SUNDAY 22nd AUGUST
SEDBURGH HILLS
14m/6000ft
SEDBURGH 

My form has dwindled a little bit of late, but essentially there is a bit of staying power still intact and I was expecting a reasonable effort from myself in this tough test over my favourite Cumbrian mountain range, The Howgills. Big distinctive grassy lumps which set themselves apart from mainstream Lakeland peaks and the Yorkshire Dales between which they are spaciously sandwiched.
As Wainwright describes them, ''They are sleek, smooth, looking, from a distance, like velvet curtains in sunlight, like silken drapes at sunset; they are steep-sided but gently domed and beautiful in a way that few hilly areas are.''
Two years ago this was the longest and hardest race that I had encountered and whilst feeling like my legs had actually departed from the rest of my body, I did ok and snatched a top twenty spot.
Last year I perhaps foolishly christened a pair of Walsh fell running shoes in this race and found that the slightest diagonal traverse was crippling my ankles. My feet were all over the bloody place in them, so going wrong in the mist soon after the first checkpoint and doing so on a long, severe diagonal descent left me with a very difficult but probably sensible decision to pull out before further damage was done.
With the weather uncharacteristically clear for this event, I was hoping I might better my 2008 time for there was less chance of going the wrong way at least. Well I started out fine and felt reasonable for the first half of the race. There are some punishing climbs and ascents and rarely any sections like what one might call 'good running'. 6000ft of ups and downs over 14 miles is a fair bit of punishment. Climbling up to the side of Docker Knott from checkpoint three I found myself sucked into a little detour with a couple of other guys, led by Bowland's Chris Reade, which in the end made very little difference in terms of where we met up with rest of the field. However I had sapped a bit of extra energy just to keep with them and so be assured of exactly where I was going! I'll be sticking to the mainstream route next time for sure. Apologies to RT who took the trouble to email me some detailed route advice. Sometimes it just goes to pot on the day.
From here I could feel myself buckling a bit and yet I really tried to rally for the last, long and arduous drag up to The Calf. I had one of the P&B Stevenson runners and the distinctive figure of Dark Peak's Mike Robinson for company. The latter feeling a little jaded today which is why he wasn't further up the positional ladder. Well those two passed and then pulled away from me and approaching the summit of The Calf I zipped down an energy gel which seem to do little for me but on which the jury was still out on. Well, not any more. The jury have made their decision on these dubiously processed mind-over-matter slime packs and have been banned from my possession with immediate effect.
With the most enjoyable stretch of running to come, I was now suffering with something like stomach cramps, chronic wind and back ache all in one. Every time I went down hill it was giving me eye watering agony. Given that there was still 2000ft to descend, this was not good news. I'm not sure what walkers were making of my cries of pain as I shuffled along as fast as I could just about tolerate. Nobody offered their help anyway thankfully. The only cure was to stop or walk. Cure, that is. But not an option. 
I was fearing a barrage of runners overtaking me when in actual fact my legs were fine and felt they could shift a lot quicker if the upper body wasn't cramped up so bad. Those bloody gels, it must be! I'm not the only one to have their digestive system blitzed by them I have later discovered.
Thankfully I wasn't passed by anybody, but I don't remember breathing much coming down the steep drop from the summit of Winder. I was so tensed up trying to hold off the pain I'm suprised I didn't rupture something. As a result I was a little down on my time from two years ago and so a touch disappointed. Ah well, next year I am going to bloody well nail this one!
Time: 2.39:48   Pos: 19/169