Wet Wet West!

Alison and Lorraine embedded in the uphill charge.

The great thing about the District championship events is that they move about from year to year bringing up new challenges and always a great level of competition. This Saturday we made the short trip to Balloch Castle Country Park on the banks of Loch Lomond. Conditions on arrival were merely slightly damp but rapidly deteriorated to full on monsoon conditions. Were it not for the efforts of Kenny and Jim bringing through the club tent, we would have been drier in Loch Lomond.

A quick look at the setting for the event confirmed that this was a "proper" cross country course with severe elevation changes and twists and turns spread out over a 4k lap, which the men and women would complete twice, with a 250m uphill lead-in to the lap and the same steep 250m descent providing a very fast finish for the brave and a total race distance of 8.5 km.

Alison early on and remarkably mud-free

Newly appointed club captain and vice-captain Alison Lessells and Lorraine Buchanan were our only two ladies out today. Lorraine thought this would be her first "real" cross-country experience given the conditions whilst Alison would be using this as a wind down to an already busy Saturday spent at a Christmas Fair. After a congested charge up the hill towards the castle, the field spread out a bit which was just as well as a good view of where to put your feet was needed as the course rapidly turned into a quagmire. The photos don't do the severity of the slopes justice. This course was a real test, especially as parts of the course traversed the slopes which was a recipe for lots of slips and falls. Lorraine had one such slip but managed to bounce off another runner which kept her on her feet. Alison almost made it all the way around unscathed until sprinting down the final hill to the finish her feet slid from under her and down she went sliding down the hill. As Alison said, this turned out to be faster than actually running down the hill as the girl she was head to head with did not get past during the fall! Lorraine also unleashed the trademark Buchanan sprint at the end showing fine form as she sprinted for the line. The finishing times were 46:12 and 51:51 respectively. Well done both!

Lorraine sprints to the line.

Despite the conditions, almost 300 lined up for the start of the men's race, including 6 Harriers. Newly appointed club captain and vice-captain Andrew Buchanan and Russell Couper were joined by Kevin Farmer, Jim Holmes, David Wardrope and Kenny Leinster. The men had somewhat reluctantly left the relative comfort of the tent to do their warm ups in torrential rain and were already pretty wet by the time of their race. Alison and Lorraine passed on last minute words of advice about under foot conditions and particularly about the risk of slipping traversing the adverse cambers. Russell in particular relished the conditions and claimed that he was a "camber expert" and would probably be in with a shout of winning the race if everyone else fell. And so the men made their way to the relative warmth of the huddled field on the start line.

Andrew stretches away from a group

After the initial charge to the top of the hill, the runners veered right and then disappeared from spectator view for 10 minutes or so. By the time the field came back into view it was obvious the conditions were tricky as there were  runners covered from head to foot (quite literally) in mud. Andrew was our clear leading Harrier and running strongly as always.

Kevin makes a welcome return to racing

Kevin was initially our second Harrier but had a bit of an issue somewhere on the first lap and had dropped back to 5th. Jim, Kenny and David remained pretty close to each other and in that order for most of the race although David had a bit of a slip and took it cautiously to the finish as he has the Malaga Marathon next weekend (probably not very similar conditions to Balloch!). Russell was slogging around the course and looking incredibly muddy. He later told us that he had fallen 5 times on the first lap, so even the camber expert found it difficult.

Jim stretching away from Kenny

Kenny flying!

Andrew was our first Harrier in 38:59, with an ideal finish to use his sprinting ability on. It was then a surprise to see that Kenny had not only caught and passed Jim but was sprinting in fine form away from Kevin to finish as second Harrier in 45:50. Kenny is ace on descents in hill races and that sure footedness was a perfect skill to have at the end of this course. Kevin had recovered from his earlier problems and finished very strongly at the end to get all the way onto Kenny's tail, finishing in 45:52. Jim also mustered a fast finish, crossing the line in 46:31 and admitted to be glad that the race distance had dropped down from its usual 10k to 8.5k (I think everyone was glad of that, including the spectators). David was next in, completing his final hard run before the marathon in 50:30. A very muddy Russell finished strongly carrying a tonne of mud across the line in 54:11. Well done to all for  a fine effort that will have done wonders for strength development.

David cruises across one of the drier bits of the course

Earlier in the day, Ben Buchanan had been our only competitor in the U13 boys race, finishing in 15:52, getting the Buchanan family and Calderglen off to a great start. Well done Ben.

Russell on one of the steepest ascents

After rapidly packing away the tent, we were off home at the end of another memorable West District XC. A big thanks to the guys for bringing the tent and to Kevin's dad for joining me in the spectating duties.

A load of my wishy washy photographs are in this album.
Alan