Ben Nevis 2009

Well at least the torrential rain on Saturday meant that Glen Coe looked spectacular on the drive up, with waterfalls off every bit of hill you could actually see through the cloud. But I wasn’t looking forward to getting out of the warm and dry car. A quick stop for a haircut in Fort William before the race – and by quick I mean quick, it took the barber less than a couple of minutes. I know my hair is fast receding, but surely not that fast!

Compared to the haircut, the race was much slower, the knee is still not right after landing in a hole during the LAMM and I decided to start off at a plod. That was the first mistake: starting near the back and having to battle through the ploughed up field courtesy of the runners in front. My other mistake was probably entering on less than ideal training, but it turned out to be a great day, one of my most enjoyable runs for a while. The atmosphere was fantastic, particularly the laughter from all around as runner after runner ended up on their backsides on the green wall above Red Burn (with me seeming to contribute to the mud bath more than most). The odd few views through the cloud were also great.

Not much sign of any Westies, but Manny and Graham looked very impressive on their descents as I was still plodding for the summit. I had a great descent after deciding to try and overtake at least 15 runners on the way down, I got to 14 and then, WOW, did that last road section kill me off. There should be a rule against flat tarmac at the end of a hill race.

Selected Westies results, well done to the rest of you and yes, I do seem to have been the back marker for Westies:

46 01:53:57 Manny Gorman
72 01:58:15 Graham Kelly
134 02:07:10 David Rogers
237 02:22:24 Murdo Macleod
241 02:22:58 Jacques Penderis

Full results here: http://www.bennevisrace.co.uk/2009_Results.pdf