EARLY START/LATE START ....?

Well, I had 3 options for Sunday- get up early enough to be at the Rugby Club for 8:30 for the CHernobyl 10k; get up early enough to leave home at 11:00 for the Kendal Winter League race near Ulverston; just stay in bed.
The choice was reduced to the last two following a saturday trip to watch Annan Athletic, which involved a meat and potato pie for pre match food, with a meat pie at half time, followed by, yes you guessed it half a meat pie post match refreshment - they know how to look after us northern lads over the Border! This lot washed down with a couple of pints of 'Bellhaven Best Bitter' (jokes welcome about 'if this is Best, what else do they do?).

The pre race diet above led to an interrupted nights sleep, necessitating two 'trots along the landing' (think about it), then Mrs D-S-D woke me up at about 4:30 as she set off to do some 23 mile run near Kendal - hence I finally woke up at 8:45- too late to do the Chernobyl, which had always been my first objective, so the Kendal winter League it was!
The beauty of this race series is that it's oh so civilised, in that you can get up, read the papers, then leave home about 11:00 for a 1 o'clock start.

'This is a fast race' was about all I'd been told ( given the rucksacks full of half truths, ommissions, mis descriptions and tall stories I'd been told before about races in this series, I guess we'd got to the stage of 'the less he's told, the less there'll be for him to moan about after').

Rhiannon then pre start had a moment of Mrs D-S-D indecision about 'how many layers should I wear?' Finally sticking to three, the details are hazy, I spend too much time giving dodgy advise about 'six layers too many, one layer too few' to Mrs D-S_D to remember advise on an individual basis......

'GO' signalled what felt like a mass sprint straight uphill, then straight down the other side, then along a bit of tarmac until we found a way back onto the fell for another long run up, before a short sharp run back down to the finish ( this could describe most fell races, apart from those that are 'straight uphill then back down') - it only took 27:30 to do, which, if not for my bad decision making about toilet stops before the race, necessitating the use of a field gate half way round, would have been about 27:00 dead.

Apparently if you do seven of this series you get a medal, another four to go then I can chuck the fell shoes away, and put the medal in my 'display plastic bag' in the bottom of the wardrobe with the footy medals....................................

The Fell Fella (new nom de plume- sounds better than 'that fat bloke with the pie that the lid blew off'')