Poor planning left me with nothing much to do last weekend, so I drove to Harby at ridiculous-o’clock on Saturday morning in the hope of picking up a cancellation place on the Belvoir Challenge. After an abysmal showing at Charnwood Hills a few weeks ago (a defeat so ignominious it wasn’t even mentioned on this blog), I hoped to redeem myself in the arena of sticky Leicestershire clag.
Obtaining a place wasn’t difficult, and as the Barrow contingent lined up at the start Rob seemed to be more confident than I that my performance would be adequate. We stayed together for the first mile or so, with Rob acting as a good influence on my pace, before Adrian joined us and we kicked up half a gear. A direct route through a muddy puddle (deeper than anticipated) saw us pass a lot of people who were pussy-footing around the sides, and before long we reached the first control at 6.4 miles.
From here, Adrian pulled ahead slowly until he finally lost me at the climb onto Terrace Hills. By this point I was on my own, and it remained that way right until the finish another six miles away. The solitude meant I could focus on going at my own pace, and I pushed hard for consistency and something I could sustain. Descending from the hill I hit tarmac into the village, and accelerated for a glorious sprint across the finish line. The only flaw with this plan was that I was in Stathern, not Harby, and there were still another couple of miles until the finish!
Sure enough I eventually crossed the line in 2:08:03, which I was quite pleased with. Adrian was three-and-a-bit minutes ahead, and just missed out on the top ten. I came in 14th overall. It’s difficult to tell how many people were running versus walking, but the club affiliations seem to run out at about 400 people. So not a bad result! Rob wasn’t far behind, and there were excellent performances from other Barrow runners too. The whole thing was topped off nicely by some lovely cake.
So other than the potential for a mild case of leptospirosis, it was a good morning. A repeat entry might be dependent on the presence of proper fell races on the same weekend next year, but I’d certainly look favourably on entering again.