Full Tour of Pendle Sat 23rd Nov (27k/1473m)

Another fine day for it, so that's 3 years on the bounce that we've been blessed with good weather. A bumper turnout too. The race reached its 500 limit a good week or so before the day. No doubt helped by the fact that the FRA dinner was being held locally on the Saturday evening.

This was going to be the first big test of my new training regime. I won't go into a long-winded explanation for the reasons but suffice to say that it now involves an early morning session on the treadmill at the gym (well Mon to Thurs, on a Friday I treat myself to a spin class). The first week of doing this contributed to the DNS at Langdale, so I was hoping that after 6 weeks practice the same fate wasn't in store for Pendle.

The start was moved across the road again but a further 100m up the tarmac track to avoid the building works around new houses being built next to the village hall. Me YJ and EtU had enquired the price of these from one of the neighbours when we'd been up for a mid-week recce in October. If I recall correctly the 4 bed one was around the £400K mark! To digress even further, the building (old water works) we were standing next to for the new start is also being developed. A further 7 houses. If the start keeps moving up the hill due to building work, the race might end up having to be reclassified as an AM.

The first queue developed not at the stile but at CP1, where the 'newbies' struggled removing their tags off the ring. The 'old hands' knew to start removal a good 20-50m away, allowing a 'seamless' progression through the CP. Sense did prevail at CP 4 where it wasn't removed until after the stream crossing. Conditions were that good underfoot that this was the first time my feet got a proper soaking. Time to this point was 1:41, so clear of a 1:45 cut-off and oodles of daylight clear of the 'official' 2hr cut off. 6mins slower than 2011 and 1min slower than 2012.

Spurred on by the sight of a 2013 JNC completer (Mandy G) on my favourite climb (Mearley Clough) and again on 'big end' (we're evens on the climbs at the moment, but her flat speed trumps my downhill!!) I finally finished between my times for 2011 and 2012. How the finish time split them will involve waiting for the published results. 2011 (time 4:03) was my Wasdale year, and although training had tailed off somewhat by then, I've got a way to go for that elusive sub 4hr finish.

Should be ok for a utup Thurs. I'm doing Kirkymoor Saturday and can manage a 'do' on Friday 6th.

TF