Lots of action this weekend with Moorfoots up and down the
land!
Highland
Fling
On Saturday Ross Grieve was racing at the Highland
Fling 53 mile Ultra Trail Marathon which doubles as
the Scottish Ultra Trail Championship. The route follows the West
Highland Way through the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, with a total climb of 7500 feet/2300m.
Ross had come 2nd Vet
50 to Billy Reid’s (East Antrim Harriers) 8.55 finish, 8 mins behind,
Ross’ strategy was to start this year’s event a little faster, and
“slow down slower”. Leading from the start, he held his pace well,
improving on all his splits from the previous year coming in 15minute
faster in 8:47:57(
27th place overall) and beating Billy’s time from last
year. Problem is, so did he!!
Ross got so close but not quite enough to
take the win, with Billy coming though strong with 5 miles to go to
finish in 8:40 and in 18th place overall. With about 750 starters the race on the day with
about 650 finishing it was an undoubtedly amazing achievement and huge congratulations!
When asked if he had a nice
day? He said:
“Constant drizzle, cold, pushing the effort
from the start - it was a suffer fest and one of those days
to just get it done, so, yes ,I suppose - a good day out !!
15 mins faster than last year so am delighted…..
and sore!”
Full results here: https://highlandflingrace.org/
Highland Fling 2019 - Ross Grieve 2nd M50 on the podium (on the right)
London
Marathon
Richard Edge and Paul Nichol were
in London taking on Mo Farah, Callum Hawkins and Eliud Kipchoge in the second fastest
marathon of all time, and rose to occasion with excellent runs.
Richard finished in
3:28:20 with Paul in 3:31:38. Amazingly the both clocked the identical half way
split of 1:41:31!
Paul finished a very
creditable 231st in the 55-59 age category and commented:
“having turned
in a decent time at London I was still troubled by my left quad / knee seizing
up at about mile 14 even though there was never a problem during training.”
Great run nonetheless
In his
first ever road marathon Richard was running for the SiMBA Simpsons Memory Box
Appeal Charity and smashed his pre race target raising £3,789 to date surpassing
his £2,000 (details here: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RichardEdge6
)
Richard’s report:
Pacing was pretty much what I was going
for, until mile 20 then the wheels fell off a little. Good experience. I’ve
gone from thinking this might be my one and only road marathon to I might give
it a go next year...if I get in! I was on the TV a couple of times though I wasn’t
looking great haha! However, the experience is something I have never
experienced before. Bands at every corner, crowds of people only wanting the
best for you. Unbelievably inspiring! Tower bridge was probably my highlight,
although I did feel uncomfortable at the amount of people watching me bumbling
about the road. The start was incredibly well organised...I had spoken to
several previous who warned me about the merging of other starting groups
around mile 3/4, but due to the changes it never affected the space around us
too much. Making sure I got in front of the ‘running Big Ben’ and the running
‘4 man tent’ certainly increased my speed a few times
Derwentwater
Dawdle
Lucy Colquhoun was in the northern Lake District taking part
in the Derwentwater Dawdle. This is a challenging but beautiful 23 mile(ish)
self navigated route that takes in three tough ascents totalling 4300ft as you
complete a full circuit of Derwentwater.
Lucy ran with her dogs Isaac and Otto were all placed joint
12th on the results sheet https://www.ascendevents.co.uk/results/
in 4:48:20 each collecting a medal!
“Joint first placed dogs at the Derwentwater Dawdle, plus
one bedraggled owner. If they hadn’t been attached to me they’d have finished
in half the time 😬🐶”
Yorkshire
Three Peaks Race
Colin Williams was at the Three Peaks Race in Yorkshire
which explained is on its website as: https://www.threepeaksrace.org/
‘Three Peaks Race - The Marathon with Mountains’ - The Three
Peaks Race traverses the famous Yorkshire Dales mountains of Pen-y-ghent,
Ingleborough and Whernside is one of the oldest, most famous and best organised
fell races in Britain. First run in 1954, the Race covers 37.4 kilometres with
1608 metres of ascent and descent (23.3 miles and 5,279 feet) over the most
rugged and spectacular countryside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, taking
competitors to a height of 723 metres above sea level.
Colin's report:
Good day out and a real experience. Pretty mixed weather
with a fair bit of rain and wind. It’s an amazingly well organised race and I’d
recommend it. It even had it’s own beer brewed!
I finished 170th in 4:04:02
in the biggest fell race I’ve ever taken part in with 750 starters. It’s pretty
humbling to know that first runners were back 1 ¼ hour before but I’m happy
with my run – anyone I spoke to warned to hold something back for the later
part for the last hill and I keep to that and I think it paid off. You dib at
various points on the way round and I was 264th at the top of first
hill so picked up almost 100 places as the race went on so fairly well paced
although I was still completely stuffed at the end! Looking at the map you think
you have an easy decent for the last 7km off Ingleborough but you hopping and
skipping over limestone payment trying not to do yourself a mischief!
Results here: http://live.sportident.co.uk/home/multistage/stage/results.html?multistageid=87b14b39-59b6-4d18-8920-9304c969c043
