Viking Chase

Lord Stones Country Park, Carlton Bank, Cleveland, Sunday, July 14, 2019

BM/12km/572m

Nick Latham

Courtesy of Clive Thornton

When is a race not a race?  When it isn’t on Strava?  That’s one opinion…

Jan Young asked on the Striders Facebook group if anyone wanted a lift in the week before, otherwise I would have missed it.  After convincing the family to come down and have a walk while the race was on, I rejigged my weekend’s runs to fit in.

I wasn’t planning to race earlier in the week and as I stood in the starting bunch of 91 runners, I came to the decision I wasn’t going to run it as one.  I’d been working on building some consistent aerobic mileage and didn’t want to ruin that with either an injury from an enthusiastic descent or just over-exertion.  I would take it relatively easy on the ascents and not over-egg it on the level and downhill.

I set off gently from the back half of the pack and was really chuffed to reach the trig point at the end of the first climb (stone track all the way) without having walked but not pushed into the red either.  There’s a first time for everything.  The descent back to the start was steeper and paved, which made it tougher, having to keep my eyes on my footing at all times, but at least this is where I’m at my most comfortable.  The paving was a theme on a lot of the path along the ridge to the turn at the far end.

That was only the first climb and I knew there were three more to come before the turn.  I ended up leap-frogging several other runners, them either being stronger than me on the ascent or descent (or me being stronger on the descent or ascent, whichever you prefer).  The views from the top of the ridge were spectacular, when I could lift my eyes off the path to take them in.  I decided to pause to take a snap on my phone, that’s how hard I wasn’t racing.

After a “scramble” through the Wainstones and the final ridge section, I came down to the third checkpoint at Clay Bank and turned for home…only to be faced with a fifth steep climb.  Minor planning fail, I hadn’t spotted this one on the elevation profile.  Once up this shorter climb, the forest track turned more undulating, without any more serious ascents and a net descent of about 50m.  An extra bonus was being back on earth rather than rock.  I still wasn’t pushing to the max and it was a good job I’d held back on the first half.  I was tiring but it seemed most of the other people I’d been swapping places with were struggling more as they fell back.

I say most because as I passed through the final gate off the fell I could hear footsteps behind me and one runner, from NYMAC, was close behind.  Rather than slam it in his face, I decided to hold it open and as he passed through I fell in behind him.  We turned onto the finishing field (unwelcomely slight uphill) and I already knew I wasn’t going to push him; if I was racing I would have dug in and given it some beans to the line, as it was I was content to follow him home.

Looking over the results, I was astounded to have come in around mid-table.  Nina Mason finished second lady and Camilla Lauren-Maatta was Striders’ other finisher, with Jan acting as sweeper for the day.

So when is a race not a race?  When you decide it isn’t.

Click here for the results

 

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