Otley Chevin Fell Race

It would have been a perfect day to have been out on the bike, but more crazy schedules and the whole afternoon spent at meetings in Seacroft meant that would never have been possible, even without the Chevin Fell Race looming in the evening. This race is one that I always look forward to, and usually run quite well in. It starts from near the town centre and heads pretty much straight up to the top of the Chevin, with a little loop around the summit ridge, before going back down, fortunately not quite as directly as the ascent, which goes up the formidable set of steps!

I always cycle the 6 miles over to the race to warm the muscles up and actually left a bit more time than I usually do to get changed into running gear. I arrived with a full forty minutes to spare as opposed to my usual fifteen! Warming up, the legs didn't feel very lively. I usually target this race a bit and ease off for 2 or 3 days beforehand. This year I decided to see how I would fare with the legs fairly full of bike miles. This began to feel like not such a good idea! The first section of the race is flat and I actually felt ok from the start, but as soon as the climb ramped up I realised that the legs were indeed as tired as I suspected they were. This is where I usually dig in and start overtaking people, but it was really all I could do to hold my place tonight. I took the steps fairly steadily, but still seemed to be in massive oxygen debt at the top. I felt like I was running much slower than normal but at least I wasn't being overtaken. I had a lead on DC, who I haven't beaten in quite a while, so my incentive was to try to stay ahead on the descent tonight - which I managed to do. Usually I have quite a few mates around to compete with but tonight I was actually happy to have a bit of a void both ahead and behind, enabling me to coast in to some extent. I finished 29th in 21.25 and first V50 (fortunately DA was on the organisational side tonight - although actually I would have rather relished the contest). M cycled over too and claimed first lady V50. The first of a few such doubles I hope!

I've dug out my times from the last few years, and I'm encouraged that I'm perhaps not declining into decrepitude as quickly as I sometimes think!

2005: 20.56 (3rd V40); 2006: 20.49 (1st V50); 2007: 21.05 (1st V50); 2008: 21.25 (1st V50)

Do I have the courage to dig a little deeper, into the old cardboard boxes, to see what times I did before results got posted on the web?