Kilpatricks Hill Race

2nd June 1010

Results | Route on Garmin Connect

A nice warm dry evening with a record turn out of 117 starters. I kept up my 100% record of PWs for 2010 by running 53:15 for 30th place. My previous slowest was 52:34 in 2005, which strangely got me 9th place. Anyhow, I had a good long chat with Davy Duncan before the race, and got a few top tips about keeping as relaxed as possible whilst running.

I therefore treated the race as an experiment to focus on keeping relaxed, and to see if it made any difference. The first climb up through the Braes is quite a slog, and I was swapping positions with Stuart Simpson as we topped out onto more runnable ground. Alasdair Duke had powered past me up the hill, but I managed to claw him back on the track alongside Loch Humphrey, largely by keeping relaxed and shortening and quickening my stride. I turned off the track pretty much level with Richard Coombs, and then John Kennedy overtook me the same place he always gets me.

I then held position as far as the dam for Greenside Reservoir, and foolishly hoped that all that cycling I've done would help me run up The Slacks. But far from it. My legs felt like bendy rhubarb as I tried to power up the hill. Michael Diver and David Dickson both flew past showing how it should be done.

Once I reached the trig I tried to re-group for the descent, and I tried to heed Davy Duncan's words about staying relaxed, and felt extremely relaxed as I watched 6 or so runners shoot past me on the descent. I wasn't going to go mad on the last bit of road since I knew I was doing Dumbarton 10k tomorrow night, but I made a half-baked attempt at closing down Richard Coombs on the final bend, and got close enough to make him sprint for the line!