It was a glorious boxing day morning. There was no snow to indicate that Christmas was still in the air but this didn\u2019t matter, the sky was blue and clear and the sun warmed our faces as we waited in the start chute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t sure what to try for, the Christmas day parkrun was very much still in my legs and although only 8.7km, the 300m of elevation was nothing to sneeze at. Around the Cricket pitch I ran and off up Strawberry Lee Lane. I\u2019d positioned quite near the back and quickly gained these places along the smooth fast tarmac. I only realised where we were at the car park when I recognised it as where I would park at work and strim the miles of paths around Blacka Moor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ground my way up, fixating on the next person to overtake before a long bounding descent that crescendoed in a big splash through a stream. The next climb up Devil\u2019s Elbow took some grit and I distinctly remember feeling very sick and a bit annoyed with how hard I\u2019d gone out. Some respite was gained at the descent from the upper car park where I slowly gained on those ahead of me. These runners quickly pulled away once again as I hit the final climb. By no means was it the biggest, but the soft mud, deep ruts, and steep grade made it almost impossible to get purchase in my trail shoes and each step took the energy of ten. By the top flat I was walking and thoroughly demoralised. My calves were rock, lungs fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is in these times that you need to be realistic with yourself. A couple seconds of self-pity before deciding what you can do to sort it out. I could see Dan approaching and gave myself until he reached me to walk and get back into a more positive frame of mind. Lo-and-behold the legs still had some juice and we fell into step, exchanging positive words. All the ascent was done now, just a lovely 3km fall down a hillside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We \u2018battled\u2019 it out, me in the loose rock ravine and Dan having a lovely time on the higher path within the heather. I joked that he was cheating, taking the more comfortable path but really I was just jealous I hadn\u2019t thought of it. No matter, once back onto the bridleway my pace increased further, and two more positions were gained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just the final road section we had come out on remained, and the distinctive brown, yellow, and purple of a Dark Peak vest came into view. It was my challenge to catch them. I bore down with all that I had left, gaining ground at a rate faster than I was expecting. It wasn\u2019t quite enough, but as I drifted back into the cricket field to finish I was satisfied with what I had learned and achieved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a glorious boxing day morning. There was no snow to indicate that Christmas was still in the air but this didn\u2019t matter, the sky was blue and clear and the sun warmed our faces as we waited in the start chute. I wasn\u2019t sure what to try for, the Christmas day parkrun was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[47,33,6,13,48,10],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-race","tag-fell","tag-race","tag-run","tag-sheffield","tag-totley","tag-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","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=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chasingthearbitrary.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}