Age before Beauty at the Burdens

The Westies older Women (WoWs) recorded a satisfying victory over their younger adversaries at the Devil's Burdens Relays. Both teams lined up for the early 9.30 start with Elsie and Christine setting the tone for the day by arriving at Holl Resevoir well ahead of Paula and Debbie. Mind you Captain Ellie had the excuse ready - apparently a jean-clad Debbie was only told at 9.20 that she was running leg 1 as Elizabeth wasn't well. Still she rose to the challenge and armed with Cat's bum bag and kit made the slightly delayed start.

Having seen our runners off, Pat, Ellie and I jumped back into Helen's WoWmobile (we let Ellie in even though she's not a WoW) and headed for Holl Resevoir. We got there in time to get into the car park area and had a bit of an exciting and muddy time trying to rescue the Wowmobile which got stuck on/in the grass which was deceptively muddy. Lots of gallant men came to our rescue and so we were able to make a prompt getaway before the runners in the main race arrived.

Ellie and Pat were the 2nd leg runners for the two teams so we now had Cat onboard as she was running leg 3 with Ellie. We started to get worried that Cat wouldn't make it to Scotlandwell in time as it took us ages to get down the road from the reservoir. Cars were arriving to drop runners off and making it difficult for those of us in the early start to get away. We had thought that for once we'd get a good parking spot at Scotlandwell but we were wrong and ended up down by the well yet again. We'd dropped Cat off up the hill and so Helen and I had a desperate scramble to get ready. Time was passing and now we were worried that Pat would arrive and we wouldn't be there for the handover.

We made it but only with minutes to spare. Ellie appeared from behind the waiting runners just as we got there (interesting route choice) and Helen had only just gone to stretch her calf muscle by a tree at the side when Pat appeared. There a bit of yelling as Helen and I located each other and then we were off. We chose to go round the corner rather than set off up the hill in full view - it's hard going up that hill whichever way you go. We didn't climb too high but took a path of to the left below the crags and stayed on this until we met a big stretch of snow that didn't look easy to cross where we were as it was pretty steep, so we climbed up and crossed it where it was a bit more level and that brought us to the first wall and onto a path to the checkpoint at the gate. After Bishop's Hill we headed for the path that kind of follows the fence and found ourselves finally able to run. What was also good was that there were other runners about and so we felt as though we were part of a race.

The climb up West Lomond was the same as it always is. We tried to avoid the snow in the gully for a bit then gave up and slid down it. Then we were down the hill and heading across the fields for the woods. It's hard to come off of the hills and onto the path through the woods and even harder when the path turns to tarmac and the radio mast is in view but doesn't seem to be getting any closer. It was on this stretch that we were passed by at least two, possibly three of the Westies men's teams. We were surprised that they had taken so long to catch up with us!

We also passed Brenda heading out on the final leg for the young team and so knew that we weren't too far behind. Helen and I were actually on course for a PB on this leg and hoped that Jane would be expecting us. Surely the guys would tell her we were on our ways, they had after all been suitably supportive as they'd passed us. We charged down the hill to the changeover point enjoying the unusual experience of racing against the Bellahouston team and - no Jane!! However she was there and came charging out of the crowd at the side and set off. She made up for this by running a stormer of a leg and over-taking Brenda to secure a victory for the vets team.

So we made it back to Falkland while there was still plenty of soup and were heading home before it got dark. Apart from the problem getting away from Holl we really appreciated the early start and felt as though we were more part of the main race action rather than somewhere at the tail end. Thanks to Helen for all the driving and to Karen for coming along and being a calming and supportive minder for the team. This was my experience of the day, no doubt others can add in the bits I missed.

Posted by Pauline McAdam on Sun 24 Jan 2010 | 12 comments

Category races