Another cold day and despite the late starting time for the race, the sun hadn't had time to warm up the countryside around Allendale before the race began.
Dad and Laurence came to watch the start of the race, Laurence having decided that it was too much to take part after all of the recent races we have done. We arrived at 10:15 and found James already prepared with his race number attached to his running vest. I queued up inside the fire station to be handed my race number and became a mini-sensation as they found I was registered with a French club. "Oh, it'll be another international race this year" as last year some unwitting Spaniard had turned up to take part on his way through the region.
I went back outside and found Nigel too was already kitted up and that Will had just arrived. There were about 140 participants in the race and at 11:00 am sharp the word was given and we set off down to the road to the village centre. Unfortunately, the downhill only lasted about 300m before we took a sharp left-hand turn across the grass and back on to a road heading East out of town. This road was a killer right from the word go: an arrow on the OS maps meaning that it was steep and this slowed the pace down immediately. I was running with James at this point and managed to keep ahead to the top of the first hill, only to be really disappointed as I saw that another steep hill lay in wait just behind. As we reached the left turn off this road and onto the track that would take us over the moors, James had gained a couple of metres over me and was treading confidently over the ice covering the track heading slightly uphill.
It was from here on that things began to go wrong for me: the ice to begin with meaning that my strides had to be shortened; the heather lining the track if you tried to avoid the ice; and then the snow, the ruts and the mud to complete the picture. I never really managed to get back into my stride from this point on. The hills were steep, the paths were difficult to negociate and the going was tough. I watched as James built a lead over me and then was helpless to latch on to another half a dozen other runners as they came past. It wasn't as though I gave up: a number of times I pushed the pace as a runner came past and I would hold on to get past them again only to lose them completely as the path went steeply uphill once more and the strength in my legs faded.
Rachel, the first lady overtook me after 13km following the last really steep uphill across the final stretch of moorland before the road. I thought that the final stretch of road was longer and that I would have a chance to get back to her but it wasn't to be. She finished about 5 seconds and 20m in front of me after 16.8 km of race.
Total time: 1:22:20 or 4:53 per km and 23rd place. James finished 2 minutes ahead of me exactly in 1:20:20 and Nigel almost 4 minutes behind me in 1:26:08. Will finished in 1:35 and was disappointed with his time as it was exactly the same time as his practise run over the same route a couple of months ago. The conditions were hard today and the times for the course were slower than in previous years.
I'll be sticking to the road in future and challenging the others to a race on my home ground !!
Lovely scenery, great weather: cold but bright and a good course - but it's not my scene. Impossible to get into a rhythm and just too damn hard. It's a bit like the comparison between road cycling and mountain biking - I'm just the road cyclist of the running scene.
Great to see everyone, including Antony who was also out supporting us all.
