Turnslack Saturday 21st July 8 and a bit miles & 2000ft

This turned out to be a bit of a weird one for me.  I've done this twice before and thoroughly enjoyed the route, the two steep descents 2/3 of the way round notwithstanding.  Hoping to see some of the merry men there around the start only to be greeted with some serious looking Horwichers doing their bit for the club champs.  So gracefully retiring towards the rear of the starting group I decided to set off at a reasonable lick (by my standards that is) due to feeling good and confident.  The good and confident feeling due to the fact that the dreaded groin strain that had been plaguing me for the last 5 weeks in fact been diagnosed as cellulitis and I was on a decent dose of anti-biotics to deal with that little problem.

The route takes in the upper northern quarter of the Wardle Skyline before heading north over Hades then a gradual incline for about 1km through bog to Freeholds Top when you turn at the trig and head for home.  A Steep descent followed immediately by a steep climb had me passing a few people again then my world started to get a bit weird on the second steep descent when nothing was making much sense.  On getting to the bottom of the descent the legs turned to very stiff lumps of lead and very hard work was made of an easy stream jump.  The climb up from this point is very steep through bog breathing very heavily my world spun around me then blackness!  Next thing I hear is passing fellrunners asking me if I'm OK.  I must have assured them I was OK as none stopped.  The climb was so steep I was on hand and knees so I didn't fall far.   After coming round and not feeling very well I continued up and over Noon Hill to a marshall point where some fruit juice revived me sufficiently just to jog back to the finish.  Jog I say -huh!  I just couldn't resist the fun run down to the finish increasing the pace to keep the next runner at bay - not a good move in hindsight.

Finishing 77th out of about 80+ in 112 minutes I was at least 10 minutes down on what I was hoping to achieve, even worse was I felt really ill and was like that for the next 3 hours.  It wasn't until later when I started to eat and drink did I come round.  The HR monitor showed a spike up in heart rate about the time it all went dark.

Lessons learned:  Keep hydrated - it was warm and breezy, it was physically demanding and over 6 miles - I should have carried water - I didn't.
Food - I had only a light breakfast and the race was almost mid afternoon - I should have had some snack bars or at least a banana - I didn't.
Infection and anti-biotics - I should not have put that much strain on the ticker - but I did.

I'm still not feeling brilliant.  I hopefully won't be making those mistakes again but glad to be around to write this and see you all next weekend.

KLM 23 July 2012