Stuc a Chroin Hill Race

Saturday 2 May 2009
22km 1600metres

There was a massive turnout of over 300 runners for this British Champs race over the Trossachs Corbett of Ben Each and Munro Stuc a Chroin. However there was only a smattering of fellow Westies men and a smidgeon of Westies women. David Riach led the way home in 68th followed by Don, John B, Steffen, Murdo, myself, Brian B and Brenda. Newcomer Pamela started but dropped out somewhere. My own wee race was against my tired legs from last week's Fling, so I had a nice steady race to begin with, trying to put a bit more effort in over the latter part of the race. The course was incredibly muddy, with hundreds of pairs of shoes having churned it up in front of me. The bottom of Glen Ample was pretty dire and made the achingly steep all-fours ascent of Ben Each almost something to look forward to. I passed a few in the heathery climb here and then enjoyed the roller-coaster ridge along to the foot of Stuc, being passed incredibly early by the front runners coming the other way. The slog up to Stuc was as tortuous and never-ending as usual, and I was greeted at the top by a lovely hail shower, before actually enjoying the tricky descent back down. The climb out of Glen Ample wasn't too bad and I made a few places here, while a small pack chased me back to the forest road. At this point I tripped in the wooded trod, horribly grazing my forearm, that gave me the excuse to trot back down the last 2 miles to end up pretty pleased to run 3hrs 10 mins 173rd/318 finishers - only 5 mins down on last year's time, but as usual a stack of time down on my best from way way back in 1997 of 2h 36m, but heh ho, that's life. A grand day out and superbly organised as usual.

Results
SHR report =
There was a dramatic finish to a magnificent British and SHR Championship race at Stuc a'Chroin. After over 2 hours of running and having dominated the race from the start, gold-medal winning orienteer Jon Duncan was almost caught by the fast finishing Tom Owens. Neither knew that the other was so close and it was only about 800m from the finish that Tom caught sight of Jon on the forest road ahead of him, but his last gasp attempt to catch up was in vain. Tom had the consolation of overhauling both Morgan Donnelly and then reigning British champion Rob Hope in an impressive return journey from Stuc summit. Jim Davies was 1st V40 and Steve Oldfield 1st V50.
It wasn't quite so close amongst the women, but it was still an absorbing race with a strong field. Predictably it was Angela Mudge who emerged the victor, followed by Pippa Jackson, Helen Fines and 1st Scot Clare Whitehead. Fiona Maxwell was 1st V40 in 6th.