Another weekend, another race. This time I was far from concerned about a time, and was more looking forward to running over the hills, seeing some spectacular scenery and potentially have an element of competition thrown in. The race provided 2 out of 3; thick mist scuppered any decent views.
The Kendal Mountain Festival is mostly about screening adventure films, but they threw in a 10k fell race that went over some of the foothills around Kendal. The first couple of miles climbed up Beast Bank and, knocking off the first couple of miles at 6:15 pace, was tiring and a bit of a shock given the ascent! I was about 5 seconds behind Tom Addison (English Fell Running Champ) as we started to traverse Scout Scar. By this point, we were in the clouds and I was losing a bit of focus on the undulating terrain. Tom began to put some distance between him and soon disappeared into the mist. My legs felt fine, I just missed the technical ability of running efficiently on the uneven surface.
As the course started to drop off the ridge, we emerged from the clouds and I was about 30 seconds begins first. It would take a huge effort on the descent to close this gap and it was at about 8k that I realised this was the case. We dropped down towards Kendal across a golf course and then back into the town through some narrow and steep alleys. The finish was fantastic, right in the centre of the town and amongst a festival atmosphere. I crossed the line in second, about 50 seconds behind first, in one piece and with no aches (as seems quite often the case after fell races). Not a bad effort given my recent training along the pancake flat Thames Path.
The countdown is now on to the last couple of races of the year: IFXC on Wednesday, Sri Chimnoy 10k on Saturday and then Met League before Christmas, but at this point I'm very much looking further ahead to the major events of spring 2015
The Kendal Mountain Festival is mostly about screening adventure films, but they threw in a 10k fell race that went over some of the foothills around Kendal. The first couple of miles climbed up Beast Bank and, knocking off the first couple of miles at 6:15 pace, was tiring and a bit of a shock given the ascent! I was about 5 seconds behind Tom Addison (English Fell Running Champ) as we started to traverse Scout Scar. By this point, we were in the clouds and I was losing a bit of focus on the undulating terrain. Tom began to put some distance between him and soon disappeared into the mist. My legs felt fine, I just missed the technical ability of running efficiently on the uneven surface.
As the course started to drop off the ridge, we emerged from the clouds and I was about 30 seconds begins first. It would take a huge effort on the descent to close this gap and it was at about 8k that I realised this was the case. We dropped down towards Kendal across a golf course and then back into the town through some narrow and steep alleys. The finish was fantastic, right in the centre of the town and amongst a festival atmosphere. I crossed the line in second, about 50 seconds behind first, in one piece and with no aches (as seems quite often the case after fell races). Not a bad effort given my recent training along the pancake flat Thames Path.
The countdown is now on to the last couple of races of the year: IFXC on Wednesday, Sri Chimnoy 10k on Saturday and then Met League before Christmas, but at this point I'm very much looking further ahead to the major events of spring 2015
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