Devil's Burdens Hill Relay - Another Wild One

Before

After

I think the two photos above tell you how hard today's Devil's Burdens Hill Relay was, mainly due to the weather. For the second year in a row, the conditions were atrocious, with driving rain and 30mph + winds making staying upright let alone maintaining forward progress difficult. However we had a well motivated team of 6 and full support and transportation from Frances. On leg 1 duty, Sandy Hayden flew around off of only 3 hours sleep to knock 4 minutes off her best previous time, finishing the 7km, hilly trail run from Falkland to Strathmiglo in just under 39 minutes.

Sandy running well, approaches the changeover

Chris McCarron and I were paired up for leg 2, an 11.5km twin peaks adventure into the clouds. I'm so out of practice at racing that I forgot to grab the checkpoint sheet from Sandy as she came in to the changeover point but after a few wasted seconds, we were off through the gloop of the field and heading for West Lomond. On the top I could hardly stand up the winds were so strong and when we headed down the other side into the wind, even leaning forward, the wind was overcoming gravity and we had to power downhill to make any progress. A hundred metres or so from the summit the wind died a bit and we ran, hardly in control, down the slope. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris hurtling past on his face, having lost control and tripped on a rock. Fortunately he was unhurt and sprung to his feet. Thereafter it was a bit of a procession on the narrow, deeply rutted paths as we headed for the second big climb up Bishop's Hill. As we approached the summit, the visibility deteriorated considerably and we were glad we had done the recce a few weeks ago as we were working from memory only, navigating the network of paths.

Chris and Alan head for the hills.

I was glad when we eventually dropped off the high level paths and were below the cloud and could see where we were going. A rapid descent followed before we hit the path in to the changeover, unfortunately uphill again! We reached the handover in Kinnesswood in a time of 1:27:08 where Jim Holmes and Alan Cullie were waiting and ready to take the direct route straight up Bishop's Hill, a climb of about 250m. This was also a twin peaks leg but as it was heading back towards Falkland, was at least wind assisted! The last 5km of the 11km leg are downhill and very fast. Jim put himself under extreme pressure by telling Alan to carry on whilst he clicked the sheet at the last checkpoint before the final, steepest few km of the descent. Catching Alan on the descent was easier said than done though and Jim had to burst a gut to ensure that he and Alan finished together (on the paired legs, both runners must finish before the next leg can start).

Jim chases down Alan in the final 100m

Jim and Alan reached the changeover in the well sheltered Maspie Den in a time of 1:18:38 where Kenny Leinster was raring to go back up the same trail as Jim and Alan and then onwards to the summit of East Lomond. Kenny knows this final leg very well (where have we heard that before!) and in this case that proved to be true as Kenny flew around the 5.5km leg, making up anywhere between 3 and 7 places, most of them on the steep descent from East Lomond. So fast was Kenny that he had reached the finish line before we got there, crossing the line in 37:39.

Kenny starts the big climb!

From the finish we had only a short walk to the village hall where copious quantities of soup and rolls were available for all. No official results available yet but it felt as though we had a good run and were probably mid-field. The day proved again that rubbish weather does not stop an event being a great day out and we will certainly be back next year. Thanks again to Frances for transporting half the team to and from the event and shuttling us about between changeovers whilst still managing to take a load of action photos. All of Frances' photos and a few from me are here.

POSTSCRIPT - the official results (overall only) are now out and show that the team finished 67th out of 163 finishing teams. An excellent result. There are also loads of photos from an intrepid photographer (Pete Bracegirdle) who appeared out of the mist just below Bishops Hill and also on the leg 3 descent to Maspie Glen.

Alan