While the rest of us eat cake

So while you were all busy with the Sportive I had signed up for a whole lot of trouble - The Red Bull Steeple Chase. This was the first time the event had been run, entries were on a blind ballot, and it looked tough. How tough became all too apparent when we had a look at the first climb the day before!

So I was prepared, well, as prepared as I could be, and as it turns out 16 miles of as hilly as I can get off-road running around Wimpole is nothing.
We lined up at the start - a meagre 35 women out of the 64 that had entered. It was a 4 stage event with the slowest 25% getting stopped at each check point.

35 women: Start to steeple 1 at Bamford: approx. distance 8 miles, approx. height gain 580m
(I made this 8.7 miles)
25 women: Steeple 1 to steeple 2 at Hope: approx. distance 4 miles, approx. height gain 310m
(I made this 4.5 miles)
15 women: Steeple 2 to steeple 3 at Edale: approx. distance 6 miles, approx. height 345m

10 women: Steeple 3 to the final steeple at Castleton: approx. distance 3 miles, approx. height 170m
Approx. total distance 21 miles, approx. total height gain 1400m

At the start line everyone seemed like a friendly bunch and there was an air of "what the hell have we let ourselves in for". Through the mist we could see the first of the men having reached the peak having started some 15 minutes earlier. That was the first goal, to overtake a man.

The starter was the town crier and we set off to the third oh yey, there was 200m of flat tarmacked track and then...
400m of near vertical climb, which required you to use your hands out in front of yourself to hang onto the wet grass, but it was worth it and after 10 minutes of scrambling we reached the summit, the valley was filled with mist and the ridge stretched out in front of me. I settled into a rhythm and made good time along the ridge for the next undulating 2 miles, (oh and ticked off aim 1: overtook two men!)

Then the descent! OUCH! Almost as vertical as the climb, it was fast and boy did my quads know about it. No sooner were we down then we had to go back up again, it was nowhere near as bad but it wasn’t run-able (well not for me anyway).
 
Then it all got quite pleasant. I can’t say I enjoyed much of the scenery as I was too busy watching where I was going, but what I did take in was beautiful and it would certainly be worth a re-visit at a more sedate pace. There was mud, woodland, moorland, and plenty of mountain bikers (note to self: this would have been a better way to travel). I made it through the first check point in time to continue onto the second; this had been my second aim, make it through the first cut off.

It started off reasonably flat but I knew it was coming, back up, but I also knew that unless I magically overtook six people I wouldn't make the next cut off, so I eased back a bit and enjoyed it where I could. This time the climb was walk/jog-able and there were some great views back down over the dam buster reservoir (I know where I mean).
 
I can honestly say it is the hardest run I have ever done, I would have loved to have been a bit quicker and made it a stage further, but equally I can’t walk today.

So here’s hoping they run it again next year, I’ll be first in the queue.