There I was, working on my massage write ups when up popped a message from Lindsey.  “Are you running the Oxspring Hunshelf Amble tomorrow?”.  You can imagine how the rest of that conversation went!

I couldn’t get to the start without help, so Lindsey offered to pick me up from Lidl carpark in Stocksbridge.  That meant a quick tram and bus from home at about 8:30, meeting for the pick up at almost 9:30.

It was a short drive from there to the start at Oxspring at the Rafters Bar where we filled out entry forms, handed over £10ers as last minute entry fees and picked up our mugs!  We then had over half an hour for a loo break, some water and applying sun cream.

It was a warm one today, with lovely wispy clouds in the blue sky.   There were loads of club runners milling around together in all their team colours looking ready, and even some warming up going on!  As this was replacing one of my easy pace runs (a 9ker with a couple of sprints in) I didn’t push it as a race, instead accompanying Lindsey.  She also knew the course and I was a little concerned about getting lost!

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Soon we assembled under a bridge and then set off, cross a big wheat filled field before hitting a road fro a short climb until another stile put us into more fields.  This year the race was a little longer than normal due to some permission issues, meaning the road had been added.  Normally I believe we’d have pretty much staying on trail.

The route was lovely, lots of mixes of grassy fields, some with high grass, others under controls, a couple of really fun fast descents usually followed by tough little climbs (Including one bit which sent us down a really fast technical downhill and then requiring us to run back up to the top of the ridge after going around a chair!).   Near the end we had to skip over some stepping stones across the Don too!

Good fun, and I think I’ll do it again!

Results: OxspringHunshelfAmbleResults2017

Annoyingly, they’ve ignored the fact that I circled M Senior on the sheet and decided I should be in the female category.