Furnace 5k

This morning it’s the traditional Boxing Day run at the Furnace Inn in Derby.

I run the 5k attached to both the dogs but forget the ‘dual lead attachment’ thing and have to cobble together a replacement using the younger one's halti. They are also rather difficult to handle at the start. The eldest is hyper, which is making the other hyper and when he does hyper, he does hyper with knobs on. We stand in the next street but not only can all the other runners still hear their barking, most of Derby can.

My lead replacement doesn’t work very well and just seems to glue the two dogs together. Which isn’t too bad but I worry that it prevents the old man trying to stop when he tires. So I keep stopping and untangling them, while checking that in his advancing years is ok. He seems fine and we even have enough in the tank to overhaul a terrier near the end and perhaps be first dogs across the line. Although we’re only 84th, so not sure if anything else with four legs was further up the field.

Great Langdale Christmas Pudding 10k

After a wet trip up on Friday it’s stayed pretty much dry since. Although we’ve already had enough rain to make parking on the usual fields impossible. So we have to make a £4 donation to the National Trust to use their car park. It should have been more but we’ll take the risk that no one spots we’re going to overrun the two hour limit.

As usual its a 12 noon start for the traditional Great Langdale Christmas Pudding 10k. The new owners of the Sticklebarn - the National Trust, who annoyed us last time by changing the pub so much, now appear to have annoyed the race organisers as well. Consequently the race HQ is now at the adjacent New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. This also makes for a slightly changed course due to a new start and finish position.

Even then I start too far back, this is of course L’s fault as she told me to take it ‘steady’. So it’s a congested start and the first km takes me 6:35. Which is slightly misleading because the 1 km marker hasn't moved despite the new start beign further down the road. When I finally get my running legs together, I can start getting on with the task of overhauling Spiderman.

Once he’s been despatched I turn my attention to Wonder woman, who isn’t so easily dealt with and hangs like a carrot in front of me for the entire race. That is until near the end where she finds a finishing kick from somewhere. It comes from a place that I haven’t been informed about because I can’t find one and she edges further out of my range. Then just to complete my misery, who should sprint past me but bloody Spiderman. Woe is me.

The last km here is usually way shorter than a km and due to the repositioning of the finish, will be even shorter today. Only the marker doesn’t turn up at all, clearly it is now so close to the finish it’s not worth putting out at all.

My time is not good, 46 minutes something, my slowest Langdale ever, clearly my legs are now officially falling apart. I am handed my Derbyshire Mathew Walker Christmas pudding and a mince pie before heading back to the car to unleash the boys.

The rain holds off but for a shower in the middle of the race followed then by another shower at end after I’ve got changed and I’m wandering around looking for L who has sneaked across the line when I wasn’t looking. To be honest I was probably being pulled towards a wall for a long peeing session at the time.

There’s not the usual post-race crush in the Sticklebarn due to the race not being based there any more but it’s still busier than the New Dungeon Ghyll which simply does not have the room to be busy. The lack of space means they hold the presentation in the tent at the finish which detracts from the atmosphere a touch. We at least do frequent their bar for a swift one.

Sticky Chocolate Trail Run

I quote...

“Winter has now arrived in the Lakes, with deep snow on the tops, and some cold days with blue skies. We're keeping fingers crossed that our new Sticky Chocolate Trail Run at Cartmel will have a light dusting of snow to keep with the festive spirit of the event.”

Sadly it doesn’t. The recent rise in temperatures and rain has made the going officially ‘soft’ at Cartmel Racecourse, which we again struggle to find a way into but we get there eventually.

It’s a leisurely 2pm start and even we are there in enough time to walk around the village first and visit the pudding shop.

Entries are still open, as they keep reminding us. Do they think I might be tempted? Nope.

I’m sitting this one out, so the boys and I settle down to watch the football match going on nearby, as assorted Santas, elves and even a couple of Christmas Crackers head off on a wade through 10k of sticky mud. L has unforgivably, not that either of us gave it a thought, left every possibility of festive fancy dress at home and we had quite a few options.

I do feel slightly miffed to be missing on the mulled wine and mince pies that are being served at the drinks stations out on the course, that is until I have a beer from the local Cartmel brewery in my hand and then all is forgotten.

When the runners re-emerge and cross the finish to be handed their locally produced Sticky Chocolate Puddings, they’re not actually even that muddy... Not that I’m saying I’d like to have done it.

Percy Pud 10k

So, the comeback. The weather dawns a touch on the chilly side for it. Well, -3 to be precise. At least that’s what it was on the drive up to Sheffield for the charmingly named (if you’re drunk) Percy Pud 10k. At least it’s sunny, very sunny, so it doesn’t feel that cold.

First problem is getting there, the directions are vague and Sheffield seems to have A61s, the road we have to follow, going off in all directions. After a complete lap of the ring road we decide we’re on the wrong A61.

The second problem, when we find the right road, is parking, basically because there isn’t any. People are parking up on the road a good mile from the start and, with only 20 minutes to go to start time, that’s tantamount to a course extension. You would have thought the police would have something to say about so much haphazard street parking but they seem to be ok with it and are directing more traffic onto already full streets.

Eventually we manage to cram the car into some gap fairly close to the start, abandon the already howling dogs and leg it down to the start, which means a more vigorous than we had planned warm up.

As we line up at an equally overcrowded start line with around 1700 others I tug L forward as she is way too far back. Then once we start I realise that I’m still too far back myself. There are so many people walking from the off that it takes me 5:40 for the first km. Terrible but there’s just no room. It takes almost 2k to finally get some space. It’s the 20th running of the race and this is the biggest one ever, the race appears to fill very quickly every year no matter what the limit, but I fear it’s now too big.

The route itself, once I get going, is very pleasant. We run along the Loxley Valley on closed roads and across what is a more or less flat course. There’s a wonderful view as we approach and then run alongside a damn. It would have been nice to have gone all the way around but I guess that isn’t feasible or else we’d have done it, instead it’s an out and back.

As we approach the turnaround point I have no idea how the returning runners are going to get past us because we’re still covering both sides of the road. In fact what they do is squash us up by driving a car down the other side of the road. Then just in case that doesn’t create enough room, they send Santa down as reinforcements. He tries to run us down in his classic car but it seemed to do the trick.

As runners start coming back the other way I can see just how many people are ahead of me, a lot, including a man who may be dressed as a reindeer or perhaps it’s Scooby Doo, it’s hard to tell, his suit has seen better days.

Then I reach the turn myself. Now somewhere coming towards me will be L but the sun is low and I’m squinting into it so I don’t see her.

Then the finish is in sight. 48 minutes FFS. Well, 47:49 on my watch but naturally I mentally rounded it up. Even at that pedestrian pace I still feel the need to faint but there’s nowhere to do it as I queue endlessly for chip removal, Christmas pudding and t-shirt with the reviving water handed out last.

L in contrast has a relative stormer. Although she was only supposed to be setting a baseline time as something to improve on. Doing 1:01 is setting a pretty high base.

In short, it’s a very pleasant race over a nice route but slightly spoil by too many entrants.