World Mountain Running Trial Race, Blackburn.

World Mountain Running Trial Race. Witton Park I hear you say.  Blackburn, do they have mountains?  Well it goes to show you don't need to have a mountain to stage a selection race for the World Mountain Running Championships!  Witton Park is well known by northern runners for staging the Northern Cross Country Championships.  Infact, its the venue where I have won the northerns and finished second so I do know the park.  But I had never been further up the hills behind the course so didn't know what was to be offered in the way of a testing mountain running course which had been designed so well by Richard to replicate the course the athletes will be racing on out in Albania.
I got ot the venue nice and early and walked the course with Bryan Mills who had travelled up to watch and photograph the races.  To start with the course was very good running, fast running but always climbing.  Half way up the climb the terrain stayed good running ground but got steadily steeper.  By the time you reached the summit you knew you had climbed!  Then it was back down, a fast downhill section with some steps at the bottom which made things difficult for me.
As the race started I headed to the front and I think the other athletes had expected this.  I led the race up the first climb and soon found myself in fourth on the downhill as Chris Smith, James McMullun and Nick Swinburn charged off and dropped me.  The first lap had a smaller lap within it and we regrouped as the climb hit in.  Again the other thjree pulled away slightly on the downhill.  Nick seemed to go over on his ankle as we headed for the first time back to the start/finish line and he pulled over.  This left Chris, James and myself racing.  I worked my way back to them and tried to take the lead.  By the time we came back to the finish field for the second time I had a slight lead over James.  I knew I needed a strong climb on the final of three laps to shake james off so I could get down the hill still in the lead.  This last month I have had it pointed out to me that me descending skills are not that great really!!!  I wasn't able to shake James off on the final climb and he was a few seconds off me at the top and very quickly in front of me as we started to go back down the hill.  By the time we returned to the finish James was 15 seconds clear and took the win.  I was second and Chris Smith finished third.  Swinburn dropped through the field as he carried on even though he obviously caused himself some damaged to his foot or ankle. 
This race was very well supported and this was very pleasing.  The organisation was excellent and very professional.  Everything seemed to run very smoothly and I am still really imporessed with the course they built for the race.  Maybe a drinks station would have been nice which could have easily been put on at the start/finish area which we passed through twice in the race.
Full results of the race here.