Kintyre Way Relay Take 2

Approaching the end of leg 1.

For the second year in a row my work was a main sponsor of the Kintyre Way Relay and Ultra held on Saturday 7th May. The race distance was halved this year (I guess for logistical reasons) making it an approximately 33 mile ultra or a 3 stage relay of 15.5/6.5/12 mile legs and some thousands of feet of climbing. Therefore, some months ago an e-mail went round the office looking for volunteers to run individually or in a relay team and as usual we were inundated with responses. In the end, we restricted it to 2 x relay teams and 2 x individuals (although two last minute withdrawals from a relay team due to illness meant that one of our individual ultra runners also ran the first and second leg of a relay team and then carried on, actually beating his relay team!).

Having thoroughly enjoyed the 15.5 mile leg last year, I was very much up for doing the same leg again. The difference was that last year it was the 4th leg of the 65 mile relay, which was a very lonely leg, whereas this year it was leg 1 of the 33 mile relay meaning it would be more of a race from the start. The other difference was that whereas last year it was an absolute scorcher, this year it was overcast and gale force winds from the East, with heavy rain arriving later (fortunately our teams were finished by that point).

Following a thorough race briefing by the organisers, we lined up in the community hall car park at Tayinloan on the West coast of the Kintyre peninsula and at 9:45 sharp we were off, turning sharp left through the village and into some fields. I found myself at the front of the pack which was a bad idea as I had the mental challenge of working out how to open 4 or 5 farm gates in the first km as we made our way onto and then off of the beach and back inland through some more fields. On crossing the A83 the first climb started up a wind farm access road. This was an 5 mile continuous climb from sea level to just over 1000 feet, heading towards the east coast of the peninsula.

200m into the 5 mile climb

Although the first km had been cagey with no one making a break, as soon as we hit the climb I started to pull away. However after about 200m and the first bend in the road, I was running straight into a gale force wind and I eased back a little as this was only going to get worse the higher we climbed. A few hundred metres later, the leader and eventual winner of the ultra moved back on to my shoulder (David Gow) but I was still not tempted to increase the pace into the wind (I didn't know if he was a relay or individual runner at this point). This remained the situation until the top where I opened up a slight gap heading towards the only water station at which point I stopped for a sip of water. Thereafter we had a very steep 4 mile descent. I had a quick word with David to establish that he was and individual runner and to let him know that I was in a relay team and therefore not racing him directly. I then took off down the hill. From there it was a 10 mile solo effort with two further big climbs to handle, the final one being in the last mile. A spectacular sprint finish was not possible as the final 100m was down a very dark, steep forest path, finishing with a flight of about a dozen even steeper stairs (which I by-passed for safety reasons!) outside the community hall in Carradale on the East coast.

The handover procedure was quite complex (that's my excuse for not stopping my watch until several minutes later) as I had to swipe my chip through the scanner and then hand over the Velcro band with the chip to my colleague. I should say that although young and fit, neither of my colleagues in my team are runners. They had been for a few runs per week in the month or so leading up to the race but had never experienced the sharp end of a race. So it was with some shock that Iona took the electronic baton from me and headed off into the unknown with a substantial lead! I completed the leg in 1:52:43 which was 5 minutes faster than last year. I had been a minute or so slower to the top of the big climb due to the strong winds but knowledge of the course allowed me to attack the final 10 miles more confidently this year and perhaps also the cooler conditions helped too. This gave us about a 16 minute lead in the relay (actually over our second relay team) with the third relay team a further few minutes back. We had no idea if we would manage to hang on to the lead or not with no form to go on.

The good news was that at Ifferdale at the second change over, Iona was still leading the relay although the gap was closing. The first 4 or 5 individual ultra runners had actually caught and passed Iona. Very impressive! This changeover was in a farmyard where the local children were following the HSBC entrepreneurial TV advert example and selling home made lemonade and cakes from a barn. Of course I had to partake of a cake or two. Meanwhile Iona had handed over to our import from California, Stephen Peters who was tackling the final 12 mile leg and a further big climb (actually, all three legs have big climbs, so there is no easy option). Due to the exposed nature of this race and the poor weather, the rules stated that we had to carry full body cover. I think Stephen was taking this too far as his rucksack seemed big enough to carry a tent! Our second relay team was only about 5 minutes behind by this point, courtesy of our ultra star, Adrian Davies (winner of the West Highland Way Race in 2007) who had run legs 1 and 2 (actually Adrian does not work for us but his wife does and she is the project manager for this region and was leading our sponsorship of the event).

We then drove round to the finish in Campbeltown to wait for the winners. Our time there was not wasted just hanging about as there were more cakes, rolls, soup, tea, coffee, etc than you could ever imagine spread out in the hall and regularly replenished. This time it was all you could eat for free. The "icing on the cake" was the free massage. After enjoying all of that, I went for the (free) shower (priorities). Then the winner came in; David Gow in a course record of 4:48:16. Amazing and sets him up for the WHW race in June for which this 33 mile race was just a speed session. Somewhere on the last leg our leading relay team was passed, the winners crossing the line in 5:31:13 (I think it was a team from Campbeltown AC but this is one of those events where some clubs hide behind made-up names, so I don't know for sure as I did not see them finish). Our team finished in 5:35:46 by which time the rain had just started. Third team was definitely from Campbeltown AC and they crossed the line in 5:36:41. After 33 miles it was remarkably close. Our second company relay team finished in 4th place in 5:44:25. Adrian finished 5th in the ultra in 5:18, comfortably beating both of our relay teams.

All in all a great event (at least if you finished before the rain started). If there was some way I could wangle running for a Calderglen team, despite the duties associated with sponsoring the event, I would have us down there next year in a shot!

All of the photos you see here come from the excellent Ken Clarke Photography from Tarbert (search KenClarke Photography on Facebook to see the literally hundreds of photos in his event albums).
Alan

Our works' teams and support crew just before the start.