Monthly archives: February 2015

Good weather and running conditions made for a smashing day for Carnethy 5 hill race on Saturday 14th Feb. With a field of 500+ runners the atmosphere and camaraderie was great. Grant MacDonald, David Stakes and I tackled the hills, heather and scree. Grant and David came in with a time of 1:00:57 and 1:19:47 respectively and me 1:19:23. The school dinner after was a long forgotten culinary experience right enough! Great race, would thoroughly recommend it. by Elaine Race info:Carnethy 5 Hill race – 6 mile hill race with 2500 feet total climb over 5 summits, Photo: Descending Carnethy, Pentland Hills (Jim Barton) / cropped from original CC BY-SA 2.0

So, Sunday 15 February was the final race in the Borders Cross Country Series. This was the day the boys finally got their hands on the coveted horseshoe. You see, Greig had promised us the best momento of any race possible and given it was the 25th anniversary series excitement was tangible as to whether the horseshoe would be polished silver this year to mark the date. Graeme had mentioned that he had already cleared a space in the living room to exhibit the prize. The final race was at a place called Conundrum near Berwick. Now, I have never been good at the conundrum on Countdown, possibly because I am so focused on Rachel Riley. I was hoping today, in the town of Conundrum, and as a disassociation tactic, to solve the ultimate conundrum. A question so tough that even Stephen Hawkins has failed to resolve: “Why is Davy’s hair more orange than oranges?” My race tactic was to focus on that question and maybe it would spur me on to success in the race too? The weather was as usual tropical. I arrived slightly late and realised I’d lost my number. Not to worry, the tattoo parlour in Conundrum was delighted to scribe my number on my chest and after a quick change I was ready to go. During our warm up I was scanning the other runners to see if I could see Deep Sea Diver. They either had decided to take the day off or were having problems with the replacement canisters of helium strapped to the suit rather than the oxygen. An inspired feat of psyching your challenger out ( well kind off!). It was during this process that I saw The Terminator. This beast was truly magnificent…..a real professional. Dressed in matching shoes, socks, shorts, racing vest, hat, gloves and sunglasses, he looked mean and ready to kick ass. When I grow up, I thought, I want to be just like you! I mentioned to the boys that he was clearly the winner and that Grieg was now racing for the lower places…….no problems for me as I am always in that position. The whistle summoned us to the start line. This gave Greig just enough time to take his last sip of EPO. I stared in awe as the majesticness of the Terminator muscled his way to the front. The starter gave us precise directions: “You run up there, across there, through there, across the road, down there, up there, through a few fields, watch the electric fences, run down there, it’s quite muddy over there and you finish right there” Brilliant….where can we go wrong? The race started. We ran across a very flat section for about 100 metres and then bang…up a big hill. I settled in behind a group of boys watching Greig, Davy and Graeme running into the distance ahead. I just thought dig in…..oranges, oranges, oranges. At the top of the hill I noticed I was right behind […]