Devils Burden: Lost in the Woods

I arrived at 10am in Falkland and stalked around the Fife village looking for a parking space. The first priority is to find a suitable slot, a spot that doesn’t leave your rear end poking out into the street or impinge on some grumpy residents drive. I drove down the south end and found a space outside a weary looking semi. With some curtains still closed and the residents, no doubt, still cosy in bed, I grabbed my woolly hat and donned my 'silver' Salomons. They are described as silver in the adverts, but have always looked grey and abit on the drab side in my eyes. They are looking decidedly dog-eared now. I stole out of the estate and jogged down to the Hall. It was busy, but not overly so. In the backroom of the hall a few buddies were sat buttering the largest pile of deformed morning rolls I had ever witnessed.  The huge vats of soup couldn’t be far away.

Some weeks previously, I gleaned that the Hawks were struggling for runners to make up teams for the Devils Burdens Relays and I threw my woolly hat into the ring. This event is the January season club-opener in the hill running calendar.  A tasty come as you please event for teams of six runners.  The weather is always a factor and, today, there was a gloomy blanket of murk around the hills. Squally.  

There are two solo legs and two legs for pairs. It attracts most clubs in Scotland. This year there were 150 teams. That’s 600 athletes on a Saturday morning converging on a village with little in the way of transport links.  Plenty cars. There are two waves at the start; the oldies, some female and some mixed teams go first at 9:20am: then the younger faster striplings set off at 10:30am.

The Hawks ‘A’ squad (‘A’ in the loosest sense) had set off at 9:20am and were in the Over 40’s category. I was running the last leg. Eager as I was I wandered around the hall looking for a silver bag which had my number in it and after the 3^rd revolution and staring at various chair legs, I found it, to my relief.  I pinned the number on and, pulling my beanie over my forehead, left the hall and jogged through the town to the woods where the start of leg 4 was.

It had been suggested that my leg 3 duo would be coming by at around 11-11:30am. I jogged up on a woodland track through Maspie Den. Other than a few dog walkers there was no one around. Not an ounce of lycra, not a studmark or whiff of wintergreen. I continued up the track. As I came out of the trees, I was passed by a young bloke. A quick conversation confirmed that he was on leg 4 as well. I jogged a mile with him and was nearly dropped in the process. As he began to move ahead I tried to clarify if the start was up where we were jogging to; ‘No’ he said, ‘its back down there through the woods’ gesticulating with his thumb over his shoulder. I then realised he was a leg 4 runner from the second wave and was out doing some reconnaissance.  

I high tailed it back down to the start and still there was no-one there. No voices, no red tape. Nought. By this time my garmin read ‘4 miles’. I had a sweat on. This was no good at all. Not being able to determine the starting point for an event that involves, to some degree, map reading skills, was less than convincing.

I phoned Dave H. He was back in the hall after running leg 1. He suggested he might have been a bit off with the times and thought 12-12:30pm was a bit more realistic. He advocated a return to the hall. I duly ran back and chatted for 20 minutes before returning to the start, by which time some officials and a handful of leg 4 shufflers were congregating. I chatted with a couple of Falkland Trail runners who suggested that the Hawks were ‘well up’. I hoped not. Didn’t fancy the pressure. However, it was nearer 12:40pm when the lads rounded the trees and I got my hands on the cardboard control punchcard needed for the last 3 checkpoints. 

My 5.5km route with 400m of ascent would take me up one side of East Lomond and straight back down the other side.  I had kept my orange wind jacket on as I ran. It was very mild for January, but the jacket is thin and I thought there might be a wind chill up on top. I passed a woman runner quickly and then ate up a Westerland runner as we came up to my first checkpoint. This is always good for morale.  The sweat driven, rain soaked exertions of my  team-mates had resulted in the erasure of most of the checkpoint  numbers on the card. It was beginning to resemble a soggy papier-mache affair. It was pot luck which square I clicked.

I left the shelter of the trees and caught a 3^rd runner half way up East Lomond. I thanked my stars I had my jacket on as a burly, rugged westerly blew me up the steep slope. However, at the top I could see the Trig point but no flag with the punch.  There were no marshalls present. I struggled to remain standing. Bent hard into the wind, I looked around the top for the checkpoint. Chris Russell, running for the Las Vegas Club (the fife branch) appeared about 20 seconds later and went straight to a shallow hollow below the Trig point and was off like a shot. Realising where it was, I punched my card and took off after him. The steep descent took 12 minutes, 2 minutes longer than the ascent as we combated deep tussocky grass and moss. As we descended the wind rescinded and I reached him on the lower slopes just as the first runner from the 2^nd Wave, a Westerlands runner, screeched past, bee-lining for the last checkpoint. Momentarily, I was right up with Russell, but the Vegas runner had other ideas along the final half mile of track that led back to Falkland and he put a good few seconds into me as I felt the residue of the ghost of Christmas Pasta weighing heavily on my normally mercurial quads and calves; but before you could say ‘calorie controlled diet’ , I turned the corner and there, in front of me, was the finish line. Just a touch under 37 minutes, but a better descent and less gormless wandering at the top of the hill might have got us an extra place. Next time, eh?