Lomonds of Fife Hill Race (2024)

Meeting friends on the Friday night, it was a couple of beers and a curry. We wandered up the Corbett Farragon the next day. It was a hoot with everyone falling into the clagg at some point or other. However, by the time I got back to the celebrated plastic bridge in Feldy, I had clocked up 22km of walking and was hobbling. 

We dined out again that evening and it was another late-ish night. All this was hardly the preparation for the Lomonds of Fife Hill Race on Sunday, a tasty romp across the heather and along the tourist track beside Sleepy Strathmiglo. 

Speedy and Ant had come up from Morpeth and were camped out in Dundee on the Saturday night, so I swung round to collect them and we sped down to the village hall arriving in good time. I scrounged a cup of tea (what am I like!) before the crowds appeared but was still feeling groggy from Saturday's exploits. It was coolish but there was no sign of rain, so it was a single layer affair. I spied Adrian Davis arriving, but only in his capacity, thankfully, as a marshall. 

There was an early start for some of the slower runners and around 10 or 12 left twenty minutes before the official start. The remaining 50 or so runners lined up as the sun broke out and we began the long trog up through the woods and across the moors to the East Lomond. 

I fell in with a woman from Carnethy and, feeling heavy and sluggish, I sat in for the first 3 miles. Speedy passed us in the other direction in 5th place as we began the first ascent. It was back down to the water station and then into the headwind along the tourist track. I began to feel better as we worked our way west and left the young Lomond runner and the Carnethy; but she was still shadowing me. 

I grafted up the West Lomond and the marshalls were positive, upbeat and windswept at the top. I passed a runner who looked like she'd run out of steam and fixed onto a Falkland runner ahead. However after the turn around the Bunnet Stane it was back up and along a sheep path. As we traversed the side of the hill, I wasn't sure where we were to descend and fannied about, initially dropping halfway down the slope, but then, when I looked back up to the path, I saw Carnethy woman and another runner running level with me. She was wearing mitts I thought she looked like she knew where she was going, so I changed direction and began to work my way back up to the path. By the time I got there she was away, her mitts no doubt used to fend off the gorse as she dropped down a narrow ravine. I followed but with less certainty and experienced 'death by gorse'. Suitably inoculated, I eventually arrived, bloodied, on the lower path . Carnethy was away ahead with 40 seconds or so on me. Worse still, there were another 2 runners descending parallel with me and they hit the path 30 metres in front. One was a v60 for sure - they must have gone further along the sheep path - it also seemed a good line they were taking. 

Disgusted with my antics, I ramped up the speed and caught both runners as we entered the woods. I caught Carnethy's Michelle in the last mile and crossed the line an exhausted mess in 1:59 for this 11 miler.  I was 4 minutes down on the Falkland runner. How could I have lost so much time? 

Speedy broke the course record finishing in 1:38, but she had also spent too long looking for a good line of descent.  The prize giving was curtailed as a runner had fainted after becoming dehydrated, but he was fine after a trip to the Hospital. If I do that race again I'm deffo going to spend a random morning seeking the best line down the hill. First v60 - but only by a whisker and after a mega-effort in the last mile. Its no wonder I am preferring swimming at the mo!