Time/Position: 1.03.56 (4th from 222 [2nd Team/1st Vet Team])
This has long been one of my favourite events, sadly missed over the last couple of years. The team element makes it great, and a nice complement to the castles relays last Sunday. I've found myself in various combos over the years, and this year our trio was me, Jez and Richard Shearer - a combined aged of 155, so very comfortably competing in the vet category! On the long road haul out to Burwardsley, we kept a good steady pace going, letting our younger Buckley rivals streak ahead, along with some other quick teams. It seemed to me that we were comfortably first vets, so we just knocked the pace back a bit for the draining tarmac up to the Pheasant. The off-road section follows, with the sharp climb up to the Sandstone Trail before great running down the sandy paths to the start of the Railway, very possibly the most notorious local climb of all, much harder than the dreaded gully on my Hotfoot race. Looking up, I could only see one team ahead: that seemed odd, but at this stage I wasn't sure where we were in the field. The 'railway' is a misnomer: it is actually an incline that gets ludicrously steep at the top, where the grim reaper helps runners up the final step. Rich slipped back a bit, but recovered remarkably for the next section which leads to the fields back down to Burwardsley. These were far more overgrown than normal, but we stayed in our trio, which is what the race is all about (and doesn't often happen). Once we hit the road, we pulled away and it became apparent we were in second place overall. Our Buckley rivals had taken a wrong turn, as had Vale Royal. Rich and I were matched step for step, and the road run-in was brilliant as a result. Jez slipped behind a little, but we finished in a comfortable second place overall (first veterans), a couple of minutes down on my best time for the course (with Dave and Chris in 2017, although I once broke the hour on the old course). A great evening, and very warm rather than dangerously hot - which was what the forecast was warning.
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