Last Wednesday, with still over a week to go until London, I had a go at the Round the Houses race in Keswick. I didn't find time to blog about it until now but didn't want to miss reporting on it and the day in general as it was a really great day in terms of weather, racing, fun with dogs, views of the hills and photos I took.
I was working in the Lake district. The race was in Keswick at 7 oclock which meant I had a lot of time to fill after finishing work at 4 oclock. I took the dogs to the lake edge just down from a layby on the A66. They had a whale of a time retrieving sticks from the Districts only Lake and I took the opportunity to practice my photography skills with these images being my best results of the day.
Scamp and his sister having a whale of a time in the water
This is my favourite of the 'view' photographs I took
This was the view from the Lakeshore. Centre frame is Keswick, with it's white painted houses. Behind Keswick, with remnants of snow in the gullies is the bulk of BG leg 2 clockwise. With Clough Head hidden by Dodd (forested pimply mound on the far lakeshore) From L to R theres Great Dodd, Watsons Dodd and Stybarrow Dodd, then the dip down to the high point of Sticks Pass, then Raise, Whiteside and finally Helvellyn. To the right of Helvellyn but much nearer are Bleaberry Fell and High Seat.
Heres a closer one to show the far fells more clearly
Scotty (left), George (right) and Scottys mate Chris
The race went OK. I started a bit too fast and then really struggled during the final 10 minutes. I can attribute this to a lack of racing such short distance.
My good pal Mike Scott made a return to racing after 18 months and proved (as I suspected) that he is still a force to be reckoned with. Also racing was George Thompson who wont mind me saying he is well over 50 (years of age) now. Ten years ago George was significantly slower than me - he is all the inspiration anybody from 20 to 50 needs to buckle down, train hard and get the most they can out of themselves - its never too late.
Milly raced too but was taking it easy, aiming for 6:15 pace. It's a good sign that he found it impossible to run that slow. Although I know he wasn't racing properly, the results show finishing times not excuses and a two minute gap between us allows me to say ' c'mon youngster'
I was 13th from over 150 entrants, so despite being almost two minutes slower than my course PB, I am clearly in half decent shape and have in fact decided I like racing and intend to run a lot more events than last year. I reckon I can go sub 35 mins for a 10k by the end of the summer.
I had hoped to get some photos of the race itself. This would have required somebody taking them with my camera. Millys family were at the race en mass but turned up so late that I had to take the camera back to my van for safekeeping else I wouldn't have had time for a warm up.
I am hopeful that one of them will be able to take it and get some photos of London Marathon while I am running.
(also apologies for the terrible formatting of this post - I am still new fangled with the options and after messing up I cant be bothered to begin again)
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