First off I totally agree that most of the time people’s write ups of their epic long distance runs are a bit crap. And I’ll include myself in that.
That said long distance running, particularly in the fells and mountains, is epic. So much can happen in one “run”. On one of my failed BG attempts me and a friend Gavin effectively ran from Wasdale all over the Scafells and Langdales, and all along the Helvellyn ridgeline to Threlkeld in stupidly high winds and one continuous deluge of rain, in really low cloud, poor visibility and half of it in the dark. I changed full waterproofs and gloves three times and was still sodden and frozen.
That said last year (despite and maybe because of lockdown) I went all racey. I did four proper races before shutdown for the year but continued running my own ‘solo races’ over loads of my local routes, trying my damnedest to run full bollocks.
I can quite honestly say the toughest race I ran last year was the Giggleswick Kendal Winter League race, which may have been 3 or so miles long. It’s starts with a sprint and I basically ran the whole thing with a massive oxygen debt after that
Short and long distance stuff are just different, and neither is better than the other in my opinion
Reply With Quote