Devils Staircase

Dear all,

Here's the results from the 2 Buchailles races from 3rd August which due to crappy weather was changed to an equally hard run over the Devils Staircase to Kinlochleven and back.

Both Stephen and I had ran the CreagDhu race the day before and drank homebru into the very small hours, and turned up with the intention of marshalling the 2 B's route ,but the new route needed only 1 marshal at Kinlochleven which was already taken so we were duty bound to run instead.

Shit!

We agreed to run together as a wee training plod. HA! The big lanky git started pulling away from me after about the 4th step and promptly vanished from sight ! I was more cautious than that and kept a slow steady pace going to let the previous days beer and sore legs wear off.

The climb up the Staircase wasn't too bad, but that long ,long drop back to sea level takes forever and jarred every bone in my suffering body on the way, know that it could only be worse on the way back up!

There is a route choice option on this run were you can either take the long fast track which winds its way through the woods or you can take the the more hairy direct route down the side of the pipeline. I chose the former and kept steady pace going with an Ochils runner desperately trying to stop me getting past.

Near the bottom my "training" partner passed me on his way back up and looking totally shagged. I could taste revenge. I turned in a wee group of 4 and easily pulled away from them all with the Ochils guy floundering about having put too much into the descent. The start of my climb was strong and again I chose to follow the track (after race chat highlighted that the pipeline would have been the faster option on the way back up) but I kept a mind numbingly painfull jog pace going most of the way back up the hill and all the time a big "W" was coming back towards me. At last when well up the hill and nearing the summit I sensed a weakening in front and applied the coup-de-grace on one of the big zig-zags that can be cut across ,to shouts of "ya *anker!" from behind. How sweet the Greenock language is ,but how bitter in defeat. Once past I cranked up the pace and pulled away leaving the "Tap-ender" crushed for the second day in a row. No hard feelings.

I was glad to go over the top and allow gravity to haul me back to the finish were the poor time keeper was being sucked dry of plasma by the entire midge population of Glencoe.

This was no easy bad weather option and in fact would make a fine race in it's own right, possibly even as a international trial race with a huge runable climb on good wide track all

the way.

Well done Dicky

Posted by Manny Gorman on Wed 27 Aug 2003 | comments are closed

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