After last year’s prize-fest, it was a bit more humdrum this year, with only three of making it to the Loch of the Lowes for another Adrian Davies special. As I was driving over from Crieff, I could see heavy weather in the direction of Dunkeld so I was expecting a bit of a soaking, but the rain had passed by the time the race got underway and it turned out to be quite good conditions.
As I was parking, I saw Robbie Simpson and realised that any chances of decent championship points had just evaporated (not that it was ever a very realistic prospect, what with this being a hill race and hill races not quite being my strongest suit). Sure enough, the only time I saw him in the race was as he was hurtling down the hill as I was toiling up it.
As seems to be the case with Adrian Davies starts recently, this was a bit shambolic. We’d all assembled at the start in good time, and then he arrived to announce that bum bags with full body cover were needed, so at least half the runners had to trot back to the car park to collect whatever they could – cue assorted blagging of gear, which was then not checked. Quite why we couldn’t have been told to carry gear while we were registering wasn’t clear. So we all traipsed back to the start, by which time Adrian had gone for a run and left his mate to give a barely audible briefing which had a lot of ‘umms’, ‘aah’s and a few ‘as far as I can remembers’. The Adrian came back and gave the same briefing without quite so many umms and aahs and a bit louder, but some people still managed to get lost. New for this year was an orienteering-style control at the top of Newtyle Hill, with an instruction to clip your number.
Eventually we got started. I started far too near the back and the first hundred metres or so were a frustrating and annoying shuffle along a path that was too narrow for the numbers of runners. Angela and Cathy both started ahead of me and I managed to catch Cathy after about 500 metres. Once we got onto the open track, I could see Angela ahead of me, and I was closing the ground between us. I did get to within touching distance as we were standing in the queue at the control on Newtyle Hill, but by the time I’d got back down to the track, she was flying down and that was the last I saw of her until after the finish.
The next notable part of the course was the obstacle course in the woods above the golf course. Lots of trees were down and so there was much scrambling over and under and round the debris. After the wooded section, there’s a mad dash down a grassy slope with a couple of paths at the foot of it – Cathy and I spoke to one guy who had taken the wrong option and taken a bunch of followers with him. This option does join back with the ‘proper’ route quite soon, but he was a bit miffed that the course wasn’t better marked.
And then there’s a steepish road for a bit and a track to the finish, where I managed to pick up a few places. Angela was waiting for me, having finished ahead of me in 36.46. My time was 37.49, and Cathy finished in 43.20. Angela’s time would have won the women’s race last year by a comfortable margin, but HBT seem to have a particularly strong group at the moment, contesting every race they can find and winning a lot of them.
Cathy’s performance was pretty impressive considering she had spent the weekend beating Doug in assorted orienteering events, coincidentally held in the Dunkeld area, and just to top it all off, Cathy also picked up a bottle of wine as a spot prize! I was a bit disappointed in my time, since felt I was running better than last year but was about a minute slower. I’ll put it down to the queue to get through the start gate, the queue at the top of Newtyle Hill and the obstacle course in the woods.
Final times and positions were:
Men’s winner: Robbie Simpson, 27.04
Women’s winner: Sarah O’Neil, 32.44
Harriers:
Angela, 29th overall, 5th woman, 36.46
Me, 36th overall, 37.49
Cathy, 53rd overall, 12th woman, 43.20
No comments:
Post a Comment