overtook and led to the top, and down through the single track, but he had the speed along the flat to the descent, and maintained a small lead all the way down through the trees to the final road section where he eked out another couple of metres, to the encouraging cries of the local crowds.

Nev was also there egging me on, and my head was full of the old "ah, shall I let him go? Its only a race. No... I'll go as hard as I can, no, I'll let him go" type of thing.
I followed him up the road, and about 300m to go decided I wasn't having it at all, opened up a bit an cruised past him, hopefully imparting a sense of "well this speed is easy, maybe I should have been going this speed all along".
Down into the finish, and 3rd in 21:25. A good few minutes faster than a couple of years ago, and good enough for a top 3 finish in most of the previous years results.

Happy with that, but although my hill climbing is coming along, I'm still lacking basic speed, and speed on the hills.
Thankfully, no stitch though, which was a bonus.
Mount Famine could be interesting though....