Barley, Lancashire
17 miles, 4800ft
Results
After 78 races this year, running every day the first 150 days, getting 6 PBs at the Defi, PBs at every road distance, winning that GR20 race by 10 hours, and bagging the Annapurna Circuit in 10 days, I've just had my most disastrous race of the year on Saturday at Tour of Pendle.
My back went into spasm by halfway, forcing me to keep stopping and walking, and generally wondering how on earth I was going to get to the end, whilst watching streams of runners plodding past who I'd never seen in a race before. I must have plummeted 50 places in the second half of the race.
The breath-taking pain in my back made every descent an interesting mind over matter challenge.
One to put down to experience!
Meanwhile, Lloyd Taggart won the race in an astonishing new record of 2:11:00, knocking 52 seconds off Rob Jebb's seemingly unbeatable time. Jackie Lee was first lady, massively improving on her 2006 performance of 2:53 to clock 2:39 this time.
Having spent the last hour of the race trying to decide whether to drop out or not, I clocked a personal worst of 2:51:22, finishing only narrowly in front of Ellie who had a storming run to break the 3 hours with 2:57 for 3rd lady.
