Herod Farm - a proper test of running

No pretty pictures this time, my camera battery died before I took any...
Over the last couple of weeks I've slowly started to reintroduce running into my training. Mainly on a track, with limited success, although things didn't seem to get worse with it, they weren't feeling normal. Then I ran up a hill (bit of a loose term 'run' in this instance) to watch the Coledale Horseshoe (after rinding round to Keswick from Langdale) and with relatively tired legs felt pretty good on the up! Downhill was another matter but I figured I'd address that one another time...
It was a lovely day to be out spectating...well it had been when we set off, a brief snow and hail storm followed!
Watching the women descend, me and Zanthe tried to make out who it was in 2nd. We couldn't work it out from the vest, so waited until she got a bit closer and suddenly we realised it was out friend Sarah, running for HBT and flying down the hill after Lauren Jeska! An excellent bit of running! Can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds for her, doubt I'll get a glimpse of her vest in any races... although I think the BG is top of her list!
 So, after successfully getting up and down the mountain I decided I might try running Herod Farm race the following Wed. I had to return the trophy so it would be rude not to race ;-).
I kept the pace comfortable, concentrating on running properly and watching out for any niggles in my hip. At the top of the first climb I was with 2nd woman and could see Judith not far ahead. The descent was a shambles and I had to jog to prevent jarring my back, I waved goodby to the women ahead, but then came the beast of a second climb. I took out some BIG ground on them at this point, the only part of the race I put some effort in (it's one of my all time favourite climbs as most people forget it's coming...or foget how steep it is). At the top I was around 1.5mins down on Judith and 5-10m behind 2nd lady. I got to the top and relaxed back into my jog down the hill, happy to know I've still got some strength and speed in the legs! To give you an idea of my speed going down, Judith took about 2minutes out of me on that last 0.6miles of descent...probably about the amount of time I'd gained on the final climb.
At the finish, the guy I had raced up the hill with commented 'you need to sort out your descending' and was probably a bit disappointed to hear I'd turned the gas off intentionally.
I finished in 3rd, which was great, but better still I had run all the way and there was no signs of a locked SI joint! Half way round somebody had shouted '3rd woman, dig in, you can get her, she's not far ahead' and I realised I was having too much fun to bother trying to catch anyone! You know it's been too long without a run when that happens :-).
Since then, it's not been smooth sailing, but the SI joint is still moving! I just need to stop my back tightening up if I don't stetch it every few minutes....Watch this space - 3 weekends to Ireland British Champs race and I have every intention of being there and being able to run downhill!!

Open 5 - 2nd in the peaks and the series!

Open 5 Female Solo Winners: L to R: Rosemary, Me , Karen

Yesterday was the final of the Open 5 series and it was down to a showdown between me and Rosemary Byde (http://planetbyde.com/) for the  series win. If either of us won the event then we got the series win too!

But thats only half the excitement of the last month, I'll start by setting the scene properly (you can skip to the open 5 report by scrolling down 2 pictures):

Last year our research unit lost funding, with the final day of the research unit having any money being 31st March 2012, the day before the last open 5 (no pressures there then). Just before Christmas I learned I had not been successful in securing funding for the rest of my PhD.

What this meant for me was, along with finding alternative funding, writing grants and getting a rush on knowing what my data meant, that I needed to fit as many patients in before the end of the unit as possible for maximum thesis writing potential!

A small list of disasters followed:
1) Our surgeon (quite key when implanting strain gauges onto peoples tibia) moved his clinic
2) This meant a substantial amendment to my protocol (read 2 month delay on patients)
3) There was only one more available date before we ran out of money (One more shot to get it right!)


So, I've been walking round looking like I'm in the middle of an XPD for the last month or 2, with the finish line being Wed the 14th of March when, now we are well practiced, I would get a full set of excellent data from my patient (strain gauges have proven tempromental when in peoples legs)!

Somebody somewhere had other ideas, and was aparently in control of the 14th March so:
1) My patient was 1hr15mins late
2) We had failed to get insurance in time to use one of our machines.
3) My notebook laptop battery broke as my patient entered the gait lab and no longer held power (we need to unplug the laptop to remove noise from the signal)
4) My new laptop has windows 7, my software doen't work on anything later than vista.
5) We set up windows xp to run on my laptop as well......it still didn't like the strain gauge
6) I missed lunch (big disaster as I had been at work since 6:45am after having a yoghurt and got home at 6pm, )
6) Reverting back to the original notebook we took 12 recordings (of 100) and the strain gauge broke.

To finish the week off I gave a seminar and then collapsed into recovery...which seemed to take as long as after an XPD :-P.

On top of that, I had been injured for well over a month and even with following physio advice to a T, running seemed a long way off. Once I had my brain back together enough, I realised lifting my leg was no longer just an issue when running, walking around was getting increasingly difficult! Also, sitting, standing or lying wasn't very comfortable either. So I made a last minute appointment with Kim who gave me the news I kind of knew deep down. My SI joint had not remained free moving after my last physio appointment at the end of Feb and my pelvis was sort of 'wonky' (for want of a better word) which meant all the stretching I'd been doing wasn't working. When your SI joint locks, your glutes forget how to work so you lift your leg purely with hip flexors making it almost a hinge joint action. Kim put me back into place and sent me away with lots of strengthening (and digging fingers into hip flexors) to do!

The 'Clam'

So, I spent a week doing the 'clam' and multiple other exercises like my life depended on it. Still, on the Sunday before the race (3 days post physio) it was an effort to walk up to Mam Nick to watch the Edale skyline so I decided not to enter the Open 5. I was massively disappointed, if I'd had a bit more time I would have had a return visit to a physio sooner and have had everything sorted. Now I would have to sit it out and instruct Rosemary to win by a country mile to keep me in the top 3. Realistically, Mandy was going to improve her lowest percentage making it hard for me to stay in that position!

Then, after two cross trainer sessions, it stopped being so clear cut. My glutes were working again, I went for a run.....YES! Not perfect, or fast, but the first run in 6 weeks! On Sat 31st I rode a MTB.....and that sealed the deal...I was going to go afterall as all I needed was to improve on the diabolical score of the last event. If I could get 82% of the winner I should stay in 3rd!

Proof - I can run (but please ignore the heel strike)!!

So, back to the event! I took my usual tactics and set off on the Mountain Bike. I decided to go with the normal 3hrs bike, 2hrs run and if the hip hurt too much, call it a day. I also took the precaution of putting pretty pink tape over my hip flexors.

I even managed to start well before 10:29am, now that is organisation!
Even though I was planning on being conservative with speed, I set off like the clappers, but slowed down en route to the first control as that was definitely too fast for my hip. This also allowed me to look at the pretty views and take in the glorious sun that was now out!
I picked up a 35 and a 20 pointer on the road before heading for the old railway line. At this point I started riding into a headwind and was really struggling. I couldn't believe how hard it was riding into this headwind, I got overtaken by a male pairs who seemed to be making easy work of it. 5km and 2 controls later I turned out of the wind.....and it got no easier! Doh! My rear brake had become misaligned and was effectively jammed on. I did a quick fix....which was just that and lasted all of about 3 minutes so stopped at my next control properly (after riding up another hill with my brake on = numpty). 3 realignments later it was acceptable and I looked like I'd been in a fight with a bike chain! What a difference! Now I was back on track.I picked up another couple of control at this far side of the map before heading back towards the start. My hip started niggling a little bit, so I slowed right down en route to 18 and for the rest of the ride. I had accidentally folded 2 controls off the map (not 1 as I thought), so after picking up the high pointers around Hulme End and Wetton I had got all but 20 points on the bike.

I was off on the run with about 1hr 35 left after all my bike brake faffing.

I found this a lot more difficult to judge than normal. I planned a route of 9 controls that I normally would have got round no problem. The first control dropped me into the valley and I knew there were going to be some serious climbs about! I experienced the only hands on knees one going to my 3rd control though! Running through Milldale I got de ja vu, who can tell me which relays have been run through there??

On my way off the steep hands on knees hill I went over on my left ankle, which normally isn't ideal but actually stopped me concentrating on my hip, watching for any little niggle. Still, I wasn't really moving anywhere fast, so I decided on my second climb out of the valley to miss a 10 pointer. At the top I had a decision to make, get 2 more controls to make my total 485...or go for a 15 pointer as well to make the 500! I probably just had time....didn't I?

No, no I didn't. I got the 15 pointer and had 20 minutes to get 2 more controls and back to the finish covering over 2 miles and some climb. If I could just stride out properly...
I upped the pace a bit but couldn't lift my leg quite as well as normal yet. Still, only 8minutes late! I finished with a score of 482 points which I thought was enough to keep me on the series podium but I knew today should have been a 500+ points day. And I was right, Rosemary got 506 points winning the day and series! What a great race to the end :-)!

What I didn't expect and made me extra happy was to finish 2nd on the day, giving me a total of 295.2 in the series and moving me up to 2nd overall!  Worth the gamble of racing I think! :-)

Open 5 Dorking

A Smile as I complete all of the bike controls

 Over the last month an old injury from a couple of years ago has reappeared, I won't bore you with the details but will say, if you ever fall over sideways in a fell race, get your hands down first, not your hip. The end result is that riding a bike is ok, running is not.

So at the Open 5 on Sunday I had a plan. A bit of maths had revealed if I cleared the bike I only needed to get 4 or 5 run controls to get a similar score to normal. This should take me 40-50mins and as I normally get all but 4 bike controls (ish) I figured I should be able to clear within 4 hours.

The weather forecast was for 8 degrees and heavy rain so I set off to the start with full body cover and pretty well wrapped up. On the way to the start I was boiling so I decided to take my leg warmers off but leave the other layers on.

The bike started well and I really enjoyed the single track between my first few controls. I then committed to clearing the bike by heading for 3 x 10 pointers that, in normal circumstances I might have avoided.  After a couple of hours I felt my back niggle a bit but it seemed to be alright. I might have subconciously slowed down a little bit as not long after I remember thinking 'I wish I hadn't taken my leg warmers off' and 'My baselayer is soaking and cold'. I also glanced up and did a double take, was that snow??!? Yes it was. The weather had changed from its original plan and was now more like 1 degrees and snowing. I was not dressed for this!

Looking back the signs of getting overly cold were there, I started having to think harder for every step of the nav and in order to make sure my legs were still peddling. My breathing went all over the place, breathing very fast and shallow and I lost the feeling in my fingers and wondered if when I took my gloves off I would find a mangled black mess. However I am stubborn and ignored all of this, but was disappointed it took me 4hrs 16minutes to clear the bike! Still 350 points bagged and I had 40minutes to run right!

In transition I was so cold I didn't notice it. I concentrated on getting my shoes off which took 5minutes and I even recruited James Kirby to help as my overshoe was refusing to budge from my right foot. I nearly set off with one bike shoe on but eventually wrestled it off and set off aiming for a loop of 4 controls worth 85points.

This picture captures my run perfectly - 'How do I use a compass again?'

What actually happened was this. I set off and was wondering why I seemed not to trust my map was the right way up. Nothing seemed to be fitting too well, but i stumbled across my first control and assumed I was being silly. On the way I had found a fluorescent hat that somebody had dropped so I put it on. I then set off to the second control and for the next 20minutes I can't tell you where I was. My brain just wasn't working. I had no rational thinking and certainly no navigational skill. I do remember thinking stop being daft and go back to the finish, but I only had about 25mins left anyway! Eventually I stumbled upon the original control I had been to which took me entirely by suprise.

As I seemed to be struggling with following paths I decided to follow the road to the next path and my final control. I knew I was going to be late at this point but still got it. I made it back with 4minutes of penalties so still worth the 20 point last control.

Now I had stopped I was thinking a bit more rationally and knew I wasn't in a very good state. So left Wil with my bike repair kit to fix his puncture and headed back with Nicola. It sounds like we both had as much luck as each other with finding run controls!
After download I quickly got to the showers, but after 5 minutes of standing in the hot water I still wasn't warm so I gave up and got wrapped up. Apparently my lips were blue at this point. I then spent an hour or so shivering violently and spilling cups of hot drink everywhere.

I was amazed to find that, even having only got 2 run controls and having taken an age on the bike I was still 4th! Rosemary had a stormer and removed any hope of an ok % score, so it all comes down to the Peaks race for the series now! Exciting! :-)

Lesson of the day, my normal plan of getting lots of bike and lots of run controls works better than clearing the bike and picking up some run controls!

Finally, this is close to winning the 'Coldest I have ever got myself' award. It's a toy up between this and the OMM in 2007 where we had to abandon on day 1. I'm leaning towards Sunday getting the award though as at the OMM I managed to navigate us back to base without mistake....

My second Open 5 Win at Warcop - 2 weekends of fun in the snow!.

Me and Gus on Mt Famine - KT 2012

 2 Weekends ago I did my favourite January Fell Race, the Kinder Trial. Roughly 12 miles, Andy Howie likes to plan some interesting routes to navigate, pick his favourite landmarks on Kinder and leave at least one route choice decision that often decides the race. I knew I was on for a tough race as I had finished within a minute or so of Kirsty Bryan-Jones last year and the two of us were entered again. The Saturday was beautiful with blue sky and fresh snow on the ground. One of my favourite KTs to date I think! I was right about the race being on, with 2 checkpoints to go I saw Kirsty who started 10mins before me. I had decided to go up Mt Famine before dropping  into Dimpus Clough whereas Kirsty was doing the reverse. It was going to be a tight finish.....well until I navigated myself to the next checkpoint way too low, loosing quite a few mins in the process! Ah well, I made it back 5mins slower than Kirsty and finished in 2nd, winning a chocolate medal!

How to freeze your feet before you begin...don't forget your wellies!

 This weekend was the Open 5 at Warcop, North Pennines. Again the snow arrived the previous day and again, the snow stopped in time for the sun to come out on the Sunday! After getting some chilly feet en route to the start (teach me to forget my wellies) I put my dry bike shoes on and headed off on the MTB! I picked up a good few high pointers low down to start with, having a chat to Adam on the way to the second one, then rejoining him at the 5th one after a group of them had ridden past the control. Adam, Shelf and Andy proved to be good pace makers for the start of the MASSIVE climb! By the time it was hike a bike however I had lost some ground and so took the opportunity to shovel some midget gems into me. By the top the others were dots on the horizon ahead :-).

Shelf riding across the tops

 Over the tops was stunning! Riding (read sliding) down the hill was so much fun and I ended up like the guy in the below photo quite a few times, including that corner!

Crash Corner

At the next control I decided, fun as it had been, that I would be out for the full 5 hours if I continued across the tops so dropped down and picked up my final 4 bike controls back around the army base, pleased that my legs could still pick the pace up after their snow beating! I made it into transition in 3hrs 7mins so just over the planned 3hrs and didn't hang around so I would avoid getting cold. Looking at the run I made a rough plan, to get all the ones to the right of the transition area apart from one 15 pointer (leaving it in reserve for later) before heading up the not quite so massive but still noticeably big climb, traversing across to the hike a bike snow area from before then dropping down to pick up a 20, then 25 pointer and into the finish (with the possibility of picking up the 15 pointer on the way if by some miracle this left me any time). The plan was going very well until the big climb. I forced my legs to keep moving when they really didn't want to and passing a pair on the bike got the comment 'you look as wrecked as I do'.
I shuffled across the top picking up 2x 15pointers. At this point I had 45mins left which made the traverse seem realistic still...Nicola and Adam heading in the opposite direction also said it wasn't too bad going across there so I headed out of the stream intending to complete my planned route. 300m later on the path I decided it wasn't feasible at all! My legs were seriously giving up. I pretty much fell down the hill, then stumbled my way across the tussocks to pick up my reserve 15 pointer before digging deep to get over to the 25 pointer. I had 8minutes to get back from the 25 pointer which should really have been very easy, but in reality I got back with only a minute to spare, phew, it could have gone either way. This was a tough race to get right tactically as you could easily end up stuck on the wrong side of some OOB and running out of time, so glad I dropped below this instead of traversing over it!

By the end I had got all but 4 bike controls and all but 6 run controls, picking up 470 points, enough for my second Open 5 win :-) Clear by 40 points in the end I clearly had looked wrecked for a reason!

Quantocks Open 5 Win

Winning the Open 5 in the Quantocks: A smile of relief running into the finish before the 5hour time limit!

Last Thursday I hit the big red enter button on the Open Adventure website and entered my first Open 5 of the 2011/12 series. I then went for a run with Pennine FR and thought 'What have I done?' The lack of training in Nov/Dec due to gluten challenge and the cold I'd had for a week was not conducive to running around kinder at all!
I sat still for the two days before the O5 and that seems to have done the trick! As we arrived in Crowcombe we passed the transition area and got a preview of the ride to the start....It was 190m of climb in less than a mile! Any illusions of a nice flat Southern area out the window :-).

I decided to bike first as that seemed to work best last year, however I had a plan to reduce my shocking transition/ run plan time. I marked the control points on the map on BOTH sides before heading off. My route choice was a bit rusty to start with and I could potentially have got another 15 pointer if I'd thought it through a bit more, but I got round with the major high pointers and few bonus controls. The riding was tough, with a good layer of mud covering my bike and me nicely! I particularly enjoyed the excitingly steep descents I found! I couldn't have riden for any longer though, after an hour I had got really hungry and had a couple of moments where I really thought I was about to bonk! I ate as much as I normally eat in an entire O5 in just the bike stage! Thankfully, with a bit of pushing of the bike/leaning on the bike for support on the ridiculously gentle last bit of climb, I got back to transition and my food stash.

Having marked the run side of the map I was much more economical with my transition, changing shoes and eating whilst planning. This saved me around 8 minutes I think (I have been truely shocking at this in the past).
I wasn't sure what my legs would do at this point, however they got into the swing of the run no problem and I cruised round the first 4 controls. Then I chose a maveric route choice which involved a big off road climb followed by a descent and a climb again. I could have done this in one climb....but this way was shorter :-P.

Now all was left was a small descent, gentle climb and the finish! Then I glanced at my watch.....I had 40minutes.....which was more than enough time to get my remaining 2 controls. And you never want more than enough time right?

Before I knew it my legs were taking me down the hill to the right, away from my safe last controls, towards another 10 pointer. I got there with 35minutes to go. Just in time for my legs to truely give up. I shuffled through the fields towards the penultimate control and a lot of pain and 15minutes later I arrived. 20minutes to go, and my legs were refusing to move. Thankfully the hill to the last control was not half as bad as I thought and I managed a run until legs stop, walk 10 steps, run again regime, bringing me into the finish in 4hrs58, Phew!

I'd been doing some mental maths on the way round and thought I'd got an alright score, however 480 points is more than I could have hoped for at the moment! It was also enough for my first Open 5 win! Really happy with that!

I'm so glad I've retained some of the fitness I had in October! The effort of getting out of the door when feeling rubbish well worth it! I'm also glad that I seem to be fairly well recovered, apart from the cold but I can deal with that! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series now and hope that next time it might feel a bit less like I was dragging my body around the course!

Not the Ultra Tour de Helvellyn

Ullswater

 

The pictures here are from this last weekend, which I spent up in the Lakes running! Normally nothing out of the ordinary there, but this was the first weekend running I'd done in over a month! It was great!!

Its been quite a gap since the last time I posted, which was pretty much the end of racing for this year. I finished the season off with a third senior lady in Langdale Fell Race where I decided I needed some more speed for next year, and the navigation leg for the Pennine Ladies team at the FRA relays. I ended the FRA relays feeling in excellent shape and planned a couple of weeks off before starting into training for next year.

However, my doctor decided it would be a good idea to work out why I have been unable to eat gluten since May and so I embarked on a gluten challenge instead (trust me, just as difficult as any AR!). Every time I've eaten it by accident this year I 've taken a week or two off training or stuck to low key training to recover, which is fine as long as its only a couple of weeks. This time it was going to be just over 6 weeks before I got to head back to my GF diet, so realistically 9weeks before I was back on form. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't want to entirely loose the floaty feeling of being fit from the FRA relays, so made a mental note that I was going to get out and train, in some form, every week regardless of how little I wanted to.

Looking up the Valley from Martindale

 The night before my first sandwich, I headed out on the DPFR run and cruised around 10 miles with Helen Elmore. It was great to still be feeling fit and relatively fast :-). The first few days afterwards I got away without feeling a thing and completed the BUCS hill climb, my first ever race on a road bike... Next time I'm going to use a bike that fits me!!  Still second counter for the Sheffield Uni Women ain't too bad :-). On the fourth day it all went downhill, I went for a gentle run and within a few minutes had stabby stomach pains. By the time the DPFR weekly run came around I was amazed at the difference a week made! I not only had to run slower to lessen the stomach pain but I was dropping off the back of everybody!
Not that that put me off, I just revised the amount of exercise I was going to do and decided to aim for one group run of decent length a week and put up with it, so found myself running up through the parks with the ShUOC girls on a 2hr gentle run the following week. I struggled my way round which wasn't very enjoyable. This was it, I'd managed to keep 'proper training' for 2/6 weeks...
By week 3 I was pretty tired from doing nothing, but going out for some very gentle exercise didn't seem to make this any worse, it was just difficult to get out of the door. I then made a discovery, riding a bike was an easier way to do exercise - I guess it was due to me keeping my HR lower and being able to not pedal on the downhills. I'd like to say I got out on a couple of good rides to make up for the lack of running....however when 2.5hrs of a 5 hour ride is spent in a pub by a fire enjoying lunch you might suggest the pace was potentially junk mile worthy....
I got a bit borerd of junk miles with a HR av not over 135 and so went for it! A HR over 150...for an entire hour of MTB...wow! This wiped me out for 3 days and so I gave in and just did nothing for 2 weeks!

Well the 6.5weeks is up, and obviously the first thing I did was get very excited and go running...a lot! The first attempt was back at DPFR with a very similar result to the last outing with them! This time I got properly dropped and ran a good 5miles back alone, oops. I ran the route 10mins slower than last time with Helen, but my HR was also quite a bit lower, so i don't think all the fitness is lost :-).
I then couldn't resist this:

 By the third run I stopped feeling quite as sick, and enjoyed a headtorch run around Ladybower before heading to the Lakes for the weekend. I had hoped that by some miracle I would be fine to run 38miles in the Ultra Tour de Helvellyn, but was sensible (yes you heard me right) and faced up to the fact that it was highly unlikely I would get round and if I did I probably wouldn't enjoy it. So instead I went for a run with Rhys and Wil from Pooley Bridge, picking up the UTdH route to Martindale. Here we found Mike Robinson looking a little confused, but moving well. What we didn't know is that we'd just missed Kim Collison who was on for a flyer and won by a clear margin in a little over 6 hours...as you can see there was enough snow that it should really have slowed him down!
Running back over the tops I remembered how much harder running in the snow can be!

High Cup Nick

By the end I'd managed 2hrs of pretty comfortable running :-)
On Sunday we headed out again around Dufton (above), running up to High Cup Nick in even more icey snowy conditions. Another 1.5hrs complete, however I was back to feeling pretty rough. So not there quite yet, but only 7 days gf so far. This week has gone better than I hoped and I anticipate that in another 2 weeks I should be able to go out running as much as I like without a problem (well apart from sore and dead legs!).

Next stop Italy, for a bit of Christmas skiing :-)!!!

2nd in the Ian Hodgson Mountain Relays

Angle Tarn - We had weather more like this than the mist that descended for the rest of the legs :-)

Yesterday was the 2011 Ian Hodgson Mountain Relays and Pennine Fell Runners had a title to defend! Last year we had secured a tightly faught victory in the mixed catagory and this year provided just as much of an anxious wait at the finish line, with some hot competition from Bingley and Borrowdale. 

For the last few years the relays have been run in an anticlockwise direction, starting and ending from Sykeside Campsite. With bad weather in the last few weeks there had been some last minute alterations, the relay now starting/ending in Patterdale and being run in a clockwise direction. This meant I was now running the 4.5mile first leg (formally 3rd leg) with Edie Hemstock. The pace up the hill felt easy, however we were in the mix with most of the mixed and ladies teams. A couple of good lines across the top and then came the manic (fun) descent down to the Hartsop Valley. Here we met a track and Edie showed me how to run on something less rough than tussocks! Its always interesting to see the different strengths in relay partnerships, after spurring Edie on up the hill and down to the valley, she then pushed me all the way into the finish!

We thought we were in 2nd place in the mixed cat at this point, however there was one team we'd overlooked, having not seen them since the word GO!The Bingley mixed team with Sharon Taylor and Ali Raw had taken 3.5mins out of us!


Pennine had mixed fortunes on the next leg with our Men's team going for a small wander (by no means the only ones!)...and this left Muir and Paul ahead of them, storming into Kirkstone pass to hand over to Steph and Claire in 1st Place. Claire had a similar experience to the one I did last year, with Steph's enthusiasm exploding into a crazy speed up Red Screes and Claire yelling directions! This proved to work just as well as last year, with the pair running what looks like the fastest womens time for that leg and retaining 1st place!

Adam and Daz set off on the 4th and final leg knowing Bingley would be hot on their heals with Ian Holmes and Andy Peace setting off around 30-60s down! When the guys entered the finishing field we were all waiting to see which coloured vest would appear first. It was blue and white striped....Bingley had the lead however Pennine were right behind them, finishing 7s behind in 2nd place. Borrowdale were the next team in, taking 3rd and completing the 12th,13th and 14th overall places for the first 3 mixed teams! A great race and a great result, it was a fantastic day! Can't wait for the FRA relays now, but first will be a bit more Lakes running with Langdale next weekend!