Watched last weekends race and thought it was great, would love to have a go at it next year but not sure I'd manage it. Toughest race I've done is Yorkshire 3 Peaks, done that a few times, but it always kills me, how much tougher is Borrowdale? I realise I'd probably have to get up to The Lakes a few times to help prepare, but maybe its just out of my league.
Borrowdale is harder for sure. About 50% of Borrowdale is spent going up and 50% down whilst for the 3 peaks its more like 30% going up and 70% going down. And most of Borrowdale is over completely bonkers broken ground, both going up and down, whilst most of the 3 Peaks isn't.
Borrowdale versus the 3 Peaks (Not exactly a fair comparison as I ran the 3P really fresh and bouncey whilst my Borrowdale race was on the back of a shed load of other running - I doubt however that I could ever come close to running Borrowdale as fast as I can run round the 3P)
It's horses for courses, I suppose. In 2008 I did 3 Peaks in 3:42 and Borrowdale in 3:40, so not much in it for me.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z4bvWQLFDw
Video of the final 1/3 of the field on Bessyboot 2012. Hopefully that's everyone.
To be fair the winning times of both races are quite similar too. Although I didn't set any land speed records on Saturday with my 4:33 hours I felt okay (apart from maybe going up Dalehead) and really enjoyed myself - that said I just checked my garmin reports and in the 7 days prior to Borrowdale I did run 63 miles with almost 20,000 ft of ascent so I'm counting that as a bit of an excuse![]()
Last edited by Stolly; 08-08-2012 at 04:06 PM.
Interesting to compare. I did my best Three Peaks in 4.30 (at the race) and did just over 5 hours as a steady solo run. I did Borrowdale in 5.08 taking it steady (and going a bit wrong at one point!). Borrowdale feels harder and its at least 6miles shorter so going on what people are saying, perhaps you can judge what time you'd do on Borrowdale by looking at a Three Peaks time and vice versa but I think you'd need to be prepared for the extra ascent of Borrowdale and the rockiness. Three Peaks is easier running imo.