On Saturday I raced the inaugural Montane Cheviot Goat Ultra in Northumberland. The route was approx. 85km with 3000m of climb and took in a section of the Cheviots ridgeline along the border with a few other hills thrown in for good measure.
The weather conditions on the day were as good as we could have hoped for but underfoot the going was tough with layers of soft snow and slush on top of thawing peat bog and heather. I managed to hold onto the lead group until the halfway point at Barrowburn farm (the only drop bag/aid station checkpoint on the route) where Jim Mann and Andy Berry started to open up a big lead on the rest of us. From Barrowburn to Windy Gyle I stayed within sight of Pavel Paloncy, occasionally running together and having a chat before he pushed ahead on the rough ground towards the Cheviot – home turf for him from his previous Spine Race completions.
The final few hills between the Cheviot and the finish at Ingram were tougher than expected and seemed to go on forever but the beautiful sunset and fun, snowy descents kept me going. In the darkness I could see a few headtorches not far behind which gave me the push I needed to keep a speedy pace up towards the finish line. I ended up in 4th place about an hour behind Jim and Andy who finished together in joint 1st place.
The race was well organised and had just the right level of self sufficiency to feel like a proper winter challenge. It’s ideally timetabled for people running the Spine Race/Challenger in January but also makes a great training race to keep the motivation up in midwinter when the event calendar is a bit sparse.
Results here http://live.opentracking.co.uk/cheviotgoat17/
Photo of me from Martin Ellis http://www.martinandjohnphotography.co.uk/, others by race marshals.
Ross Christie