Graham said...

Okay Dave, I'll bite, as it was the first time I've done this one - probably scared off by the story of Archie falling into the road works!It was a nice, cold, clear evening so there was hope that there would be some available light. In fact when Big Al appeared on his bike, presumably to check maps and compasses, he complained that it was not dark enough. The handicapping seemed OK to me (my time was under a minute less than Charlie had estimated) but it would have been an advantage to have had someone to follow. The first slope had enough light from the village street lights to see the path easily enough but when I tried to shortcut the zig-zags below the carpark I somehow ended up in the middle of the dark carpark. The slope up to the concrete hut was also dark but some small patches of snow still lying in the track bed helped a bit. It was further to the hut than I remembered and I thought I had passed it when it loomed out of the dark beside me. I had expected someone there to keep us right or at least for Big Al to leap out of the dark interior. Descending was slow to start with until I saw Drew and heard a gaggle of the wummin coming up from the road so I could work out the route. The road down to Lennoxtown was long and tense, half expecting to fall into a pothole at any minute but as there was very little traffic I could keep to the white line as much as possible. Through Lennoxtown and back towards the start/finish was straightforward except for temporary blindness every time a car passed and just before the turn in to Clachan new wummin Alice(?) cruised passed. I expected the whole field to appear after that but managed to plod on for 2nd place followed a wee bit later by JD and then Blair. Not sure what the finish order was after that but Charlie had a scribbled bit of paper in the pub later so some record must exist.Only noteworthy dramas that followed were the recriminations directed at one of the senior Ws who had a headlamp and even admitted to using it, and after a long wait for Sean to appear the search party (Dave) found him running back to Lennoxtown thinking he had gone past the turning to Clachan.The pub apres session descended into an argument about whether it qualified as a curry night simply because there was curry on the menu and whether the 3 bonus points for 15 W runners were claimable as Alice might not be fully paid up yet! What was the final outcome?

Tuesday 8th March 2005 12.21pm

cc said...

1) 39m 13s – Alice2) 40m 01s – Graham3) 40m 32s – JD4) 40m 51s – Blair5) 41m 21s – Val6) 41m 49s – Don7) 41m 58s – Drew8) 42m 45s – Donald9) 42m 47s – Ana10) 43m 20s – Charlie11) 43m 23s – Helen12) 43m 45s – Chris13) 45m 06s – Hamilton14) 47m 01s – Trevor15) 59m 12s – Sean

Handicap finishing position and times above. Trevor ran the fastest actual time but turning up late and setting off on 19m 19s didn't exactly help his chances. Chris despite having run by the concrete box about a million times in training and having just been up to recce it, still missed it in the dark - Doah! Hamilton continues to get lost, two years in a row - Doah!, so can he get his hat-trick next year!? Despite the captain showing Sean the route through Lennoxtown beforehand, he still goes AWOL - Doah!! And some of you might be asking Alice, who the hell is Alice? Well she is a nice young lady who is friendly with Ana and just happens to be pretty good at running as she showed at this. Sign her up Ana, we could do with another Doctor in the house, eh!

Wednesday 9th March 2005 12.19am