Well, hell of a couple of weeks. Massive low a couple of weeks back, when I got the news that my father was admitted to Greymouth hospital (it's pretty small). Managed a brief chat with him, but he was in a bit much pain to be chatty - all of his joints hurt. He was then flown over to Christchurch hospital (much bigger), put in ICU, hooked up to a ventilator and a shedload of pain relief and antibiotics. Turns out he had a Strep A infection, which had gotten into his blood (septicemia). He is still in a critical state, but slowly improving, but being literally the other side of the world has been hard.
Hot on the heels of this, was quite possibly the most exciting thing that has happened to me, in terms of running - an email asking me to join the Torq Performance Trail Team. The very first post on this blog was about my efforts in trying to get into another Torq Trail Team, which was unsuccessful, but am absolutely over the moon to be a part of the team, especially considering the talent that I will be joining.
So the past couple of weeks has definitely been a rollercoaster. Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, training has still gone on, and also the Nine Edges Endurance race, which I have started every year since 2009. It's 20 miles long, and a cracking course starting at Ladybower Reservoir, and finishing at the Robin Hood pub, just out of Baslow.
So I'm not sure exactly what I did on Wednesday night whilst I was sleeping, but I went to bed feeling great, with no niggles, then woke up Thursday morning with a sore ankle. How do you injure yourself in your sleep? So I took Thursday and Friday off running, ankle was better but still a bit sore, but it didn't feel like muscle or ligament damage, so I thought I'd trot around anyway.
!0:00am Saturday morning, off we went (after 10 minutes standing around getting chewed on by midges. I itch on every bit that was exposed.) with the usual amount of people charging off across the field, only to slow down massively on the first incline. It's a fairly good grunt from Ladybower up to the top of the hill, and I made my way up to 3rd place by the time we reached the top, then in to 2nd pretty soon after that. 1st place was not too far away (I thought), so I pushed on. The descent down into Moscar came fairly quickly, could still see 1st so I thought I'd time the gap - 3.5 minutes, after 5 and a bit miles. Ouch. I carried on, figuring he's come back further into the race. Besides, 3rd-6th weren't far behind me.
On this race, somehow, I always manage to get to stiles, gates, marshals at exactly the wrong time. It must have cost me a good 3 minutes or so waiting for them I digress. I carried on from Checkpoint 2, just after Moscar, doing my own thing, aiming to finish the race with under 8min/mile average, was running all of the hills and just generally feeling good. Surely I must be pulling 1st in...
So I got to Burbage Bridge, about 11 miles in. A mate from the club was there, and gave me the good news the bloke was now 7 minutes in front. I gave up worrying about catching him then, and just carried on doing my own thing.
Nothing particularly eventful happened between then and the finish, pace remained consistent the whole way and I finished the race feeling good - which has given me a massive confidence boost for next Saturday's High Peak 40, where I'm going to try and keep the same pace.
Strava link here, ended up 2nd. Free beer at the endwas amazing, think it was Sunbeam.
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