Maryhill had a team, I think for the first time, at the Devils Burden Hill relays on the Lomond Hills in Fife. The race is split into 4 legs, and is run by 6 runners; legs 1 and 3 are run in pairs.
The Maryhill Team consisted of leg 1: Chris Hever and Caroline Hassan, Leg 2: Andy Sutherland, Leg 3: Duncan Riddell and Sarah Adam, Leg 4: Linda Sinclair
Over the past couple of weeks we had all been over try the route and getting familiar with the type of ground and climbing involved, it would be fair to say that Chris and Caroline had one of the harder legs and were the least comfortable with the climbing. On the day there are two start times depending upon your estimated time to complete the course, we chose the earlier time of 9:30am with an aim to complete in a time of 3hrs 45minutes.
Leg 1 Chris and Caroline charged off from Falkland hall to start the slog up East Lomond 424m high, Caroline beat Chris to the top. Using, true hill running technique, Chris rushed off down the hill and slipped on a rock ending two feet upwards, apparently bruising his buttock, obviously the pain of this made him stop and once he had a wee cry he pulled himself together and got on with the job. Once on flatter ground they made good progress catching and overtaking several teams, but further slips and falls by both Chris and Caroline meant they lost a bit of momentum. A strong finish got them to the change over in a very respectable time of 01.02.20
Leg 2 After a fantastic run by Chris and Caroline, Andy then set off on leg 2 from Holl Reservoir to Scotlandwell Woods via the top of Munduff Hill (6 km). This leg involved a steady 3 km climb along a farm track (into the wind) before a steeper 1.5 km climb to the top of Munduff Hill, finishing with a quick 1.5 km descent into Scotlandwell woods. This was Andy’s first proper hill race and his first race carrying a rucksack. He set off too fast and overtook 8-9 other runners on the muddy farm track past East and West Feal. After adopting a more steady pace, he managed to catch and overtake another 4-5 runners climbing through the steep part of the woods. After punching our card at the check-point, it was one last push to the summit of Munduff Hill before the descent down into Scotlandwell Woods. At this stage, Andy was running pretty much by himself which allowed a quick descent without the worry of landing on top of somebody. Apparently only slowing half way down to strike a pose for what looked like the official race photographer! He completed the leg and changed over to Duncan and Sarah in a time of 00.33.25
Leg 3 Sarah and I were startled by the progress the others had made, and were almost caught napping, but after grabbing the punch card from Andy we set off up to the top of Bishops Hill. By this point there was a strong bitterly cold north west wind, which we were pretty exposed to this made running the first section quite testing and you started to lose concentration and the wind could easily catch your feet resulting in a fall. Sarah, indeed had a small tumble at the top of Bishops Hill. From here it was a bit of charge down to Glen Vale Gully, through some pretty boggy ground, on this section we managed to catch quite a few pairs, our hill experience showing its worth at the point. After the gully, there is a long steady climb to the top of West Lomond 522m high, we passed a pair from Kinross Road Runners and ended up mixing it with a pair of unattached males and two ladies from Carnethy. The final check point on the hill we kind of knew where is was but were not 100% sure, but after a wee bit of searching Sarah brilliantly spotted it and we were off before the others, we never saw the two from Carthney again, but the two males had chosen the lower, slower and safer route along the crags, where as we went for the bold dash diagonally down through the boulders, resulting in us beating them to the forest. Unfortunately they were obviously soft (faster) road running types who managed to over take us in the final approach to Stathmiglo. We handed over to Linda completing the leg in 01.20.14. Leg 4 We passed over the Devil’s Burden baton to Linda for the final furlong. Linda had a nasty climb through a partially muddy field before the course levelled out and picked up an easy terrain tarmaced track. She had to keep her wits about her on the long slow slog as Leg 3 ‘burdeners’ were coming thundering down the track. Linda tried to stay confident on the climb through the forestry track section despite being overtaken by a woman old enough to be her mum. She wasted maybe 2 valuable minutes making sure the check-point card was punched correctly, turned out it didn’t really matter whether they are done in sequence! It was a relief to level out and contour round the hillside with the splendid Fife countryside a welcome distraction from her burning lungs. A succession of Leg 3 competitors were snapping at her heels, and she counted at least 9 speeding past. Ploughing on along the track, she couldn’t believe she’d reached the final section under a decorative steel archway, and along the lovely, narrow beech-hedged avenue, dodging the man with his dog walking towards her. Back on to tarmac and time to push it out as it was all down hill from now until the Duck Pond. It was a fantastic sight to see a whole line of colourful clad runners cheering on the competitors. Linda was delighted to cross the line in 42 minutes bang on. But, where were Linda’s Devil’s Burden Buddies?
Very happy the Maryhill Harriers team completed such a challenging course in such a respectable time, roll on next year. The race was won by Shettleston Men with a time of 02.24.58 The mighty blue of Maryhill completed in 3:37:59, well within our target time. We all had a fantastic time and we helped ourselves to bowl of soup or 3 in Andy’s case at the end. Sarah also baked lovely victoria sponge, which we happily consumed. The event is very well organized must take some amount of running so a big thank you to Fife AC and Frank McLaren for putting on the race.
