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| Boulders ! |
The Lairig Ghru (‘Larry-Groo’) is one of
Scotland’s most celebrated mountain passes, providing a through route from Deeside
in the south to Speyside in the north. There is many a historical tale of
mischief and misfortune in the Cairngorms, relating to this route….
The race itself is a point to point, starting
in Braemar and running to Aviemore – through and over the Lairig Ghru –
clocking up an impressive 43Km as it rises over the 840m contour and the
infamous ‘boulder field’ in the jaws of the pass…
Easy to see why this is
one of the Scottish Hill Racing Calendar’s most popular events…it sold out in
20mins back in March.
Back to the present…all eyes were on the
weather forecasts last week, as the continental heat wave crept north…25C in
Braemar on Friday, and thoughts on just surviving were top of mind. A break in
the weather happened though on Saturday evening – a spectacular thunder and lightning
display, with torrential downpours, and Sunday dawned much fresher with cloud
cover, a strong breeze and light rain.
The Race
Tactics were to set off hard on the initial
8Km along the road, ease back for the initial trail section (8 to 17Km), ‘just
keep moving’ on the central mountain section (17 to 30Km) and then see if any
gains could be made on the long trail/road run out from approximately the 30Km
mark to the finish.
This worked relatively well, drafting in a
fast pack along the road at the start then settling into a comfortable effort
on the initial trail section. The long path in the glen by the fledgling River
Dee was much harder to run on than I had imagined, and it was a real mental effort
to keep up any kind of rhythm and not fall or bark your ankles off the boulders
embedded in the path. The boulder field came and went – it was hard, but
everyone suffers here; the start of the descent was even harder though, with a
few times being close to ‘a sore one’. Then at last the path became runnable at
speed again and the runners ahead starting falling by the wayside. It is a long
run out….3hours through 30Km would give me a chance of a sub-4
hr time. A few more runners were passed in the forest and onto the final road
section at Inverdruie, then a footbridge and railway under-pass onto the main
Aviemore High Street for the final Km or so to the finish line.
The pavement was busy with tourists and
shoppers – one final side-step avoiding a lady opening a brolly and home in
3:57
24th (in field of 233 finishers) and 2nd MV50
(4mins down on the MV50 winner). Winning time was 3:02 (Johnny Crickmore HBT)…the
course record is some 4 mins faster still !
A great race, iconic route, friendly field
and well organised by Deeside Runners….the
race entries for next year open in March and Deeside Runners web page signposts the time
and date of race entry opening…
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