So ran the Kinder Downfall race on Sunday... was hoping for a good time despite having done no running recently (but a reasonable amount on the bike).
After a bit of hanging around at the start and a nice pep talk from the organiser then off we went up the first hill to the shooting cabin. My previous experience with this race has taught me not to go off to fast here, so I plodded along trying to keep my pace steady and to avoid chasing people who were clearly much faster. This worked out pretty well and I got to the moor around the shooting cabin feeling pretty fresh, then the quick run down to the bottom of william clough before more steady pacing up meant I was feeling pretty pleased with myself towards the the first checkpoint at the top of the clough.
As we got to the top a brisk wind was blowing, which was fine.. been up on kinder many a time in a gale. What I hadn't counted on however was my fancy new glasses. Turns out they are less aerodynamic and prone to catching the wind than my old pair. Sure enough a little further on a big gust blew them clear off my face into a large pile of snow. Now being pretty blind without them I set about staggering about trying to locate them but to no avail... luckily for me a few other runners had detected my plight and come to help and the glasses were soon found. I'm not sure you get this kind of willingness to lose seconds helping a fellow runner out in other sports but it seems common in fell races.. brilliant.
Anyway after many profuse thank you's and kissing of shoes I set off again, but the glasses were not staying on.. so I decided to ask a couple of hardy spectators who were hiding behind a medium sized rock (yes it was very windy) if they had some string. Brilliantly they did and I spent some time behind the rock fashioning a device to keep me specs on me head.
By this point i had pretty much given up the concept of getting a good time but I was pretty keen to get round without ending up in Edale so set off again. The wind was ferocious and kept blowing my glassess off (luckily caught by my string device). This made progress slow and some experiments with running glassess-less proved a little risky. Still the sight of the downfall blowing upwards spurred me on and soon I was passing under the spray and finally turning head on into the wind towards kinder low. It was a pleasure to not have to worry about my glasses any more and I must admit i did do a bit of slipstreaming behind some bigger chaps. Usually this part is the hardest for me but after all my resting and falling over and general blundering I was still quite fresh.. brilliant.
On reaching kinder low I started the long fast descent.. usually where i get overtaken a lot.. however this time I seemed to have a bit more in the tank than those around me and I started to pick off people one by one. This felt good and it continued until the last flat road section, where I tried my best to immitate a road runner and managed to drop a few more people and overtake a few. Before I knew it I was coming through the playground and ahhh it's all over. Time of around 1:35, which is four minutes or so off my best but I like to think with all the blind staggering and wind that it was pretty good. A pint of beer and then back on the bike for the short ride up to peep o day to home and I was back on the sofa pretty well knackered but very happy. What a great race the Downfall is!
Here's the strava wotsit:
