Masson Hill Fell Race : 17th/157

This is always the first proper Summer evening fell race of the year for me and a few others from the club. Over the last 3 years I've come to adore this race as you'll see from the review here here and here. It really is a mini classic - hence why this year I was really keen to get this into the club Fell Race Series.

Masson Hill Fell Race gps route trace. You can't see the hills like this...

Thankfully Helen agreed - so all we needed to do now was get people interested - how hard could that be when I knew it was quite hard and very steep at the start! The build up to this race had seemingly gone well in terms of me gaining interest in it from club members. Lots of hyping this one up from me to every possible member of the club - plus a few more who weren't in the slightest bit interested. Apologies! I really, really wanted to get new people into the Summer Evening Peak District Fell Race scene - it really is a highlight of summer for me now and I was really hoping this race would get people addicted. Big climbs, big descents and views. All the vital ingredients!!

about half of us after the race - something had tickled us!

On the night an unprecedented cold snap gave us hail storms with one just 20 mins before the start - it made the warm up Marcus and me did feel very Xmas'y ! Thankfully - the blue skies as we left Belper were enough to get people's bums on seats in cars and loads turned up. 27 I think ? From my perspective the race went brilliantly. I'd eaten a little more protein in the day than I would normally and the constant weekly hill reps I've been doing meant my legs just kept on going. It felt ace - in fact the best I've felt in a race possibly ever. Sadly that didn't quite translate into position (although I think I lost 20 seconds due to shoe lace and taking a wrong turn on the descent!) but at least I was first harriers home ahead of Saul and new comer James. Great work

To top the evening off about 15 of us went for a liquid dinner topped off with Pizzas provided by the Ladies captain - how sporting was that !!

17th out of 157 so top 11% but a great great night out