Ever since I started looking at the
Scottish Hill Racing website about three years ago, I’ve been fascinated by a
small race taking place in March: the Chapelgill Hill race, in Glenholm near
Broughton. Last year, it was a Championship race and 130 people took part;
usually it attracts around 45 competitors. It caught my eye because of the bald
stats beside it in the race calendar: “Distance, 2.6km; Climb, 410m”. There are
steeper races: Alva is the same distance, and although it ‘only’ has 385m of
ascent, the start involves running round a flat field and through a flattish
golf course: the hill that follows is (to me) frightening steep. However, at
Chapelgill, for every metre of the outward climb, you only move forwards by
just over 3 metres. To me, starting out as a hill runner, that seemed
ludicrous.
Anyway, I didn’t feel like this would be
‘my kind of race’ – I’m a complete scaredy cat when it comes to flying downhill
and I have the weakest quads ever – but that’s exactly why I thought I give it
a go. I was still convinced it was a good idea when we woke on Saturday morning
to see soggy snow drifting down and blanketing the street outside.
By 2pm the snow had abated and been
replaced by rain and low cloud, which made Glenholm look absolutely stunning –
in an incredibly dreich kinda way – and this was the first race I’ve done where
the race organizer registered everyone from the inside of the boot of his
estate. At 3, when 40-odd folk were gathered at the start, the rain had eased
to a fine mist, the sort that doesn’t seem to be wet until you realise you’re
soaking. And then we were off!
No easing into it, no charge across a
field to get an optimal position at the start of a narrow hill path: it was
just straight up the side of the heathery slope. Everyone pretended to run for
the first hundred steps or so, and then it was hands-on-knees stuff. Near the
top it flattened out a bit, but to say that I ran this bit would be as generous
as saying I charged down the hill: in both cases, my strides got shorter, but
I’m not sure I went any faster. After we turned at the top, I juddered on down,
overtaking one person to my immense surprise, but the five or six people still
ahead of me raced off over the edge and into the mist and I didn’t see them
until I wobbled over the finish line.
I didn’t take any photos or go to the
prizegiving in Broughton because I had to dash off home to relieve my partner
of our energetic infant, and anyway I was wearing an Ochils vest (though
hopefully I’ll be able to fix that before my next race?!). However, if you’d
like to simulate the race experience, I suggest stabbing yourself in the thighs
with a pair of forks while a friend spritzes water over your face while in the
back of a pickup doing about 30mph…but only for about 25 minutes or so. I’m
writing this two days after the event and those forks have been replaced by hot
forks: DOMS has truly set in and it’s a stark reminder that I need to work on
my leg strength before next year’s race!
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| Stock photo of Chapelgill Hill |
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