Thursday 13 March 2008

MUCKY RUNNERS!

'The Boss' (that's Chris to you!) asked for contributions to the blog so here goes;

Had one of this season's first competitions last saturday, the 'Half Tour of Pendle'

This is a 9mile/2200ft fell race which gets its name from the fact that it is only half the length of the main event, run in december. It was a perfect fell running day (i.e it was raining!). Pendle is a touch gunky underfoot at the best of times; rain and 300+ runners (mostly ahead of me!) following the same course, more or less, made for some interesting descents. Fortunately the finish (Barley village) has a river, so i joined several other runners enjoying a free bath!

I did the full Tour of Pendle last year (1700m/4500ft) for the first time and was hooked on fell running from then on. I'm fortunate that, living in burnley, i can do all my training off road (and i mean off road!). One of the greatest things about fell running is the cost; the Full Tour was £5, including a T-Shirt!

Went out for a 3h training run yesterday, having forgotten about saturday; my legs soon reminded me!

Next event is the Edale Skyline (http://www.dpfr.org.uk/index.php?p=skyline); a bit more expensive at £11! After that it's time to concentrate on getting my bike mileage up a bit more so that i get to the end of 56miles and dont have to be prised off the bike!

Posted by;

Andy Armstrong

1 comment:

Chris Bennett said...

Sounds great Andy, good training for Wimbleball. Thanks for th post.
I also like a good muddy run and by the look of this weekend's weather forecast it look like I will get my wish.