It's been a week of very easy training ahead of today's race, the Fan y Big fell race. I knew it was going to be a tough test - and it didn't disappoint. The forecast was for rain throughout the race, which started midday. That rain didn't really materialise. The sun even made an appearance. The wind on the way out was pretty strong in gusts but I'd take that over continuous rain any day.
I was happy with my race. I ran a good amount of the ascent, which kicked in after about 500m out from the start and didn't stop until the high point at about 7km, climbing some 600+m at an average grade of 9.4%!. A year ago there would have been a very different ratio of running to walking so I'm really pleased about that. My long training runs have really helped my endurance and I felt strong - until the final couple of kilometres, where the pounding descent finally took its toll.
Finished top half of the field and gained five or six places after the initial settling phase, so over all I'm very happy. Hopefully I won't be needing to descend the stairs backwards tomorrow but we'll see. Oh, and although the route was clockwise this year (first time ever) I was over 11-minutes quicker than the last time I ran it in 2019, clocking 1:47:20.
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