I will keep this one brief. The Dronfield relays runs the Dronfield circular walk in three legs of paired runners for teams of six. It is a handicapped race, with faster teams starting later with a time penalty. Connor and I had the final leg. We arrived far too early and fought to stay warm. Nerves built as more and more teams came in without any sight of our leg 2 comrades. Per the rules we waited on the other side of the busy road to avoid any dangerous crossings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We set off at blistering speed through the first few stiles before reigning it in. The next few teams were already back in sight climbing through the farmer\u2019s fields. Within a few kilometres we overtook three or four teams, tearing up the woodland descents with reckless abandon and spiralling over the Unstone-Dronfield By-Pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trails became quieter until Cowley where the next team came into sight, annoyingly close but separated by a zig-zagged route of road and rising ploughed fields. We locked onto them and dug deep. The brakes were off and the descents uninhibited into the final climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within the last 500m we were able to overtake another three teams, fighting off the lactic and pushing our way to an overall 4th<\/sup> place. The staggered start based on ability was done expertly, creating one of the best finishes I have experienced at a race. Thanks again to all the organisers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving time: 41:39<\/p>\n\n\n\n Distance: 7.75km<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elevation: 294m<\/p>\n\n\n\n Average Pace: 5:22\/km<\/p>\n\n\n\n Average HR: 172bpm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I will keep this one brief. The Dronfield relays runs the Dronfield circular walk in three legs of paired runners for teams of six. It is a handicapped race, with faster teams starting later with a time penalty. Connor and I had the final leg. We arrived far too early and fought to stay warm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[9,6,13,10],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-race","tag-road","tag-run","tag-sheffield","tag-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}