Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

The Moorfoots managed to put together 18 runners and 3 teams for the Devil's Burden hill relays yesterday.  I think we should be proud of ourselves since this is probably 2/3 of the active membership of the club.

I was placed in Team B and allocated myself to the longest and hilliest leg 3, with Colin Williams (stronger than me).  Unfortunately, a pullout in Team A meant that Colin got promoted and Steve Martin ran leg 3 in his stead.  Steve is a fast road runner (much faster than me) but I'm probably a bit stronger on the hills, which meant we probably weren't perfectly matched.  Still, not far off.

We took over from Aegir, who ran a great leg despite a chest infection, and set off up the steep climb on to Bishop Hill.  There were a number of routes to the top and we definitely didn't pick the best one - we should have followed the Fife AC pairing but they got away from us.  We (ok, it was me) made another route choice error off Bishop and I slavishly followed the route map rather than the other runners and we got bogged down across marshy, tussocky, snowy ground before the climb to West Lomond.  Once on the climb to Lomond, a group of runners caught up to us, which was frustrating.

After regrouping at the summit, Steve and I ran well to the end, descending together and keeping a decent pace to Strathmiglo, for a final time of 1:17, probably about 5 minutes slower than I'd hoped but still decent.

We placed 37th out of 120 teams.  Moorfoots A placed 6th and Moorfoots C were 91st.

I'm running well at the moment, I've definitely made a jump recently and my 60 mile weeks have yet to make a difference, since I've just got to that mileage in the last couple of weeks.  I'm hoping to do well at Carnethy and may even taper a bit for it.

Probably my strongest performance in a hill race yet, unfortunately the organiser is essentially ignoring all requests to publish the results, which is obviously frustrating.

The course was under a lot of snow, which slowed the runners down and meant a smaller than normal field of 78.  I stayed near the front to the foot of the climb up Trahenna, stayed strong up the hill where overtaking was impossible in the deep snow and then tried to run back down as fast I could muster (half way down my legs decided I was going too hard).  I wasn't overtaken on the way down until the run to the road where one chap came past - I caught him back up though.  

I didn't manage to catch the next runner on the road and came in at about 22:10.  I'm guessing the winning time was about 18ish.  I wasn't far behind runners who normally kick my skinny backside like Colin (Williams) and Mike (McGovern) and I beat several people who I've never gotten close to before.

I think I finished about 15th or 16th (going by the photos).

Where are the results?

The SHR 2010 race calendar has just been published and one minor scheduling change has completely thrown my early season plans into disarray.  The Jura Hill Race is usually on the 3rd Saturday of May but this week it has been shifted to the 4th Saturday, which clashes with our holiday to Corsica, which is frustrating because I picked that date specifically to avoid Jura and to get a wee rest after the race.

Still, nothing I can do about it.  There are a few alternatives but I've decided to focus on attempting to run a fast marathon in April and then switching the emphasis to cycling from May in readiness for A Day In The Lakes (middle distance triathlon) in June and Powerman in September.

So, rather than doing the Edale Skyline and the Three Peaks in March and April, which were training for Jura, I'm now going to do the Alloa Half Marathon in March and the Lochaber Marathon in April.  I might squeeze a hill race in there too, as well as the Stirling Duathlon.  I'll be doing Ben Lomond in May and then, instead of Jura, I'm going to do the Etape du Dales cyclosportive again, hopefully with a bit more fitness than last time.

I notice the Mull hill race is on again this year, in the middle of July, so I'll get over for that as long as I can be back for Emily's birthday the next day.

At the moment, the second half of my season is going to remain the same - A Day In The Lakes, Mull, British MTB Triathlon Championships, (maybe) Borrowdale, Powerman, 2 Breweries and the Pentland Skyline.