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Carnethy Hill Race

Fantastic weather, fantastic scenery and fantastic friends everywhere - what a race! Personally I was really chuffed with my time of 65min 45sec and 126th of 461 runners, that was faster than the last 2 Carnethies. I had a reasonably fast push along the swamp to get a decent position going through the narrow Charlie's Loup, before settling down for the hard heathery slog up to Scald Law. Places were well sorted by here, Chris, Manny, Dave and Andy well out of sight, with Graham just ahead, full of training for his forthcoming Marathon de Sables. I ran OK from there up and down the next few hills and slid down the icy north face of West Kip at halfway. My pal Gordon of Lomond Hillrunners came past on the runnable trod down to the Howe but he spurred me on a bit, as is often the case. I went past him momentarily only for him to ease past on the sharp wee descent at the bottom where Steffen also passed me. I usually try and push a bit on the final ascent of Carnethy, and aided by a caffeine filled gel sachet and some mental bullying, I managed to gain a few places and get away from Steffen and Gary Thompsett and even re-pass Gordon. Up to Carnethy in about 57min I was hoping that my contact lenses wouldn't water too much in the chilly breeze for the tricky descent, and fortunately they didn't. I made a few places and lost a few, Gordon passing me with the benefit of his long legs but I held off Steffen on the slog back across the swamp to finish my 19th Carnethy. A great day and a big thanks to Carnethy Hillrunners and all their helpers and marshalls for putting on such a superb event, and to a great turnout of Westies too.

35 56:46 Manuel Gorman

36 56:49 Chris Upson

50 59:06 Andy Edwards

51 59:17 David Riach

109 64:16 Graham Kelly

126 65:44 John Donnelly

130 65:59 Steffen Gorgas

142 66:37 Gary Tompsett

150 67:11 Ellen Homewood

174 69:12 Murdo MacLeod

200 71:08 Keith Adams

226 73:13 Brian Brennan

230 73:41 Johnston Orr

265 74:58 Jacques Penderis 271 75:35 Jason Kaushal

282 76:25 Jenny Edwards

345 83:19 Muffy Calder

373 88:25 Pauline McAdam

424 97:00 Brenda Paul

455 111:36 Graham Benny

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Carnethy Hill Race 2008Carnethy Hill Race 2008Carnethy Hill Race 2008Carnethy Hill Race 2008

Posted by John Donnelly on Sat 16 Feb 2008 | 11 comments

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  1. Johnston said...

    Massive PB by over 11 and a half minutes for me. Delighted! It seemed a lot easier than last year too. The frozen ground did leave me skating on a few occasions, but no real problems.

    John - thanks for retrieving my shoe. It came unstuck in the very last boggy bit, and I just didn't quite manage to hurl, kick, and dribble it to the line. I think the lightweight option probably saved me a few seconds in the end. Hope I didn't breach the kit requirements by not having 2 shoes when I crossed the line.

    Sunday 17th February 2008 11.51am

  2. Pauline said...

    You missed Pat off the results - after Brenda but before Graham

    444 106:34 Patricia McLaughlin

    This was Pat's 19th Carnethy also, and so she is well on her way to being the first woman to earn a Carnethy Quaich - well done Pat

    Sunday 17th February 2008 2.17pm

  3. Johnston said...

    There's an excellent set of photos taken during the race here, featuring a few Westies in action - me (at the start until the guy tanks off and leaves me for dead), Murdo, Ellie, Keith, David, Chris...

    Sunday 17th February 2008 9.44pm

  4. Chris said...

    Well done to all 22 Westies who took part.I held onto 28th position after the Howe until the final plummet from Carnethy, where I promptly dropped 7 places, and then got pipped by Manny less than 100 metres from the finish, despite a half-baked last ditch effort to hold him off.Results

    Sunday 17th February 2008 10.08pm

  5. Ellie said...

    Well done to all the Westies women! It was a great team turnout...Muffy, Jenny, Katherine, Brenda, Pauline, Pat and I... all had fantastic runs on this incredibly demanding course, on what turned out to be a perfect, crisp, sunny day for racing.

    Jenny and I were nearly bundled onto the start line of the junior race, after going to cheer on the wee Westie Gorman on (well done to him too!) just before the adult C5 started....which made me realise that if you compare the mean leg length of the top winning women against the mean leg length of the Westies ladies, we are distinctly shorter...which surely counts as a handicap, especially when a good portion of the race involves thrashing through thigh-deep heather!

    So, in my mind, we definitely won the female team prize on the basis of effort input and good humour output, and simply being crackingly good fun!

    Monday 18th February 2008 8.51am

  6. Meanie said...

    I mean to say!Ellie certainly had mean legs went she went past.Jenny had a very mean attitude.Muffy looked concerned about her mean time.Pat means to get 21.Pauline had a mean runBrenda just looked mean.Meantime Chris thinks I am mean cos I nipped him on the line!

    Scott is bringing out a new line in meanie hats.

    Well done Westies for a great turnout on a fantastic day on the hill!!

    Monday 18th February 2008 10.12am

  7. Jason said...

    I just want to echo the above, lovely day, lots of friends, great intense course, well organised and marshaled (we could all learn something ) and on top of all that a pb by around 4.5 minutes...but I hated my run, felt awful, no energy and thighs of lead, descending like a numpty and running on empty, wanted to sit and cry in the heather on the last hill. Not sure why, had an ok week before, but maybe got the food wrong for such a late race. Anyway left me not knowing how to feel overall, but lovely to see so many Westies there and impressive runs by several.

    Monday 18th February 2008 7.17pm

  8. Graham K said...

    Yup - a top day indeed !

    I didn't look at last years time on purpose. I wanted to run as it felt not against my watch. Over the moon to discover (like Jason) I had improved by about 4 mins on last year. Even managed to squeeze past former westie Helene on the wee rise to the summit.

    Sadly I was working nightshift so had to push off quickly after the event - it would have been nice to hang about a bit to chat.

    Congrats to all who ran !

    Monday 18th February 2008 8.52pm

  9. Chris said...

    Here are some photos I took at the finish.

    There are more photos from several contributors here

    Tuesday 19th February 2008 8.40am

  10. GrahamB said...

    It was a great day for a plod round at the back of the field with the evergreen Jimmy Jardine although I only managed to stay with him as he was stopping frequently to take photos. He disappeared once his memory card filled up!The anti-erosion course variations definitely made life harder especially on the top part of Scald Law so it was surprising to find the record nearly went.Spare a thought for the late finishers and marshals who were left to freeze for ages in the lay-by while the bus driver extricated his bus from a ditch, only to knock another dent in his bus after a too-close encounter with a tree on a tight corner. He was probably down at the Job Centre yesterday morning!

    Tuesday 19th February 2008 10.07am

  11. Muffy no pain said...

    Jason, my experience (yes, I used to run) is that pb's usually *hurt* . Nothing wrong with your preparation or food, you just tried. Personally, I know I haven't tried unless I throw up or see stars. Have done neither of those for some time, hence note my pw on Saturday.

    Tuesday 19th February 2008 2.16pm

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