Bennachie

While others were away battling the elements at the Hodgson Relays, some of us were enjoying fine conditions at Bennachie. When I say some of us, I mean me. The race was held in lovely conditions, quite bright with a cool moderate wind. This race is all fast running, with no steep ascents. The hill track is rough, with much loose stone bounded by heather.

The leaders shot off as usual with Kyle Greig, Graham Bee and Dan Whitehead making all the running for the first half. I had my work cut out trying to keep up with Alan Smith and Paul Raistrick. Managed to overhaul them just before the second summit and caught Dan half way to Mither Tap. But the other two were well away. After the descent from Mither Tap it is all little forestry paths with over 2k on a forestry road to the finish. Could hear someone right on my heels the whole way, thought it was Alan, but turned out to be Paul.

Now it was getting exciting. The run back on the forestry road is something I'd enjoyed in the past, but I'd not felt like I was running well, despite it being a nice day, and was struggling for the few k before the main track - then really struggled on the track! Anyway, the race is a big loop starting and finishing on a main forestry road, with the start and finish about 500 metres up/down to the road you run along at the start/finish (imagine a 2D balloon on a string, with the string being the start/finish and the circumference of the balloon as the course). Got to the turn off to the finish and saw 2 folk, who I'd assumed were just out for a run coming towards me. It was the first 2 who had managed to bypass the road and gone the 100m or so to the flags up the hill, despite there being a massive tractor sitting at the turn. I didn't pick up any speed as I didn't realise this at first. However, when I heard footsteps pounding after me at the turn I looked behind and realised the race was still on. So it ended with a 500 metre sprint finish.

In truth I did not enjoy the race nearly as much as a couple of years ago, when Dan beat me by about 5 seconds. Not only that, the race with Dan was faster Over the years I've made umpteen mistakes costing me races, in all that time this is the first instance of the phenomenon that has gone in my favour.

1 Ron Gallagher

MV Westerlands 0:59:30 1st Man Home

2 Graham Bee

M Aberdeen Univ 0:59:34 2nd Man

3 Kyle Greig

M Aberdeen Univ 0:59:41 3rd Man

4 Paul Pastrick

M Highland Hill Runners 0:59:46

5 Alan Smith

MV Deeside Runners 1:01:50 1st M Vet

16 Sonia Armitage

FV Cosmic 1:06:20 1st Lady Home

26 Scuz Wingrove

F Cosmic 1:09:52 2nd Lady

32 Kaisa Reinius

F Deeside 1:12:46 3rd Lady

65 Lois Noble

FV Cosmic 1:20:46 1stLVet

http://www.gariochrr.freeuk.com/res4ben.htm

Posted by Ronnie Gallagher on Mon 4 Oct 2004 | comments are closed

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