This weekend I was meant to be at a weekend canicross race but it had been cancelled a few weeks ago as the ground was too saturated for parking or camping. Luckily I got a transfer place into the Grindleford Gallop which starts a few miles away from where I live and is a 21mile loop.
I cycled to the start as it was close to home and there isn't a lot of parking there, this meant I didn't have to get there super early to get parked!
All the registration was done outside due to the Corona Virus meaning we had to be careful about being around people.
I'd already done a reasonable amount of running this week, including a 17 mile run with Chip on Wednesday, so the plan was to use it as a good training run. Then they said GO and of course I was running as fast as I could to the queue for the first stile!
It wasn't long before the climbing started and I was walking! But the views were stunning. The day had started off misty but the weather kept improving with the sun shining by partway through, in fact I was wishing I had shorts on! I was behind a guy descending well into Longstone and I was able to stay with him. I mentioned to him I often find the Monsal Trail hard in races and he said just treat it like a parkrun. I may have took that too literally clocking a sub 8minute mile!
Leaving the trail we headed up towards Chatsworth, I enjoyed eating my cake while walking up this that I had picked up at the checkpoint on the trail. Heading towards Chatsworth my legs seemed to be struggling and once I got to Chatsworth I started to really need the toilet but I knew it wasn't far to Baslow! Getting there it was a quick toilet stop and I got one of my bottles refilled.
Up to hill onto Baslow Edge, it was just along Baslow, Curbar and Froggatt Edges before dropping to the finish. It felt like I was just shuffling along while more and more people came past me. But once descending to the finish I found some more oomph and even a sprint along the road to the finish!
I was aiming for sub 5, with sub 4.5hrs being my A goal. So I was super happy with finishing at just over 4hrs!
After finishing they fed us soup, which was delicious, oh and lots of cake options! Then I had to cycle home.... It took me a while to set off and the uphill was hard, at least then it was mainly downhill to home!
It's definetly an event I would do again. Also showed me I probably need to do some more long training runs without Chip so I don't just die! But the really good thing is I managed about three 500ml bottles of liquid and the day after my legs weren't sore, meaning I was right about a lot of the soreness after the Wales race being down to barely drinking anything!
190th/387 runners
44th/147 females
27th/76 V40 females
Now to hope my main event in April goes ahead!
