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While the rest of the Musselburgh runners were slogging up and donw through Roslyn Glen I had decided to take myself off for my yearly sabatical to London to find an early season challenge I'd plummed for the same race as last year as was hoping all my Hill work would be paying off and get me an improved time on a difficult but scenic wee Half marathon up and down Leth Hill in the Surrey backwaters 
Things hadnt gone too smoothly however in the run up to the race 1) All my friends who i was supposed to be meeting had pulled out through various injuries/poor excuses thus I was left to run the race on my own 2) The night prior to the race I decided to go out for a leisurly 4 miles and went over on my ankle and irriteated a previous ankle issue 3) The train service to Dorking was severly disrupted due to enigneeering works making the jouyrney out there a little morevtime consuming than I had planned So it was with a little trepedation that I lined up at the start already limping and looking forward to 13.1 miles of offroad fun/pain The course is an out and back through offroad paths and rough trail and climbs 1850 feet over the first 6.5 Miles and then is a fair old belt back to the start The race is advertised as 6.5 miles up then 6.5 miles not all down which is bizzarly how it feels when running the course The weather had also taken its toll on the route this year and eroded some sections quite badly (although I may have been just a little sensitive due to my weak ankle), so you have to concentrate pretty hard on not tripping over exposed roots and losse scree( I task I was only partially succesfull at as fell on my face on the way up) The field seemed larger this year and I found myself in the leading pack as we hared up the first hill and looked around to see myself surrounded by twenty something skinny triathalon types..Gulp 
THE LEADING LADY PUTTING ME TO THE SWORD ON THE ASCENT(SHE WENT ON TO SMASH THE WOMENS COURSE RECORD BY A COUNTRY MILE) However after the first few miles or so i found myself settling in and not being overtaken by too many runners...Now this race is billed as one of the toughest hill races in the south but as they seem to only actually have two hills in the South of England then its all relative i suppose. Its not a race to be dismissed lightly however as unlike local Scottish Hill races where the ascents and descents are much more extreme and frequent, this race goes up relatively gradually for 6.5 miles then you turn and come back down again, but the climb although not too steep is long and hard going , and is quite tricky on the way down as well there are a few steep nasty wee climbs to knock the wind out of your sails near the end (which you seem not to have remembered on the way up)  OH DEAR WHATS HAPPENED TO THE FORM IN THIS ONE! I did however find myself begining to struggle on my ankle as the rough and uneven ground was taking its toll. Id also had one fall on the way up and was a bit bashed by the time I reached the summit. There wasnt much though between the top twenty or so runners as we turned for the decent. Now i was at this point really struggling on my ankle and havng to jog some of the more extreme descents however looking at those around me i wasnt the only casualty as all the other runners seemed to be struggling a bit also on the way down. I eventually passed a couple of runners but was in turn overetaken by a few more and the last half a mile was torture with me limping over the finish. 
ON MY WAY BACK DOWN TO COLLECT MY FREE BREAKFAST! The event itself is well run although i have taken the odd wrong turn on the way down . it is very friendly and low key which I like and i had a nice chat with a few local runners while scarfing the free full english breakfast at the end. overall I finished in 23rd place and 4th vet in 1:37:23 which was two minuts quicker than last year so quite pleased considering ,but wouldnt mind another crack at this one as think I can do better if fully fit 
SOME TOUGH CLIMBS NEAR THE SUMMIT (WELL THE CYCLISTS THOUGHT SO ANYWAY) maybe next year Ill sign up again (anything to miss Lasswade :) ) Resuts and photographs courtesy of the Organisers Trionium http://www.trionium.com/leithhillhalf/inmain.html
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