Yesterday morning I lay on the bed with the sun beaming in and, armed with a cup of tea and chocolate oatie, entered myself into 3 hill races. Wtf. Have I taken complete loss of my senses I ask myself? Dunkeld's not going to know whats hit it.. (😨 ).
I've been bunged up with the cold again, but thankfully it wasn't lingering. This meant that I could get out for the Yeavering to Wooler fell race organised by Glen and his race vehicle, Cheviot Trails. Me and the youngster had entered this a wee while ago and we were delighted with the weather as we drove the 30 minutes north with Linds and Mrs Mac, who were out for a jolly. There were around 75 for this 7 miler. Its a point to point mostly using St Cuthberts Way as the route. We picked up our numbers, used the very clean toilets at the local hall and scratched our chins a little about how much stuff we needed. As I wanted a couple of snaps, I was resigned to taking the bumbag to carry the phone-camera, but its no burden. I also took a gel, jacket and a compass, although I had no idea where I was actually going and had no map. If in doubt, head for the low ground!
We were all bussed to Yeavering. Arriving at the start after a 10 minutes bus trip, there was really no opportunity for a warm up before being confronted with a good old 2 mile hike up yon big hill. We set off and I got into my stride after a mile or so and a very modest one it is these days. The route was grassy and undulating, but nothing too steep or rocky.
I passed a couple of folk over the next mile, and set my sights on a powerful well built chap with a white t-shirt some way in front. He slowed up one or two short inclines and I eventually reeled him in. About the midway mark, he slowed again and I passed him. Normally I would have stayed tucked in, but he stuck to the left side of the track, so there was no shelter to be gained from the head-crosswind by sitting behind him without going off the path. After not quite a mile he caught me up again and although I got close to him once or twice, he powered away to take maybe half a minute out of me at the end. I felt I had put up a sprited defence even if I looked at times like I was stifling a random bowel movement, all facial contortions and angry, parboiled complexion. At the end I hadn't, thankfully, overdone it and the finish came more quickly than I expected, but that's not a bad thing. The gang shouted me over the line, turning a blind eye to my accelerating decrepitude. T shirt man thanked me for giving him a good race. A Scottish navy man, he was (said Yoda); 55 minutes and 14th for this one. I might have stopped a while longer to sneak a peak at the results for the over 50's, but some chap called Colin Donnelly appeared at the start line and he hasn't lost any of his speed (I later realised he's V60 - I'll have some of what he's having).
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