Grizedale Plodding

A glance at the results for the Grizedale 13 and 26 trail races will show me as a DNF. Not true. I crossed the Grizedale 13 for the 3rd time, albeit in a fairly slow time (more of that later), but finish I did. The problem was I had entered the 26 (i.e. full marathon) and not the 13. I contacted the organisers (Epic Events) to let them know I wasn’t going to do the full race, only the half, but they wouldn’t let me switch. This is mind bogglingly petty on their part – it’s literally a case of changing a field on a spreadsheet. There would be no more runners overall and I cannot see why the would not facilitate this. Poor customer service. I suppose that when you have an event that sells out every year your incentive to please everyone diminishes.

I knew that I would not get close to my personal best at Grizedale set in 2018 (2:06:16) because my autumn of injury has spread into a winter of discontent. Thanks to some excellent physio work I have got over my back problem, but starting up running again has led to flare ups in longstanding achilles tendon issues. So, with much extra physio I have been able to run, but only slowly. This has meant some really lovely long cross country runs, but no speed work at all. Add to that the extra few kilos I’ve put on as a result of a sedentary autumn means that my run times have fallen off a cliff. A week’s rest to allow any remaining achilles soreness to settle meant that I felt confident I would finish at Grizedale, but I knew my time would be slow.

With a massive contingent of at least 35 COLTs (City of Lancaster Triathlon) members on the start line this would be a race with plenty of familiar faces, most of whom I knew I wouldn’t be seeing as they would be far up ahead! The day was murky and drizzly, but mild with no wind, so pretty benign conditions all round. The wet winter meant plenty of puddles and mud and I managed one rather ungainly slide on my backside down a grassy slope. That aside, the forestry tracks make for a decent running surface and I just made sure that I was running in my comfort zone, only allowing myself to push hard over the last couple of downhill kilometres to the finish. 2:22:51 was my unofficial finish time and I did get a medal for my efforts even though my result is not recorded anywhere (it’s on Strava, so that counts?).

After a lovely tomato and pepper soup at the Grizedale Visitor Centre catching up with other COLTs – plenty of PBs as well as first time finishers, and a shout out for Andy Ley who finished 4th overall – it was time to head home thinking about my next race (Coniston 14 in March) and how I would go about losing weight between now and then.

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