Clwydian Hills Race

Pics as usual thanks to Alistar.

A good excuse to explore a new area which is the area of hill between Mold and Ruthin. Race was 10 miles and 3100ft of up and down. The start was a bit random with runners spread out over about 100m and a whistle and "off you go". I was near the start by chance, so had 1/2 the field stream past me in the 1st mile.

Most of the up was runnable for the mid-pack folk unless you have spent the last 2 years training to walk up hill, so I lost places on each of the quite gentle up hills. Gained places on the down hill and the steep ascent up the gully to Moel Famau. Some of the descents were fantastic in terms of being quick and I appear to have properly got my descending head back.

I did a time of 1.36.?? which is better than the target of 1.40. I left my watch behind so had no idea of my time until I had finished, just ran as hard as I could. I decided to do without any gel (I had one with me incase I or someone else bombed out) to see what happened. I think it made no difference on this course. I certainly felt like I could keep the power on towards the end. I finished about 10 place ahead of the 2 people I judge my performance against, but you never know what sort of day they had. It did feel like the interval sessions I have been doing made a positive difference in allowing me to run some of the more gentle hills. I did 4 miles on saturday evening which might have left my legs a little tired, but I don't think it made much difference.

Navigation yesterday was a case of follow the line of runners infront. I had a map with the checkpoints marked, but did not consult it which would have slowed thing down a bit.

Great soup and tea at the end. The race was very well run (as would be expected) by the NEWSAR mountain rescue team.

The rest of Clive's running week was looking for new routes and some intervals.