Time Trial - 28/11/2010

Team Mercia - Paul Flinn and yours truly starting

Photo by Colin Williamson of Mercia and Shropshire Shufflers

(more of his time trial pics are here)

An excellent morning's run from a very cold Little Stretton to an equally chilly Stiperstones.

The Time Trial is a point to point with starts a minute intervals. We parked up at the Stiperstones Inn and took the coach back to Little Stretton, where we joined the queue and registered. Our start time was 10:10, giving me just long enough to get a Compeed over the blister from the Wrecker and then get over to the start.

We went up Ashes Hollow fairly quickly (for me) running pretty much all the way. Paul kindly let me navigate and in return I let him take it easy (he's a lot quicker than me). I didn't mess about with alternative routes at the top, just blasted out onto the road and used the short linking path to get onto the Bridges road.

Paul Flinn near the Shooting Box on the Long Mynd

We passed John and Geoff Sproson, organisers of the excellent Devil's Chair Dash, on this section. A little way past the Shooting Box, a good path leaves the road and cuts the corner down towards Ratlinghope. A few hundred metres steeply down the road led to a T junction where I nearly came to grief skating about on black ice. We cut down to the river where we met Pauline Richards, and then continued on past the turn to the Bridges pub (sadly shut at the moment).

On the next section, a short climb and then a fairly level road section to the Hollies, I felt quite low, probably as a result of overdoing the run on Friday. I had to walk some sections that were not at all steep. Soon enough we were off the road and jogging and hiking up onto the Stiperstones ridge.

The descent was pretty slippery and I felt best attacked fairly hard. I always seem to fall less when I'm pushing downhill. We passed another pair on the lane about 300m from the finish.

I was fairly pleased with the run, but it wasn't up to the standard of the previous week, despite the harder conditions. The total distance was 9.0 miles with 1,730' of ascent; our time was 01:40:23 for a 74%. We were fourth male pair out of twelve.

This week's totals (with maybe too much intensity if not too many miles after the Wrecker): 24.0 miles; 3,590'.