Devil's Burden Hill Relay 2024 report

 

The mere sight of the Moorfoot team had the elites worried

A team of Moorfoots made the journey up to Fife for the Devil's Burdens hill relay last weekend - it's one of the biggest hill races in Scotland based on numbers (typically over 100 teams of 6 runners per team) and a great event to kick start the hill running season.  Hamish has kindly reported back on the day's action:

"As the day dawned on Saturday 3rd February a team of Moorfoot Runners assembled in Peebles for a 7:40am departure to head up to the Devil's Burden relay race, to arrive in time for a 9am registration at Falkland.  Danny Lavin, Craig Walling, Nigel Shekleton, Martin Quirke, Colin Williams and Hamish Parkinson were the lucky six representing.

The event consisted of 4 legs, with leg 1 involving a steep ascent up from Falkland to the summit of East Lomond hill, then dropping down the South flank of East Lomond, before heading West to the final checkpoint, before a descent back to the finishing line where the second leg commenced.  Legs 2 and 3 are the long legs; Leg 2 taking in the summit of West Lomond and Leg 3 a bit of a navigators leg with checkpoints to be visited in any order.  The short and sharp Leg 4, mostly in forest rather than the higher hills, finishes the race off.

As the runners assembled at the starting line Jasmin Paris was spotted yawning, like the majority of the Moorfoot Team she clearly hadn't had a lie in!!

First off was Hamish Parkinson doing the solo Leg 1. Unfortunately, along with about 20 other runners I managed to run past the first checkpoint, which necessitated back tracking once the mistake became apparent, costing a little bit of time and I finished the leg in 76th place out of 111 runners.

I handed over to Danny Lavin and Nigel Shekleton, who were running the second leg and put in a strong showing, finishing 39th overall, moving the team up the leaderboard. Particular mention needs to be made of Nigel's performance. He was clearly under the weather and struggled in the second half, but displayed very impressive fortitude to tough it out and finish the leg. However, at the finish it was clear he had been suffering.

Martin and Craig were next up on Leg 3 and put in a really strong performance, finishing in 26th place overall.

Last up on Leg 4 was Colin Williams, who put in a stellar performance - definitely the top Moorfoot performance of the day - finishing 17th overall in the leg, which moved the team up to 32nd overall.

We were all grateful to Matt for putting a team together, hopefully next year he will be injury free and able to take part.  It was unfortunate that we weren't able to enter a second Moorfoot team and a shame that we couldn't manage to involve some of the many talented female members of the club - maybe next year.

Analysing the individual Moorfoot performances, I think the learning point is clear, the performance enhancing effects of a lie in and breakfast in bed are not to be underestimated!!"
Full race details and results here: https://www.fifeac.org/events/fife-ac-events/devils-burdens/1423-devils-burdens-2024.html

As Hamish mentioned, it would be great to get some more teams entered for these kind of events.  They're great for a bit of club camaraderie - running is such an individual sport that it can be very enjoyable to run as a team, even when paired up!  There's next years' event to think about of course, but a few other relays before then - notably the UK fell relays in North Yorkshire in October.  A club weekend away trip???  Watch this space...