Arrived in plenty of time and parked in the official car park (a field) at Falstone and got on the bus to take us to the start. No delays and we were dropped off at the top of the hill and made our way down to the starting area. Sadly as we approached the start one of the barriers blew over onto MelanieLH's ankle. It went red, but she had it checked out and it didn't seem to cause her any problems when running. Relaxed and ate some of the wonderful food being sold by a group from Falstone. All home cooked and lovely.
The announcer warned that the start might be late (which seems to have happened most years), but we went off just about on time. It had started drizzling and it kept on doing that all race. It was cooling at first, but it did get a bit more windy and chilly towards the end.
Melanie and I decided to run this one separately as I wanted to walk most if not all the hills and then speed up towards the end. This strategy has worked well the last couple of times. So I started fairly near the back. However, once I got started, I found I was bouncing along quite rapidly. I was surprised, it had been a tiring week and I hadn't slept too well the previous night. To my surprise I started to catch MelanieLH and two clubmates and caught them after about 4m. This was probably a mistake ...
One of the other two clubmates rapidly slowed after 6m and limped round the rest, so then the three of us ran on. I was walking more than the other two, but then catching them on the descents. However after a while I found myself unable to catch them. But I was still going reasonably well and did the first half in 2h13min
I was hoping that I would still be able to either speed up or at least continue that pace after 17m, but inevitably going too fast early on had taken its toll and I slowed. Still I got round in my third fastest time out of eight, so I was very happy with that
I do love running at Kielder and there was a lovely atmosphere. Apart from a falling barrier, the organisation was very good and it was an excellent goody bag
I will be back again next year
No comments:
Post a Comment