I did this run last year and I enjoyed it, so I decided to do it again. The alarm went off at 4.45. I heard the rain outside and I turned over.
But I didn't go to sleep and at 5.00 I forced myself out of bed, got myself together and left the house at 5.45.
The journey down to near Barnsley was painless apart from the 17m of road works on the A1 which have a 50 mph speed limit. Only two more years before they finish!
The weather was quite bad on the way down but it was just grey when I got to Elsecar and registered. I hadn't expected to see any Fetchies, but it was great to see two I had met before. We ran together until the first checkpoint, but I didn't see them after that and I had to shoot off afterwards so I don't know how they found it.
The route description was only available on the day which gave people very little time to study it. This meant that lots of people seemed to make mistakes and I spent a lot of of the race stopping people from going the wrong way. I did make a very minor mistake myself and there was one point where I took a wild guess about the right way and it was right.
We passed Wentworth Woodhouse where I had my first job in a teacher training college and it was lovely to see it again. It was raining quite a bit then and it developed into a short cloudburst. The view from Wharncliffe Craggs was lovely and we seemed to pass many follies and country houses. It was undulating mainly with just a couple of hills.
The undergrowth seemed much more developed this year and my legs stung from all the nettles for at least a day after.
I liked it a lot. Knowing the route saved me loads and loads of time - I was 90 minutes faster than last year. I was also only 6 minutes behind the first person home - I have never been so close to the front before - and probably won't be again !
Lovely pie and peas afterwards.
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