Fantastic weather, fantastic scenery and fantastic friends everywhere - what a race! Personally I was really chuffed with my time of 65min 45sec and 126th of 461 runners, that was faster than the last 2 Carnethies. I had a reasonably fast push along the swamp to get a decent position going through the narrow Charlie's Loup, before settling down for the hard heathery slog up to Scald Law. Places were well sorted by here, Chris, Manny, Dave and Andy well out of sight, with Graham just ahead, full of training for his forthcoming Marathon de Sables. I ran Ok from there up and down the next few hills and slid down the icy north face of West Kip at halfway. My pal Gordon of Lomond Hillrunners came past on the runnable trod down to the Howe but he spurred me on a bit, as is often the case. I went past him momentarily only for him to ease past on the sharp wee descent at the bottom where Steffen also passed me. I usually try and push a bit on the final ascent of Carnethy, and aided by a caffeine filled gel sachet and some mental bullying, I managed to gain a few places and get away from Steffen and Gary Thompsett and even re-pass Gordon. Up to Carnethy in about 57min I was hoping that my contact lenses wouldn't water too much in the chilly breeze for the tricky descent, and fortunately they didn't. I made a few places and lost a few, Gordon passing me with the benefit of his long legs but I held off Steffen on the slog back across the swamp to finish my 19th Carnethy. A great day and a big thanks to Carnethy Hillrunners and all theor helpers and marshalls for putting on such a superb event, and to a great turnout of Westies too.
ResultsFLICKR photos
