Training Log Archive: Nathan

Guisborough 3 Tops, English Champs - 9th.
Looking forward to being back at a champs race (first since 2019!). Set off hard but not uncontrollably with the others and settled back with Elk for the first climb. Dropped well through the woods to be 1/2 with him as we headed to the second but then somehow my dibber fell out of the lanyard loop and away behind! Annoyingly had to stop and turn back losing maybe 10-15s but more importantly contact with the group. Had a decision to make between trying to close the gap on that climb or dropping back with the next pack. Chose the former but in hindsight, chasing 7 good runners up the hill in the heat on my own meant I burnt quite a few matches getting back on pace - and spent the first 2km of the more runnable stuff on top closing it further. Got back in touch over through Roseberry and was in a nice pack of Lamby, Elk and a couple of others who I figured would drop off inc. Kieran and Nathan. Gel up Roseberry, working but not feeling too bad but lost a little time up Roseberry Low. In my head I wanted to be pushing and turning the screw on the way back to CP5 from here and felt in an ok place to do so. As we reached the gradual climb back my chest suddenly got really tight making it difficult to keep going. Spent the rest of the climb trying to get it under control with intermittent walking and jogging but just couldn't get my breathing back. Quickly started going backwards, losing around 2 mins and 10 places! Moving steadily off the top for the final descent and saved a bit of dignity by taking a sneaky line to the finish.
A little disappointed with the end result but on the whole not an awful place to get back in to it. Tactically got it wrong on the 2nd climb, should have held back and trusted myself to push on later in the race. Pushing earlier made me work harder than I realised and I never fully got it back under control given the speed of the race. I think it's the longest and hardest I've pushed since having covid and past the hour mark it seems like this was still a smidge too much. Encouraging that my legs felt good to keep going and it's just getting that final bit of chesty stuff gone to be able to be back racing fully where I feel I should be. Looking forward to the other races this season, feel like I'm getting closer to being able to push 100% again which is exciting. Nice to be disappointed with 9th in a champs race though!
Shame to have effectively dropped some points. Bit too traily really to be a fell race, very little interesting running. It will be interesting to see what happens on the proper fell races!