3 weeks, 31 miles and my first Wansfell Mountain Race

My running for this week was considerably less than I expected. I did a lap of 5.4 miles on Tuesday morning and then a 7.5 mile lap on Wednesday. This led nicely into the Wansfell Mountain Race on Thursday evening.

I had left work about 3:45 to head up to the Lake District. Registration was from 5:30pm to 6:15pm and I must have arrived about 6:12! I still had to pay for my parking after the race briefing on my phone before the race start.

It’s safe to say I used up a fair bit of emotional energy on the drive up and I really struggled near the top of the first climb. It’s the sort of ascent I barely get up at the best of times so can’t really blame on a bit of traffic. My Strava breakdown per mile had 888ft of elevation on mile 2!

I was able to follow the headlights in front of me and just about hang on to a group of runners who were all faster than me and more familiar with the terrain. Apart from a bit of ducking under parts of the forest near the end, it never seemed to require the same amount of effort for any of the subsequent climbs after the first one.

I was happy to finish around my estimated time and enjoyed the liquid medal before my drive back to Leeds.

I finished the week with a 5.4 mile lap on Friday morning and a 6.2 mile effort yesterday in heavy wind and rain. I contemplated heading out again this morning but decided against it as anything I do this close to the race isn’t going to improve my fitness and I don’t want to carry any sort of head cold into the last full week of training.