My version of the Screes Race!

Can I just clarify that when I woke up on the Saturday morning and looked out the window, the view up Lingmell nose, despite its head in the clouds, was something I hadn’t thought about and really made me smile when I saw it. Mark and Karen are really lucky to be able to live in such a place. Then I remembered that I was up here to do a race and I don’t like running in the mist. I found myself constantly watching the clouds the look for signs of blue sky or the clouds lifting and as Chris and I sat on the car park, warming up, I was happy when the blue sky started to appear over Whin Rigg and I could see the top. I also started to worry a little about being too warm as I had leggings on.

As soon as we headed off down the road, frustratingly, my lace came undone so I ended up stopping on the track to the farm to redo that which dropped me from 3rd place to about 39th (you can call me Pinocchio!). After we ran through the farm I realised others were now on a different track to me and the group I had followed and but on emerging out the other side of the farm were signs directing us down a track to where a marshal was stood waiting for us.

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This is where I started to struggle, for some reason as soon as the climb started, my calves just didn’t want to work and I had a really slow ascent. As I got about 1/2 I also noticed that the clag had re-appeared over the top and a little further up the wind started to pick up too. I reached the path to the marshals and passed Barbara coming back from the peak. She tried to spur me on but by this point the climb had taken it out of me. The sight of the marshals on the summit said it all really, as they were huddled together with their backs to the wind, hoods up. They really deserve a prize for staying there in such weather.

Now when I turned into the wind, just like Chris said, the wind hits you and it was hard work running into the wind but it was at this point I was glad to be wearing my leggings. I knew there was one other runner behind me but I still couldn’t see her as she had started to drop further and further back as we climbed. I managed to make some good running for a while as you quickly come out of the clag and I passed the runner in front of me who seemed to be struggling a little on the shallow descent. I started to lose confidence though as the ground got steeper as the Mudrocks I have just didn’t seem to grip. Not sure if I am tackling harder terrain this year but the Mudrocks just haven’t been as good as the pair I had last year.

I’ll not go on now as Chris has already described the rest of the run down and run in although when I did get back onto the last road, I realised just how slow I am when I saw one of the front runners trotting down the road after just coming back from taking his dog for walk.

I’m hoping to attempt this next year and be a little more competitive, although if they are handing out prizes for last senior again, I might just take my time.

Mark