British relays Leg 2 with James : 15 th Oct

A late call up to the Bowland  Relay team for the British champs relays, was always going to be a tough day out. It was made even tougher by its location in Luss, on the western shores of Loch Lomond. A long 6 hour round trip was part of the deal.  It was also tough as I felt a bit outclassed by most of the team. But as I reminded myself this was a team cobbled together because a lot of the faster guys couldn't make it. In a way I felt that the new star of Bowland fell runners had been let down, as he really deserved a better team to run with.

After a 3 hour drive I met up with the team, and got the feeling that James and I were reasonably well matched. We set off on the second leg and the first climb was good, but on the first descent we went slightly off line and lost maybe 10 places. On the second big and unforgivingly steep climb I struggled and maybe held James up a minute or so. I got my act together on the descent, and we probably took back those 10 places that we had lost.

The nav leg 3 went well and then Chris stormed the final leg (5th overall!) to pull us up to 26th place out 115 teams. Not bad for a cobbled together team.

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