Three Shires 13m/4000ft Sat 17th Sept 2011

Thought I'd post ahead of the full results as a busy day tomorrow helping out with our club's 10k. No I'm lying, I've got my tax return to do and I've run out of other household chores to delay the inevitable.

A rather 'taxing' drive up to Little Langdale, motorway conditions appalling but thankfully only light traffic. Race parking (as blogged earlier in week) was some distance from the start which meant sorting the necessary dry clothes and waterproof bag to store them in for changing after the race. Thought I'd time my arrival so that I'd not have more than 30 mins to hang about getting cold. Seemed like everyone else had the same idea and the queue for registration stretched all the way round the pub.

After a few minor hiccups with the PA system (at one point it fell over and bashed someone's car, ouch!) we were reassured by the organizer that the race wouldn't start before everyone had registered. A very healthy turn out considering the forecast. This included one runner from Black Coombe who was getting married latter in the afternoon. The organizer made a request that we look out for him and make sure he didn't stray from the route so that he'd make it to the altar on time. Not one of nature's natural navigators, apparently!

Eventually after a final kit check we were off, nearly 30 mins after the scheduled start. A tactical error in the first 500m saw me one of the last 10 to cross the first bridge. I'd already decided it was a day for taking it easy, no risky stuff, but avoiding getting my knees wet was stretching this a bit. After that, it was a bit of catch up. I passed Mark S about 2/3rds of the way up Wetherlam, and then got within shouting distance of Tony V at Swirl How but once on the descent he increased the gap. By this time the rain had stopped and the sun was out (briefly), but all the rain made for very slippy conditions so I was glad to be trying out my Inov8 Mudclaws for the first time on a long race. It'd taken a lot of trial & error to get them to this point. I'd previously limited their outings to hour long races as I was worried that they weren't as secure a fit on my feet as my other Inov8's, with the result that they had the potential to create blisters.

Closer than shouting distance with Tony V at Pike 'O' Blisco, he passed me on his exit from the summit. Didn't see him again until I passed him within 50m of the summit of Lingmoor when commented that he didn't remember it being this steep. Forgot to ask how many times he'd done the race! His superior downhill/flat speed soon had him back in front.

At a guess my race time was about 3:22. I may have gained 10 more places after the first river crossing, maybe more. The time would be about a 10 min improvement on my last time from 2007, not a lot, but conditions were more tricky underfoot this year. The Mudclaws performed really well, more confident grip on the descents and certainly my feet no sorer than with the other Inov8s. The dilema now is, do I try them again next week for a 2 day (11hrs on feet) event? A lot could depend on the weather.

I'll post a link to the results when available.

TF