MORE PUNISHMENT  
LOUGHRIGG
This seven o'clock starter in Ambleside on a Tuesday night has always seemed to be one that has got away from me... until now. Loughrigg and I were like lovers entwined for a week when up this way on holiday a couple of years ago, running more or less all of it's expansive network of paths and sheep trods. Since then there's been an even keener inclination to finally do the fell race.
So this year, sitting nicely inside Sara's Easter hols off work, it turned in to an excuse for an overnight camp. Already in the area from a day's walking and pottering, I scarcely recall ever being so early for a race. Saying that, twenty-six even earlier birds had already gone before me by the time number 27 here had registered.
Mountain goats from Lakeland clubs were in abundance and much of them looked like talented new blood. Even at forty-something, it's rare that I turn up for a fell race and see quite such an overwhelming majority of faces young enough to be my sons and daughters. Great to see though, but it was clear I was in for a good spanking tonight even if I defied logic and ran out of my skin.
There were some familiar evening race faces from Lancashire too. Firstly I cross paths with Bowland's Matt Bourne in the church car park who came up by virtue of the weather forecast it would seem - a beautiful Spring evening it was too. Then Darren Fishwick in the church hall - even less tech-savvy than me and so my 'Ten Good Reasons' for him remain unread - but he did give me a detailed lowdown of the race route. Wigan's Stephen Nicholls was limbering up on Rothay Park full of melancholic racing enthusiasm as usual. The familiar face (and still young, damn it) of Johnny Horrocks in the blue and white of Blackburn Harriers was typically playing it cool despite being on the cusp of the form his life.
Darren's advice was get out of the traps quick before it bottlenecks at the two bridges coming off the park. Well the chance would have been a fine thing! I thought I shot off sprightly enough but still got caught in the bridge jam, barely managing to burst out of the top fifty. It was a crazy one hundred yard stampede, further fuelled by what turned out to be a race record breaking field of 269 runners.
Straight after shuffling across the bridges, the upward slog starts and I settled down to a reasonable pace. I was even exhuming small doses of confidence as I picked my way further up the positional ladder with what felt at the time like plenty in reserve. But with a few hundred feet still to climb before this modest summit of 1083 feet, body chemistry went all out of synch. I began to blow hard and then I just blew up. Place after place was then lost and confidence drained far quicker than I had just dared to collect it.
Fishwick, in crap form by his standards and as beatable as ever just now, came past puffing. In the opposite direction, the leaders were returning already and the stark reality of just how off the pace I am in this race came to the demoralising fore.
By the time I reached Loughrigg's summit for the turnaround, this lung buster of a race had me feeling on the point of combustion. Initially, returning downhill brought no relief whatsoever as positions continued to go cheaply begging. About half way down the descent though, finally I recovered some wind and held my place. I suppose it's of some consolation that the race started and ended feeling good, but the bit in the middle where it all went wrong is going to take some even harder training and more races to build up the resilience.
The place I did manage to hold was absolutely nowhere, but then even a decent run here might not have scraped top thirty or forty. Johnny H ran an absolute blinder and even he only squeezed in to the top twenty. The quality present here - at what might be construed as a low key short midweek race - was considerable.
So whilst still plenty of room for improvement this year that only a few months of regular racing might put right, a peek through the goggles of realism is in order and I should say what I see rather than what I want to see. There's no point kidding myself any longer, times have changed and time has moved on. I should try and accept this than get myself wrapped up in over-ambition which ultimately leads to failure. I'm getting older and I'm getting slower. Fact. There are now wave upon wave of younger guns, faster and stronger. Even most of my contemporaries that I once equalled or bettered are now streets ahead of me and resisting their own onsets of decline with much more success. Once upon a time I might turn up for a Lakeland fell race with every chance of a top twenty place at the least and even have the audacity to be very disappointed not to be. Realistically, those days are long gone and perhaps just for the sake of actually enjoying my racing, it is now time to significantly lower the bar of my own expectations. Although part of me believes I could still hit a retro purple patch, statistics over the last six years speak for themselves... aside from the odd flash of form it's been so long since I've even got anywhere near that former self with any sort of consistency. To believe I can get back there now would be simply delusional.
The spectacular panorama from Wansfell Pike was had the day after for a fantastic walk from Skelghyll Woods, skirting back via Ambleside before sadly heading back homeward. Unable to resist a run later that afternoon, a few crappy miles were jogged out in local suburbia for the sake of it and that was a culture shock after a cracking couple of days in the big country.

Tuesday 10th April 20
LOUGHRIGG   
Rothay Park, Ambleside    4m/1083ft
1st Man - Jacob Adkin (Keswick) 25:59
1st Lady - Sarah McCormack (Ambleside) 30:41
My Stats* -  55/267*   32:20*

* * * Although a completely pointless footnote of an also-ran, official results published have me down for 103rd in 35:46. This was based on the time I gave to the race organiser later that evening after I had been missed out in the checkout at the finish. But who knows which button I pressed on my watch, or when exactly, for the official results a week later showed I'd given myself a time penalty of over three minutes! Oh well. All I know is that Fishwick was about half a minute ahead of me and there's no way Nicholls beat me. So for my own record, I'm claiming the revised stats above which also takes in to account the distance I was behind the runner ahead of me and that I couldn't hear anybody close behind. It really isn't that important, apart from reiterating the fact that Stephen Nicholls had another great opportunity to beat me, but didn't. Thank you.