SATURDAY 18th SEPTEMBER
THREE SHIRES RACE
13m/4000ft
LITTLE LANGDALE, CUMBRIA

I travelled up to Little Langdale with a trio of Chorley Harriers. Gary 'The Flying Postman' Platt in the driving seat, Dominic 'The Dominator' Raby and Paul 'Wacko' Jackson joining me in passenger status. Now I've prattled on about runners and their excuses from time to time, but genuinely all seemed well until I got there. I was yawning as I warmed up, in fact I felt I couldn't even be arsed warming up. Thank goodness then for the refreshingly cold rapids of the River Brathay that the race takes you through after just half a mile or so. I should have gone in there to start with for at least it gave me some sense of being alive! This is a fantastic race route, but not one to look forward to if you aren't feeling half decent and I was fearing the worst. The first major climb to the summit of Wetherlam is a killer. I was thinking steady away up Wetherlam and then hopefully I'd snap out of my doldrums and get some places back. Well firstly, one can't just tinkle your way up Wetherlam. It's an effort just to keep moving. Secondly, my recovery was poor at the top, my legs felt weak. To my right a runner trips and cracks his head on a rock on landing. Fortunately no blood, but that was doing nothing for my shaky confidence at all on the rocky stuff over to Swirl How. For five minutes or so I was a bit down in the dumps until I took a look around me and the wonderful part of the world in which I was and remembered the key thing. Just to enjoy it.
Descending down to the Three Shires Stone, I tried to push on to see if there was anything there yet but again, no reply from the legs. They just kept on plodding. Going up Pike o'Blisco, Rossendale's Craig Stansfield is on a mission and had paced himself nicely. He is having conversations with people as he passes them by and is soon enough out of my sights for good. Coming off Blisco, I am losing more places but trying not to bother too much and just make sure I stay on my feet. The importance of that is soon enough epitomised when Clayton-le-Moors runner Carl Steele flies by and then takes a nasty little tumble which hurts his knee to the point of him yelping in agony and the stuffing is well and truly knocked out of him. He tries to hobble on immediately and I just tell him to get his breath back and calm down. Two years ago I did the same trick coming down Blisco and I made a right old mess of my knee which culminated in my first DNF.
Last year I was pleased just to get round unscathed and my ambitions were now similar for this year. The final climb up Lingmoor is a real choker. Lingmoor is just a mere bump in the grandeur of Langdale territory, but it's a fair old slog at this stage of the race and I found myself in close contention with Rossendale's Rick Solman, as indeed I had most of the race. Nearing the summit though I found a bit of extra energy from somewhere and picked up one or two positions and distanced myself from Rick. I was pleased to finish the race on a high by getting a bit of speed going coming off Lingmoor and also successfully navigating my way off the thing after spending a short time on a rocky slope in chest-high bracken with a bloke from Wakefield in last year's race.
At the finish I tried to salvage a little more positivity having snipped a minute off last year's time. This is a tough race. The next job was to take advantage of not driving by tonking a few beers down in the Three Shires Pub with Dominic. Now if that wasn't cheeky enough, not having one waiting for Gary when he got back and letting him queue at the bar was, in hindsight, quite rude to the point of almost criminal. Mr Platt, I will make it up to you one day I promise. 
Time:2.21:22   Pos: 55th/294