Kaim Hill Race 2015

Photo: Danielle Glendinning http://po.st/kaim15
More photos (Kenny Phillips): http://po.st/L5YEuH

Another Wednesday, another Bog & Burn.

Chastened after Ben Dubh last week, I set off at a steady, economical pace and soon settled in to 6^th place with Owen & Gregor in front of me. The short stretch of road, brief forest trail, treacherous river crossing and then we were on open hill-side, hands on knees and lungs burning. I stayed pretty close to Owen & Gilmore Jr Jr, which I thought was pretty good – though Niall had the impudence to over-take me about 2/3 of the way up. Gregor was flying his new steam-lined hair-cut meaning he was still ahead of hill-legend Jethro Lennox as they started their descent,

As soon as we turned at the top I managed to nip past Niall. One Irishman down, one to go I thought. Owen did me a favour by falling over on a boggy piece of ground. I thought about stopping to see if he was OK, I thought about stomping on his leg to keep him down, I decided to split the difference and run past him. My lead lasted about 45s before he tore past me, reclaiming his rightful position. At the steep descent to the burn I gave up running and went for a tactical bum slide. Owen had quite a lead by now and a glance backwards revealed no-one on my tail; position secure there was no need to push all that hard on the final stretch. That went out the window turning the last corner when the sight of Owen between me and the finish-line set off a Pavolovian-response of a valiant, but futile, attempt to run him down.

Some impressive running from the Westies in attendance and some impressive prizes – if I’d known there was personalised onsie for 1^st place I would’ve tried twice as hard.

On a personal note, I ran this race in 2012. It was one of my earliest running races. My two memories are of stunning views over to Arran and a failed attempt to overtake Owen on the final stretch of tarmac. Since then I have done dozens of races, hundreds of training sessions and thousands of miles. And what did I take away from this evening? A 9% improvement on my time, stunning views over to Arran and a failed attempt to overtake Owen on the final stretch of tarmac. Plus ca change.