The Devilla Forest 15 is a 15km trail race which takes place every February. It starts and finishes within the grounds of the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan, Kincardine and follows a relatively flat circular loop of Devilla Forest, taking in a mix of fire-roads, paths and single track. The route skirts 3 lochs and goes through a variety of sheltered woodland. Ground conditions vary from boggy to hard packed”
Once again, I quote the Carnegie Harriers’ concise event description. There was also a 5k event.
Margaret & I represented Maryhill once again for the 2nd running of this excellently organised race on Sun morning.
Cold but dry & calm conditions were perfect for running, through this very beautiful & varied forest trail. The going was nearly all firm, except for an interesting passage of mud around 2 miles in, which caused an M8 style traffic bottleneck as some folk simpered about dirtying their lovely clean shoes.
15k is a nice distance, more sustained &relaxed in character than the usual10k’s, yet short enough to be to attractive to middle distance runners. Together with the 5k race, the event really was accessible to all. I joke regularly about undulations, but there really was only one hill which had me walking for a bit, just around half-way.
Margaret was first home of course for the club, while I was delighted to finish strongly after a cautious start, not too far behind.
The half-litre bottle of Schiehallion craft ale served as a very satisfying medal substitute; wishful thoughts crossed my mind of magically converting some of my shoeboxes full of finishers’ medals into refreshments. Not to overlooked also was the £5 Sweatshop voucher; a further collection!
An excellent event all round.
Winner; Ewan |Taylor Perth RR 56m 13
2nd; Craig Love v40 Dundee HH 56m 25
1st F; Yana Thandrayan Dunbar RC 65m 57
355th Margaret Peebles 1h33m15; 1h 32m 50 chip time.
376th Fletcher Murdoch 1h36m15; 1h 35m 47 chip time.
Only pity is that it takes place the day after The National X/C Ch’ships; this used to be THE target to which the whole X/C season built, with the club ch’ship in late Jan as a trial for the final team; in those days, though, there weren’t many alternative fixtures, & so many fewer folk were actively “in the running.” This therefore precludes this event for the brave souls who quite rightly put the Nationals first. Shame it is so.
