I think it’s fair to say that we all knew a trail run in The Lakes would be scenic and subject to changeable weather.
On the route we had close encounters with mountains, woodland, streams, bridges, beaches, two lakes and caves. In short, it was stunning.
During the race the weather gave us sunshine, showers, hail stone and rainbows. No one expects to get slapped in the face whilst running a 10k race but that is exactly what the wind coming across the surface of Rydal Water did to us. It took more breath away than the beautiful scenery.
Unfortunately, Andrea Sidebottom took a tumble but was helped by Maxine Grimshaw and other runners nearby who stopped and strapped her injured fingers and made sure she was ok. Without even a thought of DNFing she took off to the finish to collect her well-earned medal.
On the other end of the race, there were some fantastic performances by our club mates. The boys did us proud: first and foremost; huge congratulations to Ian Douglas who only went and finished first overall, in a fantastic time of 43:08! Dan Mitchell and Nigel Hartley finished 4th and 7th respectively and were both 1st in their age categories. Ali McKittrick was an impressive 2nd in his cat.
Karen Leach was the fastest Ewe, 4 seconds ahead of Becca Symons. Eve Hart was only a couple of minutes behind and came 3rd in her age cat.
I had a bloody lovely time!