A Tale of Two Races

The last two wednesday nights have seen me lining up for midweek hill racing, Bog-n-Burn style.  Last week was Maddy Moss in the Ochils (710m of ascent over 10km) and this week was Turnhouse in the Pentlands (350m of ascent over 5km, so a Turnhouse equals exactly half of a Maddy). I've not been training a huge amount recently - a combination of some tiredness, lack of motivation and wanting to spend more time with my girls has limited me to a bare minimum.  I've kept racing but, understandably, I've not been expecting too much from my results. Maddy Moss was hard.  A steep climb into the clouds, followed by a long, tough descent.  The descent was where I lost time - the path is deeply rutted and narrow and I had great difficulty getting any speed going and many runners overtook me.  I finished well down on expectations (although it seemed like times were slower across the board) in about 1:10 for 64th out of 121 finishers.  I didn't feel great and was a bit downcast about my speed. Last night was Turnhouse in the pouring rain.  Another big turnout made life difficult at the start where the path narrows and I got caught up behind the masses.  Once up the first climb, the path levels out a bit for a while before entering some trees and then striking up Turnhouse itself on a pathless, steep ascent.  It was here I started to pass some folks.  My legs were still fresh and I wasn't choking as I normally am when climbing, so I used my long legs to generate a bit of speed.  Then it was a case of holding on down the long, slippery, wet descent.  I was passed by a few here but generally, I seemed to hold my position reasonably and didn't let anyone who had passed me get too far ahead.  I finished in 33 minutes dead and hopefully, quite far up the field compared to Maddy Moss. So, where Maddy Moss was bad, Turnhouse was unexpectedly good.  I've got a couple of different races (triathlons and mountain biking as well as a long, long hill race) in August that I'm probably not fit for but I can't be too far off.