Lomonds of Fife

16th August 2009

Results | Photos

Tiring run today at Lomonds of Fife with strong westerly wind blowing.

I plodded up the opening fields in the lead, before Brian Marshall, Mark Harris and Jon Ascroft took over. I gradually dropped more and more places on the climb up West Lomond. On the descent I made back 3 or 4 places and caught Martin Laing in the forest.

Shortly after turning off the forest trail for the uphill to the monument, Martin Laing and Manny Gorman both went past. Shortly afterwards John Bell of Springburn caught me. I ran with John more or less to East Lomond, but then started fading and dropped a couple more places to Ian Mills and Shane Bouchier.

I stopped at the drinks station on the road on the way back for water, then followed after Shane towards Maiden Castle. I was caught by yet another runner at Maiden Castle who smacked me in the teeth whilst I was taking a bottle of water from Adrian Davis. This gave me such a shock and bolt of adrenalin that I woke up and started chasing down the runners in front and quickly got past 3 and started hunting down Ian Mills.

I caught Ian just below the summit of West Lomond, but he then lead down to the grass gully and I just followed his bumslide down the gully and trotted after him before turning on the gas on the last 2 fields to open a gap to the finish.

If I'd realised just how close I was to Martin Laing, I might have pushed on a bit sooner for the finish. But I was pleased to finish 8th given how tired I felt in the middle of the race, and seeing as it was my 11th race in 16 days.