The alarm went off at 5 again. I struggled to get out of the house by 6 and then it was a fast drive to Kielder. Up the A1 which was nice and quiet, as was the A69 and then north on the rollercoaster which is the A68, those hidden summits are fun
Then through the fog to Kielder. The car park was much more crowded with double the number of entrants this year. I had run round Kielder twice before today and both times were close to 5 hours so I would have been very happy with 4hr 59min, but I wasn't holding out too much hope as I have done quite a few long runs recently.
The runners were starting first at 8.00 and as we gathered at the line, up came a woman in a midge net and said hi Dave. It was a Fetchie named Soph, who I had only met online before and we then ran the entire race together
I realised pretty early on that we were running up hills I had walked up before. If a hill was particularly long and steep Soph would say 'run as far as that tree'. At first I wasn't quite sure which one she meant and I usually guessed at a tree (there were a lot of them) somewhat nearer than she meant ! Then there would be a call of 'Come on Rave Dave' (which I haven't been called since school ). Then there was the singing, I am not going to forget both of us singing Yesterday as we crossed the dam - neither is anyone who heard us !
I had a bit of an equipment failure. I took a bum bag, the same one which had lasted most of Grimsthorpe. It had one working bottle holder left, but after about 8m the bottom of the only bottle holder broke and the bottle fell through . I had also noticed that my insect repellent spray had leaked all over the bag contaminating everything in there including my shot blocks and s!caps. I also smelt of insect repellent (we didn't have any problem with midges though !) and my companion regularly took the mickey out of me ! The bum bag ended up in the bin at the end of the race.
The fog lifted after about an hour and half and it started to heat up a bit. Kielder and the the Lakeside Walk are just lovely and there was only a light cooling breeze. The undulations are tough though, 2000 ft of ascent apparently.
We finished in 4hr 25min which is an incredible time for me on that course ! Totally unexpected and it was down to Soph, I could not have done that without her.
Then it was off to the pub for food, drink and chat. A lovely day.
