Tigger Tor 2020

First race that grabbed my fancy for 2020 was Tigger Tor organised by Totley AC. It’s not too far from Beeston, about an hour from door to Dore on a Sunday morning.

Kit check and number pickup were well organised. What looked like a bit of a scrum turned out to nice and. efficient. Everyone was huddling in the Rugby club hall trying to keep out of the weather, it was shaping up to be a cold and windy morning.

Started off just after 10. Started off mid pack as I was just looking to have a good day out rather than putting in much effort at this point in my training block. A little jaunt on some roads to spread the field out and we were out on the moors following the sort of trail that’d make up a lot of the race.

Lots of narrow trods through the heather. Quite sharp as well! I was wearing my usual low socks so got some nice nicks on my ankles and calves. Maybe higher socks or leggings for next year I thought. Trods being tight we ended up running in lines, with the occasional chance to overtake if you were willing to take a flier across the heather. Though that backfired if you hit one of the patches of thick mud

Hit Burbage Edge for the first ‘drop’ of the course, where I rememberd that my descending skills are not great, and atm rusty as I’ve not been on the hills for a while. Managed to get down without going A over T but it was close in places.

Crossing Burbage Brook I decided the scrapped ankles were fine to save having to do another 7 miles with soaked lower leg coverings. At least the dried on mud would add an extra thermal layer as it matted into the hair

Steep climb up to Higger Tor soon warmed up cold feet. Made up a few paces with some determined marching only to get overtaken on the next descent. Up to Carls Wark to circle the marshall and then back down again.

Now on the home stretch things we starting to get a bit colder and wetter out there. Not quite enough to get the waterproofs out, but enough that my hat was starting to stretch down over my eyes. After a bit of bashing on more opent moorland we were back onto the heather trods.

Getting tired here I got confused by a deceptively flat piece of ground and finally went A over T, 44 years of clumsiness has taught me to roll when I hit the ground so I was out of the way of the runners behind me pretty quickly. Another scab on my left knee, but nothing major so back up and onwards. This through my confidence a bit so I started being a bit more cautious.

This was a long section, but eventually we came back to Houndkirk road and back onto our outbound route. Back on the road for a last mile back to the rugby club. By now I was knackered and cold, an original plan to add a few more miles on the end to keep the weeks mileage up had been passed up as a bad idea. After what seemed an age I was running up to the Rugby club.

Was nice to get into the warm and survey the damage

Not too bad, but definitely feeling it in legs that had mainly seen pavement and flat pavement at that for a couple of months. Plenty of people seemed to be enjoying the bar, but with the drive back to Beeston still to do I stuck to a pack of peanuts for some salt and protein. Then a shakey jog back to the car to change into something drier for the drive home

Really enjoyed that. Would definitely have been more fun with a bit more in my legs and a little more skill in descending. TBH there wasn’t that much descending, it just felt like a lot when I was trying not to fall over. Practice and maybe some new shoes might give me a bit more confidence there.

While a map was required I don’t think I needed mine, there was always someone to follow. Ended up putting it away after 15 minutes as it was just making running awkward.

Now back to the roads for a bit building up to the Boston Marathon (uk)