Beinn Ratha Hill Race Sat 22nd April 2006

Since last weeks high speed encounter with a gate at Cioch Mhor and virtually no excercise as a result, a quick visit into Raigmore was made to check my ribs before deciding whether to travel to the far north to defend, or merely hand back, the winners trophy.

A grumpy Aisian Doc poked, prodded and squeezed me before assuring that there was no open fracture but that a cracked rib was more likely. There was no likelyhood of any serious excercise for some considerable time and to forget todays race as there was "no chance of winning in your condition", he scoffed in a uniquely irritating and patronising manner.

Red rag, tucked neatly away the starter shouted "GO" and the small field of 25 odds was off up the track!

A familiar sight was that of a local youth Mathew ....?whipping to the front and leading us out at a frightening speed. Last year he exploded after a mile, but this year he showed he had learned a lot and held his pace and lead all the way to the foot of the hill with HBT's Geoff Simpson hard on his heels, with my creaking bones 50 yards behind trying to relax and carrying out continual damage assesment on the chest cavity.

The initial half mile on the very rough lower slope of Beinn Ratha cooled their pace enough for me to close them down and then take a rest before easing to the front and putting in a good spell to open a gap, all the time the pain in my ribs reminding me how right the Doc might be!

However after making the summit in a strong headwind, the turn and run down and over to the second minor top allowed the now tailwind to ease the effort and breathing once more became a pleasureable experience.

I had a good look back at Geoff and Mathew and knew , barring a fall ( I really didn't want to have to go back to Raigmore!), that I could ease back on the descent pace to just stay safe over the rough slippy ground to the landrover track and a final bone jarring tarmac mile to the finish line first in about 52:22??

Much slower than last year because of the rib thing and thankfully without Alan Smith there to crank up the pace!

Geoff's experience let him hold off young Mathew but only by maybe 20 secs or so.

At only 17 years old, I expect this lad to be making serious dents in a few hill / xc race results in the near future.

The race was rounded off with the usually bun fight hospitality in Reay golf club.

I'll stick results on when I get them (which if like last year, should be about September)

Posted by Manny Gorman on Mon 24 Apr 2006 | 7 comments

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