"When I'm 64......"

Its the start of May and what usually turns out to be the busiest racing month of the year so far. This year will be no exception with six races planned in over the next four weeks.

The first race was last Saturday which saw the second ever running of the Bollington Festival Three Peaks Fell Race covering the three highest points (two of them trigs) in the Bollington area and with just over 1200ft of climb for the six mile plus circuit this is always going to be one which pushes the very limits of your fitness. Although only a low key village race it still managed to attract a couple of international mountain runners!

Having had very little sleep over the days preceding the race (having worked through the night on the Thursday for the general election and then gone straight into the office the next day) it was always going to be a "run and see" what happens. I didn't have long to wait to find out! Whistling the tune to match my race number (64) over the first flat mile I hit the red line on the very first climb of the day to Kerridge Ridge which was closely followed by a rapid descent & ascent back up to White Nancy followed by a further rapid drop to the final hands on knees climb of the day up Nab Head, where on a clear day you can apparently see the Welsh mountains. All I saw was blurred vision as I dropped off the hill for the final fast two miles to the finish at the local village fete in a time of 56.02, ten seconds faster than last year but certainly in a far worse state!

The next race is a mid week return to the same hills for the Rainow 5 which hopefully is slightly quicker and runnable, we'll see!

Weekly mileage only 18. Annual mileage 485