Bradfield Trail Run.

This was round 2 of Dark & White's Spring Series and took place on the 2nd of April in Bradfield, Yorkshire. As before the long course runners went off in waves rather than in a mass start, a good idea as it reduced any bottlenecks as we set off.

The long course set off along the North bank of Agden Reservoir, through rooty woods. So rooty in fact that I tripped over... I went down on my side, rolled into it and immediatly got back onto my feet. I'd like to think that I showed grace and dignity under pressure but I probably just looked like a clown.

Out of the woods then along tarmac, then downhill flat out through grassy fields. Nice! Next came the second reservoir of the day as we ran around Dale Dike Reservoir on pleasant but muddy tracks. We left the waterside for the one big climb of the run, up through woodland to tarmac.

The blacktop led downhill (flat out again) to the feed station, where I grabbed a couple of gels before heading across more fields and across to our last stretch of water, Damflask Reservoir. By now my legs were suffering, I'm not good at running on the flat(!), but I managed to hold a decent pace as we did a complete circuit of the reservoir. By the end, when Dani met me as she warmed down (Dani ran the short course) I was in quite a bit of pain.

The finish line couldn't come quickly enough. Although I had run pretty well and passed quite a number of people I know that I could have done better. One thing that I didn't do was recce the course beforehand, mainly because I got my dates mixed up and thought that the run was later in the month.

I finished the 15.2k race in 93rd place out of 204 runners, 21st out of 35 in my age group, my time 1:24:46. The overall winner had a time of 1:00:07.

Paul.