What a great way to kick off the 5 Peaks season.
For those of you who don’t know about the 5 Peaks trail series, it is a championship points series consisting of 5 trail races from April to October. Racers can choose from the sport distance of about 6km or the enduro distance of about 12km. Awards are given to the top overall finishers and the top finishers in each age group for each of the distances. After the last race of the season awards are given to the series points winners in each of the divisions as well. These races are both challening and fun and offer a variety of terrrain.
First let me say that I am always amazed at how efficiently the race crew can get that many athelets onto a narrow trail without having people tripping all over each other. It is definitely a tribute to the great voluteers that kept things moving well. It was also nice to see so many familiar faces from Team Running Free there helping out. Thanks for all your efforts.
Now on to the race! The weather held and we had just about the perfect day for racing. As promised the trail for this first race was not very technical. It consisted of some gravel path and some hard packed trail all of which was relatively wide and smooth. The trail conditions meant that there were likely to be some fast times, at least for those who are able to go fast. For about the first km I thought I might be one of those to go fast (or at least fast for me) and then came the hills. I hate hills! It’s not that any of the hills were big, they just kept coming one after the other, but, then that’s what makes trail running the challenge that it is. If it isn’t the twisting single track or the rough terrain slowing you down, it’s the hills.
In the end I had a pretty successful run just missing the goals I had set for myself by only a few seconds. I can’t wait for the second race of this series in June at Durham Forest. I know that it will offer a totally different experience from this race as well as another chance to achieve one of my goals.
Carter
Love the 5 Peaks series, but like you, hate hills. I still managed a good run though.
Good luck with your goal at Durham. See you there.