Scottish Masters' XC - A proper cross-country course

Stuart Waugh in the pack entering one of the slippier parts of the course

01 Feb 2017 - Updated with more photos taken by Marion here.

If I was asked to choose a weekend to make a weather prediction for at any time of the year, I would choose the weekend of the Scottish Masters' Cross Country Championships as 90% of the time the weather is atrocious for that event; whether its Kilmarnock, Forres and who can forget Hawick a couple of years ago, you can rely on there being freezing rain at best and possibly a few cases of hypothermia. So as I drove up the A9 towards Dundee in thickening sleet I was thinking "not again!". I don't run well in cold conditions, having a bit of a reaction to breathing cold air.

Only four of us were competing in the event at Camperdown Park in Dundee. Stuart Waugh competing in the over 65 race whilst Gordon McInally, Russell Couper and myself competed in the 40+ race over 8km. I parked at the ice rink (thought I might pop in there after the race to warm up!) and jogged a kilometer across a field and into the park to start my course recce and warm-up proper. As I had not been feeling great since before Christmas, I intended to run this in trail shoes rather than spikes and take it relatively steady. However, although the parkland parts of the course were firm under foot, the recce confirmed that the field and woodland paths (see photo above) were very muddy and slippy and I was wasting a lot of energy trying to make forward progress with trail shoes. So I changed to spikes for the race despite one of the paths on the route being quite stony and hard.

Meanwhile, the women and M65+ race was underway (6km) and Stuart Waugh was well up and maintaining his place in a very strong field. Stuart finished in 30:03, in an excellent 7th overall and 6th M65.

A field of 300 lined up for the M40+ race and I took a position on the front line way over to the right (see the Scottish Athletics photo on Facebook) to keep out of the way of the usual pushing and shoving. This would place me on the outside for the first corner but on the inside for the next corner, a 180 degree turn at the top of the first hill. I went pretty fast for the first, flat 100m and then, as expected was on the inside for the climb to the second turn, being pushed along and doing a bit of pushing myself as the field compressed into the tight 180 degree turn. We then descended and turned right again for a long, gradual climb to the far end of the park where another tight U-turn brought us onto the stony path along the edge of the wood. It was quite congested here with limited visibility of the ground meaning that the spikes took a pounding on the stony surface. We ran all the way back along the length of the park on this path and then descended into a field where we followed a narrow, muddy path through the clumpy grass into another woodland path. This was also very muddy and slippy with tree roots to avoid but the main problem was that it was about 1km uphill. I'm usually strong on hills but not today and I went backwards here and more or less decided it was going to be a training run from then on as I was dead on my feet. We emerged from the climb back into the park and completed two sides of the park to bring us to the end of the 4km lap from which point we were away again for another one! Familiarity with the course and the fact that I had taken my foot off the gas made the second lap a bit more enjoyable and it seemed to pass more quickly (although it was slower). As we emerged into the park for the final time, I had a few familiar runners around me and made a bit of an effort over the final 1.5km to hold them off (well it was downhill!), crossing the line in 32:04, making the maths very easy to determine that it was 4 minutes per km for the accurate 8km course. This was a disappointing 93rd overall in an event that I finished 9th overall in only a handful of years ago so pretty disappointing. I'm not going to even count how far back I was in the M50 race but needless to say it was a lot further back than I was in my races last Autumn. The freezing rain was now beginning to turn to sleet here too so it was back to the communal "club tree" to change into many layers of gear. Gordon was next in (39:12) and thankfully his strained hamstring gave him no bother at all. One of the benefits of cross country training and racing is that it is relatively low impact and is unlikely to cause injury. Russell finished a short while later (45:43) and despite very tired legs from the start was happy with the solid effort he put in.

.... and one of the less muddy parts of the course!

This was not weather for spectating but there were plenty out in force on a great course to see the action. We had both Maud and Marion out there cheering us on and along with Stuart, the shouts of encouragement were heard and appreciated. Thanks to Russell for arriving early to pick up the numbers from registration. Thanks also to Dundee Hawkhill Harriers for a brilliantly organised event and a superb course. Pity about the weather though!
Alan