16 miles 6,200 feet
A dreich and claggy Pentland Hills greeted our band of Westies as we lined up for the last of the Scottish Long Hill Races. For my 15th running of this tour of the Pentlands I was treated to a personal worst, almost 40 minutes slower than my pre-decimalisation best time of 2hrs 57mins. But never mind I was pretty pleased just to finish, as race rustiness and Dave Calder’s beer-fuelled orgy in the Western Baths the previous night had left me bereft of energy. From the word go I knew that just getting round would be an achievement so I lapsed into plod mode. The clag helped me a bit as it led a few other runners astray, and by the second half of the race I mustered a sort of comeback to claw back a dozen or so places and gain a tiny bit of respectability. When I sauntered over the finish line in 3hr 35m, most of the other Westies had finished ages ago, led by Captain Chris under 3 hours and a fine run by Ellie to grab 2nd place behind the running machine that is Angela Mudge. Alasdair and Fraser made their debuts with solid runs. Almost worth crawling out of bed for.
After the mist had cleared, the Scottish Long Classics Series was won by Al Anthony and Andrea Priestley, with the Westies Long Lads and Lassies being Chris 8th, David Dickson 21st, Steffen 28th me 29th and John Hamer 38th. Well done everybody.
1st Murray Strain (HBT) 2h 24m 35s
7th Angela Mudge (Carnethy) 2h 44m 36s
17 Chris Upson Westerlands 2:59:09
49 Ellie Homewood Westerlands 3:14:15
50 Graham Kelly Westerlands 3:14:59
65 Alasdair Duke Westerlands 3:19:15
88 Fraser Laird Westerlands 3:30:18
96 John Donnelly Westerlands 3:35:54
142 John Hamer Westerlands 4:04:50
Results
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