A tale of two hill races

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,…..”

Foolishness. The Oxford dictionary defines this as the act of being unwise, stupid, or showing lack of judgement. This is perhaps how you could describe our decision to run two races on Saturday.

Duncan, Chris, Jamie and myself did just that. The first, at 11am, was Ben Ledi; the second, at half two, was Gargunnock.

Two very different races. The first which had a bit of everything. First mile or so was nice forestry track which allowed me to keep close to the front two runners until the main climb began.

The climb itself followed the route which was used in November’s grudge match with HBT. At this point the runners in front of me started to open a gap, and the runners behind me took very little time to close the gap I had built up in the first section of the race.

I let them pass me, as I quite often do, thinking – “I will overtake them when we get to the downhill section”, or “They’re not that far ahead of me yet, I will make the effort to catch them shortly”.  

Neither of these things happened…. After the summit, the race followed a route down Stank Glen, which wasn’t the most runnable route. Lots of twist and turns and plenty of small jaggy rocks to keep you on your toes. The sort of descent, which makes you very glad to see the finish line. (So, much like every other race!)

Ben Ledi Results

After the first run, the four of us were all pretty tired. We arrived at Gargunnock with plenty of time to take a short warmup which helped loosen off our heavy legs. Then, we gathered by the marquee ready for the race to begin. Again, the gradual start of this race allowed me to run near the front of the group, with three or four Central AC runners. And again, as we reached the steeper sections of the hill, I slowed down and got overtaken. …

However, this time, despite having very little energy, I managed to make up some places in the final section of the race and managed to finish in second place, after a strong finish during the obligatory lap of the show ground.

The other Westies who did both the races performed well here too, and i’m sure they will agree, although there were moments when we all thought “why did I sign up for this”, it wasn’t actually that bad as we all survived to tell the tale.

Gargunnock Results