Really enjoyed this today.
Arriving at the show in the morning it was a little cool, but soon warmed up and i was positively sweating during my warmup.
I reckon perhaps 35 on the start line. It was a quick start out of the showfield and i was somewhat taken aback to find myself well back, perhaps 17-20th... but not to panic, i knew i'd pull some of that back once we started going uphill through the fields.
And so it proved, and by the time i reached the climb proper up the shoulder of Dufton Pike, i was in a group of 4 battling for perhaps 9-12th place.
Unfortunately the efforts of the past week caught up with me and i was unable to really kick on from here as i'd have liked, and was a big job just to maintain position, and it was with some relief that i got over the summit still in contention.
Given the struggle going up, i was surprised and delighted to more than hold my own on the fast descent down the shoulder, pulling back a guy who had been way in front. Although on the fast run back through the fields i dropped a couple of places to stronger guys.
Finished in around 40:25 and i think i was 10th.
Given the heavy week i've had it was a pleasing runout... i felt a bit heavy-legged off the start line, and couldn't get moving up the steep climb, but other than that i felt pretty good, perhaps could have ran 60-90secs quicker on totally fresh legs, but not much more than that.
A good race... up through fields, round the back of the pike on a mixture of good and rough footpath, a steep climb up one shoulder, a technically quite easy descent down the opposite shoulder, then a thrash back through fields and woods to the finish.
One of the fast guys from Ambleside won, Carl Bell of Keswick 2nd. Victoria Wilkinson won the ladies by a considerable margin and was i think 4th overall.
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