Cheerful and Chilly at Charnwood . .

Sunday was dry, which hadn't been expected, but windy which had been. The wind made it hard work walking at times . . and I don't suppose it was any easier running!

 One of the first things I did was, of course, check the cake, and it certainly lived up to expectations when compared to what had been available last year! Above is just a very small sample . .

 

 . . and then when the runners were off on their was across the Charnwood Hills, I followed them across the fields and paths and admired the lovely views as I did . .

. . I walked a little further around the course this year . . and took photos of the runners coming back down from the hills to a point where they had to cross a stream . . from where I stood it looked like a reasonably straight trail but as we can see, it can't have been . .

 . . perhaps next year (and I've already been invited back, which is great) I'll walk up to the top of this trail and get shots of everyone coming down off the hills . .

 . . the trouble with that of course is that it gives me further to walk back to Race HQ . . but I timed it right this year and the last few runners passed me by on their way to the finish . .

 . . when it was great to see that even at this stage, after almost 14 miles and nearly 3 hours of running, the competitive spirit was still there . .

. . and having reached the finish, and got indoors, a nice lady gave me a cup of coffee . . and said the words "cake" and "help yourself" in the same sentence! I was restrained, of course, and had just one slice of flapjack . . which brings us neatly back to the first photo . .

 . . and you can see all my photos from the Charnwood Hills Race here . .