TOPPING THAT

Not for us a Christmas Day of feasting and slumping.
One of the advantages of being an Anglo Germanic family is that we observe Weinachtsabend and thus get the odious falseness and materialistic platitudes of Christmas over and done with before Christmas Day itself, leaving 25th December free for more engaging activity. Moorland, beach, hill - living where we do you can take your choice. Yesterday we chose Roseberry Topping, which sounds like the sort of dessert you serve up to those who won't countenance figgy pudding, but is, in fact, a thousand feet of precipitous Cleveland hill.
About twenty years ago, on a New Year's day, following a late celebration the night before, and suffering from an almighty hangover, I ran in the Roseberry Topping fell race. I completed it with a couple of friends of mine. I had some difficulty as my earlier revelries caught up with me. Going up, I puked a couple of times, but made it to the top, and ran hard all the way down. It took me, I recall (but don't quote me) 18 minutes of hellish effort. Normally I stood a fair chance of beating my comrades but not on this occasion, and one of them, the Galloping Major, contrived to be languidly waiting for me at the finish drinking a cup of tea. In fact he beat me by a couple of minutes, though he obviously made out he'd been waiting hours. I got no more than I deserved.
Yesterday was a stark reminder of how far former glories have receded. I puffed my way to the top, and did in fact manage to run most of the way down. But not in eighteen minutes.
Today, on my constitutional, my legs feel like they've climbed Everest and I am having difficulty at home walking down stairs. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.