Luss Hill Race

Today I achieved my highest personal ranking in a hill race, I was 8^th in the Luss Highland Games hill race, however there were only 11 runners! After a winter of infections and mysterious allergies and then an ITB injury when I tried to up my training too fast, I thought I’d give it go, after all it is only 3 km (!). I arrived too early, there are two hill races, one for ‘locals’ at 12.40 and the other open at 3.00pm so time for soup and a huge chunk of buttered bread at the Coach House, I hoped I wouldn’t regret it later. Killing time, I bumped into Sharon and Jamie sussing out Beinn Dubh as a possible FRA championship venue, taking interesting photos of car parks and toilets. Then we spotted Rod, sunning himself, lying on the wall of a concrete weir on the river.

Ultimately there were three serious contenders from the Westies, Owen, James and Rod and then there was me. As at all these highland games, we had to do a lap of the field before and after the race, I was last off the field, unfortunately there were no other overweight old men running today. I could feel my airways closing up as the gradient got steeper, I wanted to make sure I kept at least one other runner in sight so I knew where to go. It wasn’t long before we were striding through shoulder-height bracken. After a slog, I saw a fluorescent tabard on a pole up ahead but curiously it was just below the top the hill, I wasn’t sure if this was the turning point, so just to be sure, I went to the summit a bit further on. I was looking forward to the downhill, I was confident I could overtake a few runners with the help of gravity. I quickly passed two runners with another in sight. I’d picked up that he was local so I thought I’d follow him – a mistake, I should have gone left on the path. It was a scramble rather than a run, down burns, through gorse, over fallen tree trunks, then it levelled out on a path. We ended up on the A82, after a short run along the verge, we clambered down where the road crosses the river, bumping into another surprised-looking runner who had taken the conventional route. Cheered on by my fellow westies, I managed a sprint finish to overtake my guide on the last part of the final lap. Apparently Owen won, followed by Rod in second place (I last saw him going to spend his winnings at Sweet World to get some calories for the cycle back to Balloch), James also got lost and was 5^th.

Peter Midgley