23rd January My favourite new jolly


Yesterday I had a little bit of an explore, just a short throw from TOM's, with an attempt to follow the route of a race that is run in Matlock each August called Ricky's Race.It is one that I haven't done in the past mainly due to the fact that it falls just 24hrs before the Hob Hursts gallop that I have done for the past couple of years. And my legs never had enough in them to do two runs so close together, and certainly don't at 58!

And the reason it might have been a bit of an exploration is that I was trying to follow a route I had seen a couple of times on Youtube rather than an actual route map. But what a lovely little lung buster it turned out to be on a beautifully crisp and at times icey morning. One that offered a mix of everything.

With woodland trails, one never ending climb, a couple of very brief road sections, several technical descents where it was a case of avoiding gnarly tree routes or areas of ankle deep mud, three lactate inducing short steep sections and climaxing with a view from the trig point at the highest point of the run that offered 360 degree panorama of the surrounding hills, it was a run that could never be accused of being dull.

An added bonus was that it was even all downhill to the finish, something that would have been even better had it been firmed under foot. And I only got slightly lost once. What more could I ask for?

 

 

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