Comrie Fortnight race, August 2

Once again, Harriers provided the majority of the runners for both the adults and the juniors races in the Comrie Fortnight hill race, which was the final club championship race of the season. Worryingly for most of the adults, Sol elected to run in the adults race rather than the juniors, ensuring he’d be showing most of us up as old plodders.

There was a mild kerfuffle at the start of the juniors race when it was decided that the adults should start first. This despite the fact that there was still 15 minutes to go to the advertised start time and we were still waiting for Cathy and Fran, who did make it before the eager starter got the race underway.

Race order was quickly established, with Andy Greaves hitting the front, closely tracked by Sol. Jeff decided on a burst for glory over the first half mile or so, and then decided to stick to a rather more sensible pace. PhilT was making a very welcome return to racing after a long injury layoff and soon settled into third position. Angela and I were boxing and coxing with the only non-Harrier in the race, who seemed strong on the uphills and less so on the downhills – I eventually pulled away from him crossing the field heading towards Shaky Bridge. I’m afraid I don’t know what was going on behind – feel free to fill in the gaps.

By the time Angela and I hit the Glen Lednock road, Andy and Sol were out of sight, Phil was only occasionally visible and I was failing to close the gap to Angela. Nothing really changed as we descended through the woods, although Phil did seem tantalisingly close as we came out of the woods at Cunningham’s yard. But no, positions stayed as they were all the way back to Laggan Park.

AndyG won the race in a time of just over 35 minutes – none of this fancy split second timing for Comrie. Sol was second, about 20 seconds later, I don’t think it was huge gap to Phil T. Angela was fourth, and I followed her, another 20 seconds later. I’m afraid I lost track of the rest of the finishing order. I know Emily was second woman, battling the after-effects of a hectic evening the night before, and I think Cathy was third woman. Also running were:

Jeff, Allan Laing (who has, I believe, finally joined the Harriers!), Kirsty, Nicola, Fran, Grant, Adrian and Jayne.

There was a very strong turnout from harriers for the junior race, but I’m afraid I have no idea who won the boys race. Catriona won the girls race.