Chapelgill

Only 3 intrepid Westies made the trip down to run at Chapelgill on Saturday. For those of you who haven’t done it before this race is as straightforward and ‘honest’ as you can get. The race takes place several miles up a glen near Broughton where you park in a field, pay your entry fee at Robin Morris’s car and walk the 300m or so to the start proper. All three Westies were V50s. Don ‘The Dome, Pot-hunter’ Reid, Murdo ‘Evergreen’ MacLeod, and my ‘umble self. In this race you have 30m or so flattish ground at the start and then the incline bites, within another 50m or so everybody is walking, and so it continues up and up for 1500 feet or so until you reach the top, go round the ordnance survey post, and hurtle ( or hirple) back down the same way. With none of the obvious contenders …..Robbie Simpson, Tom Owens etc….there was some doubt about who would be in the top 3 ……Sandy Bennett beat Des Crowe to the top but Des took almost a minute out of Sandy on the descent to win in 22:56. Owen Bass of Deeside runners took third with the first Westie finisher being Don in a great 6th place in 25:04. First lady was Neah Evans of Glasgow Uni in 29:23. I turned at the top about 150m or so behind Murdo but managed to catch him half way down and finish in 17th position in 28:01 with Murdo 19th in 28:47. With 6th place Don looked pretty good for the 1st V50 but John Tullie of Teviotdale had come in 4th and took the prize. A great wee race which I can heartily recommend.

Posted by Brian Brennan on Mon 21 Mar 2011 | 2 comments

Category Hill Race