3 Peaks

Well what can I say other than it was a 'dig deep' day and I had to dig extremely deep for this one.

Forecast was spot on with showers (some snow) and NE winds - no help there then!

Legs and brain did not appear to be working in tandem going up Pen y Gent and I reached the summit in 51:59. Not looking good. Today was a first look at the new path over Whitber, it cut a bit of a corner but not much, but it'd be any ones guess as to how many minutes it might save. Just enough as it turned out, reached Ribblehead in 2:09:10. Onwards and upwards!

Whernside was very boggy lower down, calves were twitchy due to the previous 'flat out' effort, so pushed up as hard as I could. Reached the top with 30 mins and 2 seconds to get off and down to Hill Inn!

Whoever designed those new steps off wants shooting. Who in their right mind selects stones for the risers that stick up a good 2-3 inches proud of the tread bit. They must have had the plans upside down! Suffice to say, getting off was a tough mental challenge, especially with the clock ticking.

Made it to Hill Inn in a time of 3:28:47, so 1min13sec to spare.

Return to Horton fairly uneventful if a bit slow, final finish time 5:17:11. 28mins slower than 2011, but a finish all the same. Winner today was Joe Symmonds 2:54. I still hadn't made it to Whernside by then and he was back having a cup of tea. Apparently his dad Peter won it 3 times too. Must be in the genes to run that fast.

A quick analysis of the results showed me to be the slowest (probably ever) at Pen y Gent to clear the cut off at Ribblehead. I was also the slowest at Ribblehead to clear the cut off at Hill Inn. I did pass a few on the way to each check point though.

For each of the three climbs I was a good 5 mins slower than 2011. So much for my climbing feeling good this year! A bit of work required for the two AL's in June then. Will count today as a step in the right direction.

Helping marshall the Manchester Marathon tomorrow for a bit of a rest. It is billed as the UK's flattest marathon, 3 Peaks is billed as a 'Marathon with mountains'. Even if my finish time might be quicker for the 26m one, I'd still chose to do 3 Peaks over it any day!

TF

Ps Results were on the Sportident website, but as of 8:20pm the web page has crashed. Try later or tomorrow.