Last year Kirkbymoor (Kirkby Moor?) and the Cardington Cracker were on consecutive weekends, this year that had changed to consecutive days, but I thought I’d go back and attempt to better my performances on both.
After parking up in the village which is a challenge in itself, I met up with TF and we had a small trot about to warm up and also studied the route change which amounted to another checkpoint before the final climb in order to protect a new fence or wall, I forget which, so we had to go through the gate that we only came down through last year. That made it somewhat more like the Pike race with in the up and down manner of it with descending runners flying down the track and some quick reactions needed to get out of the way of a couple. The race is seemingly of an indeterminate length too with the Black Combe website claiming 6, Fellrunner.org 6.5 and both my Garmin traces measuring at least 7.2 miles.
The running was good this year, the ground not as frozen as I recall it being in places last time and a clear and bright day meant the nav was impossible to get wrong even the likes of me. After going off a little too fast and realising I was trying to keep pace people much quicker than I, I settled into a rhythm and kept pace with a Black Combe runner who passed me after CP2. He had about a 100 yard lead before the final drop but I reeled him in before the end of it and then pulled out 40 seconds before the end. Some quick descending even with trying to protect the toe I damaged on ToP the week before. Overall I took 10 mins and 22 seconds off last year to come in 32nd of around 90 runners in 01:03:15. No Wendy Dodds in attendance this year and other than TF I only recognised Darren Fishwick from Chorley. I headed off after taking a picture of the results and I believe that TF stayed around Ulverston for an O event later in the day.
Accompanied by Ritzy, Sunday was a return to an awful race for me last year in the form of the Cardington Cracker. 9 miles and 2600 ft makes it the last AM of the year and last time out the climbs up and Caradoc and Hope Bowdler Hill seeing my legs and brain away, leaving me wrecked and taking over two hours to complete the course. I’d convinced myself that it had been 2:12 but it was actually 2:04 but either way the aim was a definite sub 2 given I could feel the day before in my legs. Despite the day before I started off well enough, the Horwich vests looking out of place amongst all the (bizarre and often multi-coloured) midlands vests but progressing through the field well in the opening couple of miles. Mercia was about the only one that I knew from that way but it was good to see some CleM runners on the way round.
Again the course wasn’t quite as frozen as last year and by half way round I considered getting rid of my baselayer and just running in a vest, to save time I rolled the sleeves up and pushed on though, having been 3 mins ahead of my previous time on top of The Lawley which was a sharper climb then I recalled and 8 mins ahead on top of Caradoc, which wasn’t as direct a climb as I’d remembered. My downhill wasn’t up to much up to that point, I knew I kept holding back because of the toe, the feeling of the bruised nail going through me and Ritzy leaving me in her wake on all the drops.
After Hope Bowdler Hill, I’m employed my head and left shoulder as a brake on the other side of a steel gate I tried to vault to save time, wasn’t the best idea or outcome but after that I carried on grinding out the uphills at a run where before they’d been a walk and taking more time out of the previous year and began to think that a 1:45 might happen. On the undulating run in I was well paced as other tired and so moved up from around the 93rd mark to 78th. A good result that included sprinting past four in the final 300 yards (it is a race after all) and nearly sending two runners flying on the finish line as they slowed down. It ended a comfortable sub 2 though as I registered a 01:38:24. Ritzy was about two mins behind and took 1stLV40, a very good run for her first time there and even more so as I’d undersold how hard a race it is. She summed it up as a compressed version of Tour Of Pendle; little flat, lots of up and down and some hard climbs. I think that’s pretty accurate.
Currently considering Really Wild Boar on the 14th or letting my legs settle and repair before Tour De Helvellyn on the 21st.
EDIT: Kirkbymoor Results
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