The Cardington Cracker. It's an institution. Over 200 turn out on a cold December day to pay homage to this annual fell race as part of the traditional runners build up to Christmas. It's 9 miles and 2,600 feet of hell but well worth it for the carrot soup followed by a few pints of Shropshire Lad in the Royal Oak.
Travelling from Derby at 7.30am we, Chris, Carolynne, Paul, Alan and myself all went in one vehicle, car sharing is a Fell runners duty.
Cardington was very cold and very small, 4 or 5 miles down single track lane to get to it.
A great little village hall was the signing on and local coach company was the car park.
Whilst signing one we all looked around us, the type of person entering was older than me, with kit that looked as though it had seen better days, maybe like myself in 4 years time.
Hardened fell runners !
What a race, slow cross a field start with single narrow stile to get across, then through a wood and god! there it was in front of us, the first climb, a line of runners winding up the hill, teh front runners already over it and making their way.
I pushed and pushed as hard as i could but just couldnt get my lungs working after the chest infection i have had since the home coming!
I hung on in there for the first climb and pushed hard down the hill, a fast grassy descent, but the ground was so hard underneath the layer of slightly frosted grass.
A Small restbite then hard at it again up Lawley the tallest of the three hills to climb today! good heavens, i had to keep pushing just to keep with the guy in front of me. But i was loosing so much ground!
After Lawley and ridge run for approx 1.5 miles, then hard steep descent.
What a race and what a great view from where ever you had chance to look! This is a real find!
A great event catgary A fell Race - 9 miles - 3140 ft of Ascent in 2 hrs 22 mins, 1 hr 5 min behind the winner!
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