The Law Breaker 2011

29th June 2011

Results

Glorious sunny evening for a largely inglorious Westies venture to Tillicoultry for The Law Breaker, now a midsummer Bog and Burn race after it was roused from its midwinter slumbers. The route had to be tweaked as Mill Glen is still out of action due to rockfall, so the start on Upper Mill Street then led to a Maddy Moss-style ascent to the open hillside, and returned on a similar but lower path.

Al Anthony and Eilidh Wardlaw were the winners. For Westies, Owen O’Neill kept up his Bog and Burn challenge with another fine run, in 10th place. Pat McLaughlin was the other quality slice enclosing the disappointing filling – OBK was a fair distance behind Owen, Don Reid had a slow climb but still passed me on the descent, and I had a long-overdue shocker of a run after running out of steam at the bridge at the top of the glen. (I felt like I had Bruce Grobelaar’s spaghetti legs, last seen in the 1984 European Cup final penalty shootout against AS Roma.) At least Brian Brennan had a proper excuse, turning up with an aggressive lurgy but still managing to complete, albeit well down on his recent placings. He was then respectfully put back in his coffin.

"Must’ve been Westies plague", said Don in reference to the troubled trio of terrible times (Brennan’s illness looked more severe). In the absence of any other justification for the downward trend in results, I’d have to agree.

PS The race organiser didn’t sing us a song this week.