Symonds "enjoyed" tough Silent Valley course
Andy Symonds
The talk on the forums is about how tough the Silent Valley race was on Saturday, with its apparent big ascents and craggy tops it wasn’t for the light-hearted. For winner Andy Symonds all of that technical stuff was “right up his street”…
The Kendal runner is used to some really big stuff through, you have to remember. This is a guy who relishes the rope and chain climbs of the high-Alps, who takes the Trans-Alpine big stuff in his stride, and who has the engine for long ones like the LAMM. So, Saturday’s medium round one was a mere sprint then?
“It was actually getting close to a long one”, he told MST. “I took about 1hr 43 mins and I know some people were out there for almost 4 hours, so the medium tag was stretched a bit. But I really enjoyed it. The NIMRA always put on a great event, and the craic afterwards is always good fun.”
Speaking about the race itself Andy tells of the big battle on the northern Irish mountains, “Yeah, it was a real battle between myself, Morgan, Rob Hope. I was feeling pretty good early on, so I took it out quite hard. The lead kept swapping hands for a fair bit of the race, Morgan seemed to be strongest on the uphills and I was taking it on downhill.
It was only on the last climb that Rob (Hope) started to fall off as he said afterwards that he blew-up. But going into the last climb Morgan really took it on”.
Andy Symonds
The final descent was the decider as Symonds used his excellent downhill prowess to good effect as they took the fast descent back to the Silent Valley Dam to win by a handful of seconds over Borrowdale man Donnelly.
“I’m really pleased with my run, especially as the British champs is one of my goals for 2010. I haven’t raced too much in 2010 and the last few months have been quite tough with all of the snow, but I’m feeling good right now and the training in the last few weeks has been coming together nicely”.
