9th November, last race in the 2008 NFR championship
A personal view from the middle:
Due to my dog-sitter not turning up to the Three Tops race
today I decided to run the 8+ miles with Casper, my 13 month
old Border Terrier, considering this preferable to leaving
him in the car for an hour and a half. This distance would
be further than he has ever travelled before in one stint.
The race attracted a large crowd, I estimate about 120, and
consequently registration was slow and the start delayed. The
weather was colder than I had expected, windy, but thankfully
dry. However conditions underfoot were abysmal with some badly
carved up paths.
Casper and I set off near the back at a steady
pace. Once the crowd had spread out a bit on the first ascent
I let him off his lead and the two of us weaved our way through
the runners to a nice position more or less on a par with Garry
Owens. I could also see occasional glimpses of Scott Gibson
so we had that to spur us on. We lost a bit of ground over
the moor as Casper was struggling with the conditions but made
some big gains on the ascent of Roseberry Topping. We held
our place on the descent and on the ascent to the hanging stone
we finally caught up with Scott. We carried on a bit to the
final long drag back around the edge of the moor but at this
point, after about 50 minutes of running, Casper began to run
out of steam and so we slowed down. We made steady progress
to the final checkpoint, a trig point high above Guisborough,
losing quite a few places on the way. After a scramble through
the heather we got to the checkpoint and began our final descent
to the finish line. Fortunately Karen Robertson and friends
were with us now and they guided a direct route down to get
us across the line in about 80 minutes. I was happy with this
as it gave me the points I needed for the club championship
and Casper had completed his first fell race unscathed. He
was treated to some fresh meat when we got home.
Elsewhere, I imagine that Charlie Stead and Phil Sanderson
were up at the front troubling the fast guys. This being a
club championship race there were plenty of NFR present, from
memory: Chris Little, Kath Davis, Jane Saul, Peter Scott, Peter
Reed, Richard Cavner, Terry Hart, and Peter Hayle.
Will Horsley
