Two very different races.

On holiday in Wells-Next-the-Sea recently I took part in their carnival race, held on a Thursday evening (August 3rd). There were short and long course options, I took part in the 8.3k long course, Dani's nephew Ryan entered the shorter race. The route took in wide woodland tracks and beach running, in two loops. The first short loop starts by the beach cafe, runs behind the  beach on good tracks before turning onto the beach and looping back to the start. Along the beach I was overtaken by some juniors taking part in the short course, as the short course is the same as the long course first loop. I was running well, and by the time I finished the first loop and got around to the start point I'd gotten into a good stride. Running across town to the start line as a warm up certainly helped...

On the second longer loop the course headed towards Holkham and the car park at Lady Anne's Drive on good level forest tracks. Along here I was going at a sub 5m/k pace. Not bad for someone who was in hospital under obs the week before. At the car park the course turned right onto a boardwalk and past a very welcome water station. The onto the beach, hard sand at first but turning softer as we neared the beach huts, the soft sand slowing the pace down by around 30s/k. Still, I averaged 4:59/k for the whole race.

I finished in a time of 41:36, two and a half minutes faster than last year, in 12 place out of 32 runners. Ryan finished a respectable 8th in the shorter distance.

Last week I took part in another evening race, Eccles Pike fell race on Wednesday 8th. This is a cat. AS race, 5.3k with 185m of climbing. An old race this, dating back to 1910, which is part of the reason for wanting to do it. Another reason is that it has a reputation for being short and tough.
The start is at Bugsworth, behind the Navigation pub. Parking involved squeezing the Landy down to the canal, past a badly parked van with inches to spare.
The race started by exiting the field and dropping down the road and through the basin, crossing the A6 on a footbridge, then across a sports field and up, first on tarmac then grass. And mud. Although the evening was dry we'd had a fair amount of rain in the days beforehand, making the going slippery in places. Luckily I had the forethought to wear my Mudclaws, this is a course for studs! The course climbed on, I walked some parts and ran others, the terrain a mixture of fields, tracks and rocks. Before I got halfway up the front runners were descending towards us, hurtling down at speed. Soon however I summited, crossed the top of the Pike, and descended. At first the descent took a slightly different course to the ascent, but then we were soon retracing our steps. A few others were still on their way up as I was going down. By this time the sun was low making it difficult to see ahead, at least on the higher ground. My descending wasn't terrific at first, especially on the top section, but I did make a couple of places further down, and held off some other runners. I finished in 102nd place out of 132 finishers, with a time of 36:45. Not a great result, but then I set out to just enjoy the race without any pressure to do well. Also when I do weekday races I try to look at them as training, an alternative to speed work or tempo runs. All in all though, a good way to spend a Wednesday evening. Its just a shame that I couldn't have stopped for a pint afterwards...

Paul.