Careering off clouds

I’ve haven’t too much to add to the reports from Black Combe on Saturday other than to say what a great race it was, the descents were full of fantastic running and the long second climb everyone (and I mean everyone) had talked about lived up to expectations and then surpassed them. I had hoped to try and keep pace with TF on that climb but clearly haven’t been doing enough climbing and she passed me with ease and rapidly disappeared into the cloud above. Overall, a great race and one I’ll be going back to next year.

Sunday was a different proposition, Cloud Nine down in Congleton, nine miles and 1250 foot of climb with plenty of road thrown in so I opted for the slightly more cushioned roclites, I did toy with the idea of using the Orocs but as they haven’t been properly blooded I thought better of it. Arriving in the same cover as I’d used the day before I found Congleton to be lucky enough to have clear skies and the temperature to be a balmy 11 degrees so a quick change to shorts and vest and it was off to the start line. A 15 min wait followed after a crash on the Macc road held some runners up but at 11.15 we set off. I was surprised at the number of people full fell shoes for this as it’s fairly flat and only a descent from the summit of The Cloud through a wood and a couple of boggy fields around 6.5 miles in are the nearest it gets to a full on fell. I was more surprised that they were all sticking to the path and roads when there was mud to run on, maybe I’m just a scrooge and don’t want to wear my treads out as quickly, or liked the height advantage the mud gave, or both. Putting those two factors together I may change my name Napoléon Scrooge. Anyway, back to the woodland descent, that was probably the most fun part of the race and reminded me of going round the bike courses at Healy Nab with added hurdling of a couple of fallen trees and matching pace a runner from Pennine who I was convinced I’d seen the day before at BC, turns out I hadn’t.

Having posted a 1 hour 54 mins the day before and with quads aching a little I set myself a target of 1 hour 30 mins for this so I was quite happy to come in 14 mins ahead of that, complete with badly bruised arm from flinging myself round the fencepost of the tight final turn before the finish straight to get the edge on someone who decided on a sprint finish.

Stats, facts and other bits and bobs; I came in 147 out of 421 which isn’t bad either, so both races last weekend bucked my trend of being 50 to 60% of the way down any given field, 80% down on BC and just outside the top 33% for CN. I also did a quick comparison between both sets of results to see if anyone else had done both races. Turns out a lady from Spectrum had and had beaten me by 11 mins on Saturday and four mins on Sunday, targets for next year I reckon!

Pics and results are here towards the bottom of the page (page three for evidence of my muddy preference);

http://www.racephotos.org.uk/index.htm

Next weekend’s plan looks to heading out to recce the Teenager With Altitude. I’ve not been out that way before so it should be interesting!