Thursday, November 06, 2008
The Dovedale Dash
Last weekend our little team here decided….
it would be good fun to do our local Dovedale Dash which is like a muddy run through the Derbyshire countryside….in November in the freezing cold!
We let Mark off because he’s all the way down in Truro and Alison because she was on holiday but everybody else got roped in to some good countryside fun, or madness maybe?
About 1200 people a few dogs and kids showed up in skimpy shorts and woolly hats. The race was four and three quarter miles through the rivers and over fields in the Derbyshire peak district. The start was delayed by 15 minutes which probably was the scariest bit as we all began to wonder if we didn’t get hypothermia would the really competitive sorts trample us into the mud once the start whistle blew?
But somehow we were off and dashing downhill towards the river like people possessed. Hayley landed upside down in the mud within the first 30 secs and Andrew managed to lose a shoe in the bog just a little after that.
We then had to wade thigh high through the river and run on in squelching shoes. Nice.
But once you’re wet and muddy it all seemed like good clean exhausting fun.
It was really awesome (ok, and a little disheartening) to see how many fit kids were out taking part and beating us round the course. The last uphill climb to the finish line was like running up a water slide but we made it and finished up 324, 360, 705, 706 out of 1200 so we were quite happy with that for a first dash attempt. So we’re really sorry we don’t have muddy photos of us all to prove we did it because Janny forgot the camera but here’s what the race looks like….
We’re thinking of doing another one this weekend ‘leg it round Lathkil’ so if you’re round our way come and join in. If you have an event you think we should try tell us about it!
To be honest, I think if I had been there I would have been one of those people wearing a coat.
Sitting down….
Glad you had fun though!