Marathon 34. The Red Bull Steeplechase. Short so even with a 5k warm-up its still a dent in my average!

As usual and as I am very much becoming accustomed to writing, another marathon day means, another sunny day, a warm day and luckily due to the amount of ridge running: a calm day. Today was a race I had been looking forward to all year. It is the day when Red Bull take over the Hope Valley! Ok so some of the locals are a little opposed to this and this is mirrored by some sectors of the Fell Running Community, however having been part of it today they certainly know how to put on a spectacular race. Its not just professionally run, but is a bargain price and is almost more of a festival than a running race.

They also use the best trails in the Country if not the World. OK so I'm slightly biased this is my backyard, my play ground even, and whilst I'm not a fan of Red Bull (Unless in the 90's and with a shot of Voddy) or these multinational companies invading our Valley, I felt that they were a very welcome guest. I will definitely be back next year, mainly to hopefully not have man flu so I can 'Smash It' (or whatever the current terminology is) and try and get through to the final stage. The only problem with the latter is that I believe, if recent rumours are indeed correct, that the Red Bull Steeplechase will not be back next year. Or if they are, then it probably won't be to the Hope Valley. Mind you they did push out a local race scheduled for the same day 2 years ago on very much the same trails, so I suppose it will be a good opportunity for this to reestablish itself.

So what is this Red Bull Steeplechase thingy all about then. Well let me answer, its certainly a unique format where you basically run as fast as you can between village steeples, as in Church Steeples. The route taken is marked and is all off road and takes in beautifully scenic trails some up high and some down low. If you're not sure how far it is to the next Steeple, then just open your ears and listen out as RB have kindly coordinated with each local village to have a peal of bells to guide you home. So the villages? From the start they are Bamford, Hope, Edale and Castleton.

At each Steeple the back portion of the race is eliminated! Thus leaving fewer and fewer people to actually complete the course. In fact out of 375 men who start only the best 30 are allowed to run on an complete the final stage. Just so that you are under no illusion as to what position and what number will be knocked out, halfway markers through the stage inform you and then again at the finish of each stage.

Its an odd set up as the slower runners don't run as far and as they don't run as far, they can run faster and as the are running faster they are more likely to get through, their treat being that they then might have to run on whilst then being absolutely goosed.

And so to my race. Well its probably best to start my story earlier in the week and I seemed to picked up a bug sometime which manifested itself as a sore throat through Tuesday and minimal energy and a temperature by Wednesday. In fact I went out with Luke in the evening to recce the course for this weekend and found out very early on that it wasn't going to happen. The evil Man Flu was taking grip. We sacked off the last part of the run and ended up running home. It was therefore with fingers crossed that I spent the last couple of days hoping that would be better...  More soon.