Howgills Deja Vue

I can report that the best of Saturday's weather was at approximately 9:45am. Even a brief trundle round the shops in Kendal later on wasn't a pleasant experience in that weather.

3 new hills ticked off for me. Lovely company whilst doing it.

Sat in the car on Sunday morning waiting for the Organisers to returned from flagging the course I began to think who was madder, me for climbing up a hill I'd done the day before or the racing cyclists passing me doing the 'Shap Spring Classic' (75 mile Cyclosportive).

Turned out we were on staggered starts of one minute intervals from 1pm at the top and not the mass start I'd thought it was. So I handed over some dosh for the charity box (free entry for the race) and set off following the summit marshall up to the top. The wind started to really pick up and having opted for the lightweight 'racing' gear I was soon doning my waterproof bottoms as well as my top. With plenty of little flags to follow the route finding was very easy and I arrived at the summit a bit quicker than the day before in 44mins. As I didn't fancy hanging around too long, I got the nod from the summit marshall for pre-1pm start and got back to the bottom in 12:01mins (by my watch). I got passed by one on the way down. There were 19 starters, so I made it in the top 20!

I enjoyed the downhill practice, not sure I'd drive up especially for a 12min effort but would certainly do it again if I could link it to something on the Saturday.

TF