Creag Dunain hill race

Recently recovered from the flu I thought why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone .....visit my daughter Kirsten and take in a hill race in Inverness. Sun was splitting the sky as I drove up the road and looked like a great day for the hills. Arrived in Inverness and eventually found out where to register/start etc then outside registration met Manny and Dave Cummins. Talking to Manny about his injury almost brought me to tears as he told me he was more worried about his Achilles tendon than his knee but he'd muddle through somehow and he'd look at getting his knee fixed probably at the end of the season. You'd think I would know better but there's no fool like an old fool and I felt sorry for Manny even though I thought he was looking suspisciously trim and fit for a, to hear him speak, near invalid.

The race started and I managed to start only slightly too fast though last I saw .....due to some loops in the course was that Manny was well up near the front ....even then I thought he's bound to fall back as his disability starts to tell.

Race was 6 miles with only 800ft of climb and was well marked and marshalled throughout. Wasn't too muddy despite all the recent rain and my only complaint was that it was way too fast and unmuddy to bring the rest of the field all the way down to my subterranean level. I kept going OK and on the way up saw that Manny was lying 3rd on the descent about 15/20secs behind Dave Cummins with Colin Donnelly further ahead.

Had a pretty good descent passing a few people with one git passing me in the last half mile or so. Came to the finish and found out that Manny had passed Dave in the descent and managed to reel in Colin D a bit also .....despite Manny taking a wrong turn in the trees which cost him up to 10 secs (on one of the best marked courses I've ever seen by the way)

Anyway there was pretty good grub on offer before the prize giving then off to see my daughter for an hour or son then back towards home.

Stopped at Manny's in Kingussie on the way home for a cup of tea and then a pint and I can confirm that his new house is a cracker, the view is as good as his pictures suggesr, and he's got a great family ......and hope his knee gets fixed before too long as if he can run like that with the problem he'll be a complete revelation when it gets fixed.

Results

1.Colin Donnelly 36:10

2. Manny Gorman 36:35

3. Dave Cummins 36:51

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. lots of people

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33. Brian Brennan 47:40

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, few really old fat people

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Posted by Brian Brennan on Sat 1 Apr 2006 | 3 comments

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