The Loch Lochy Munros Hill Race

I ran my third long hill race of the year yesterday, over the two Loch Lochy Munros north of Fort William. This was the first running of the race, over hills that I hadn't climbed before (Meall na Teanga and Sron a' Choire Ghairbh), which was part of the attraction. Unfortunately, it's a fair drive to Loch Lochy from the Borders and none of my clubmates were coming for the trip. I didn't fancy driving up there alone, so I was lucky to find a couple of chaps from the Edinburgh clubs who needed a ride (Mark from HBT and Andy from Carnethy, both much quicker than I am). The race HQ was based in a private estate, called Achnacarry, which was very pleasant. The start itself was a kilometre or so up the road at a beautiful waterfall (a registered wedding spot, apparently). There were 57 runners in the race and we made a lovely meal for the midges as we waited to begin, which made the surroundings a little less endearing. We were underway soon enough, along the road for a few hundred metres and then we turned up a forest track. This would be my third hill race in 7 days, after Yetholm and Cort-ma Law, so I figured I'd be tired and would be conservative for the first few miles. I had a small group of decent runners (including Don Reid and Kate Jenkins) in my sights all the way up the track until we entered the forest and the track turned into a narrower path (which would make great mountain biking), which included a tricky, stony downhill section. After a short while, we came into a big wide glen and started to run in the open, on rough, slightly boggy ground. The sun came out here and I began to realise that I was not just tired but very tired. I didn't really have the ability to pick up the pace, so I decided to take it easy and not break myself, treating the race as a training run in beautiful surroundings. The race had strung out here and we started up a steep ascent to the first munro summit. I could still see a lot of runners ahead of me but I didn't make any headway - I'm usually pretty quick at steep, walkable ascents, given my long legs (the only advantage my size gives me). My shoes have started to blister my heels too, which made the climb a bit unpleasant. It's certainly a beautiful, remote place but the sweat in my eyes stopped me from enjoying it too much. The first summit appeared through the mist and we turned and barreled down a steep, runnable descent to the bealach under the next hill. Once we started to climb again my legs felt completely dead - I still haven't gotten used to the transitions between running up and down hill. Five minutes later, my legs were back and I got myself up and over the second summit. Another short descent and a nice wee climb up to a lower hill and then there was a flatter section before the final descent to the forest for the long run back to the road.  Looking at the final results, the runner I chased down to the col, put 12 minutes into me over the second half of the race - so I think I must have just gotten slower and slower.  I lost 3 or 4 minutes on the runner ahead of me in the last 30 minutes of running. The descent was tough on my legs and I was feeling very tired here. I managed to keep a reasonable pace up on the run out but it wouldn't matter much, I wasn't catching the runner in front and the runner behind seemed to be struggling too, so I kept it moving without killing myself. I finished in about 3:07, with the winning time of 2:06, so I was very slow. I had been hoping to get well under 3 hours but my legs were shot at after some hard training and racing. This week, I'll run intervals and spend some extra time on the bike instead of running a lot before the Glen Rosa Horseshoe race.