Last of the Pain Days

Well, Saterday saw my last Cross country race for the season and it was a big'un! The Video below shows the start of the senior womens race - actual speed! Haa!

Well, like i said it was a big race - held at Wollaton Park - Nottingham. It was the fifth and last race in the UK Athletics Cross Challenge sieries and also the UK Intercounties Championship... Plus it gets broadcast live on Sky Sports so anyone whos interested can get to look at you go through pain, Haa!! I scrapped into the North Wales counties Team even though I've been running crap lately due to an injury and the ever present sciatica - but was happy to get the chance to run - it gave me the chance to learn the course for next year. The Race was brilliant, i just set out steady, no intentions of racing my teammates, just wanted to finish the race without further injury and the Team needed me to finish to count in the rankings. The ground was heavy, claggy mud - but it didn't affect the race because everyone suffered equally. Apparently Caroline was clearly filmed in the starting pens at the beginning of the race and Mike even got caught on film somewhere around our race (hopefully the cameras missed yours truely). The main thing is i didn't get lapped, AND that was my second time representing North Wales - Chuffed - AND it was the last cross country race for me for a long while - Phew! Feeling good afterwards all things considered - even managed a 12 mile hill run yesterday - so looking forward now to a summer of hard training and plenty of rock!

Kev and possibly Rob and Andy are still due over this weekend so I've been trying to decide where to hit - LPT, Slate, Malaham or Peak Limestone? I've never tried any of the Peak or Yorkshire Limestone before so might end up wasting more time getting lost and finding our way to the crags - might be best to check those venues out first and bring the lads over during the summer when daylight is more abundant! LPT also has the added advantage of being home to some very likely long term projects that i could begin to work on - Hmmmmm.... lets see what the tides are doing.