Georgia reckons she’s in there somewhere!

When my alarm went off on Saturday morning I immediately kicked into action. In usual Georgia style I had gone to bed late, so had set my alarm for 8 o'clock to make sure I had enough sleep. I'm not a morning person and thankfully the race wasn't to start until 11am. However with a dog needing an hour walk, and registration closing at 10.45, the morning disappeared very quickly! Welcome to my life of racing the clock (I don't recommend).

Being a local fell race it was only a 20 minute drive away, but with being late there wasn't any room at the primary school car park. We parked at a pub and ran to registration (we told ourselves this was fine and was a good warm up).

I looked around and almost everyone had a rain jacket on, most wearing leggings and some people had bags. Trusting my gut I stripped to shorts and t-shirt. I always overheat on runs and after doing the same race last year I knew it was straight up a hill. Which shoes do I wear though; Inov8 X-Talons (no padding, but amazing grip), or La Sportiva Mutants (great all-rounders that I wear for 99% of my runs)? Although there are some gravel tracks and a few bits of road, it had been raining a lot recently so I knew there would be some pretty muddy sections, and there are also a few techy descents. I went with the X-Talons and thought I'd grin and bear the calf pain later. There wasn’t really time for nerves as the race started about 5 minutes later.

The Chicken Run fell race is about 8.3 miles and 1600 feet of ascent over Lantern Pike and the moors beyond. It starts with a steep uphill on a stony path, which immediately bottlenecks if you don't start near the front (a bit frustrating as you're basically waiting in line to get over a stile!). However after a grassy descent you begin to spread out and get in the flow, ready for the next climb up Lantern Pike. At this point I felt good. I usually take it easy at the start from fear I'll blow up, but I wanted to see what I could do. I spotted a couple of women I've raced before (who always beat me, but something to aim for!). I'm not great uphill, but I thought so long as I can keep them in eye-sight I know I'll have a chance at catching them on the way down. And that's basically how the first 6 miles went. They'd lose me on the ups, I'd overtake them on the downs. I gained the most time on the technical, rocky descents which were very fun! By this point we all knew we were in our own little race.

About 2 miles from the end it got hard. The route became more runnable with tracks and some road, and the hills less steep (I prefer steep hills as most people just power walk these). This meant I actually had to run, urgh! The only gains I was making now was that the road runners always try to avoid puddles. And then the sun came out. A wave of nausea came over me and I was so grateful that I went with my gut on shorts and t-shirt. But I needed water. Feeling really sick I walked for about 10 seconds before the next hill. I really had to get my heart rate down.

The women were about half a mile ahead at this point and were making distance. I knew there was a technical descent coming soon, so I plucked up the courage to start running (shuffling) again. Finally the descent began, and I was pleasantly surprised when I caught them at the bottom. About a mile to go and it was everything to play for (or so I thought). With pretty much a mile of road and easy tracks, I had absolutely no chance. I came in 15th female out of 51, 36 seconds behind 14th place and 50 seconds behind 13th. Being 4 minutes faster than last year I was super pleased with this result. Now to work on my climbing and general tarmac running legs.

I should give a mention to the marshals who volunteer their time to make the race happen; they're amazing. Oh, and I should probably give a shout out to Barney (boyfriend) who won the race by over 5 minutes 😅🏆

Georgia Roberts

Chicken Run Fell Race, 25 Mar 2023

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