Yesterday at some stupid early hour, Carmen and I set off to Hayfield for the Kinder Trial, a fell runner's version of orienteering – lots of running with a bit of navigation.
We had to visit 10 controls in any order, though in practice the main choice was just whether to do the circuit clockwise or anti-clockwise. I went for the anti-clockwise option, as it would hopefully leave a long downhill run from the last control to the finish. Coincidentally, Carmen made the same choice, but I soon managed to shake her off so she had to make her own mistakes for most of the race rather than copying mine!
The weather stayed cold and cloudy, with regular snow flurries, but the clouds were well clear of the tops all day. Which was a shame, as it gave less advantage to those of us who can navigate OK but can't run for toffee (it's a well known fact that 98% of fell runners don't know what a map is). At least most of the boggy bits were well frozen.
It was mostly great fun (in an exhausting sort of way), and visited some parts of the Kinder area that people wouldn't normally see. The main exception to the 'great fun' rule being the planned easy run down from the last control, which by the route I choose mainly consisted for the first mile or so of deep exhausting heather. I'm told that there was a runnable route available if you looked in the run place. Arse.
There's a map of the route here.
Vital statistics:
about 11 miles/2600 feet ascent.
153 started, 136 finished.
The winning time was an amazing 1:49:28, the final finisher took 4:55:59. I was 67th in 2:46:17 and Carmen was 108th (20th female) in 3:34:12
Good effort, any snow on the ground from previous, there will be now. It would of been hard going today.
Yes good effort-did You get any photos???
No, no old snow to speak of. And no photos, for once I was concentrating on going as fast as possible rather than taking pictures! Some people were seen with camera though, so will hopefully link to some photos shortly.