Bleasdale Sat 22nd Feb

Having more or less recovered from the previous Sunday's outing at Barbondale I thought I should test the quads out again on another short steep downhill.

My last time at this race was in 2007 when I was a relative newcomer to this fell running lark. Unfortunately this year there was to be no pie&peas, but still there was the offer of some post-race refreshments, so that always saves the effort of have to create your own.

I arrived nice and early and was offered a privileged parking spot in the village school car park. Mr Marshall suggested that I reverse in to the car park as they wanted to get as many cars in as possible, so I duly obliged. Mightily impressed he was with my skill at not managing to hit anything, 'Nice to see a Lady Driver using her mirrors, don't see that often'. I gave this some thought, but in the end I confessed that the car had a lot of on-board electronic wizardry (dipping wing mirrors, reversing camera, parking sensors) that made reverse parking an absolute doddle.

NLN and Ian were there to help with Marshalling too. They'd commandeered the last 2 gates before the fell on the outward leg.

Numbers were down on my previous attempt, the race is now limited to 150 but they certainly weren't full the week before hence my late entry. So soon after setting off, I was battling it out with two other ladies for the coverted last place. Determined to keep my nose ahead, we were accompanied by a sweeper who was obviously new, as he thought it was part of his role to engage the three of us in conversation. At race pace the best I can manage is usually 'yes' 'no' and 'q' (abbrieviated phonetic thank you) for walkers that step out of the way. So glad that his team mate stepped up for the challenge of talking and running.

The fell bit was good, the fields to and from were tough going. I wasn't especially pleased with my time of 1:06:27. Granted is was quicker than '07, but a good minute and a half slower than what I'd thought I'd done on the day. Looking at the results the time gap between me and the runner in front and the ones behind look about right so will just have to accept it as my error and train a bit harder to improve it.

Results here http://www.fellrunner.org.uk/results//race14/Bleasdale%20Circle%202014.pdf

TF