With injuries coming thick and fast, we still managed to get four teams together for DB although all teams needed someone to run two legs: Hats off – Michael Greens (L1 + L4), Alasdair Hind (L3 + L4), Sadie Kemp (L2 + L3 + a little bit more :-)) and Tracy Philp (L3 + L4).
The final teams were:
10.30 Late Start
Team 1: Peni-Panthers
L1: Michael Greens; L2: Des Crowe + Stuart Sanderson; L3: Duncan Ball + Rob Wilson; L4: Michael Greens
Team 2: Peni-Tense
L1: Kevin Anderson; L2: Julian Hall + Allan Dunbar; L3: Gillian Cairns + Alasdair Hind; L4: Alasdair Hind
9.30 Early Start
Team 3: Charlie’s Angels
L1: Lynne Stevely; L2: Sadie Kemp + Charlie Crawford; L3: Sadie Kemp + Romana Gorjanc; L4: Julie Hand
Team 4: Cuiken with Gas
L1: Melanie Dunbar; L2: Juliane Friedrich (bossiest) + Robin Hall; L3: Tracy Philp + Sarah Burthe; L4: Tracy Philp
Team results are already in (splits not yet up). From a record turn out of 151 teams, we came in at:
Go Harriers
Full results here:
http://www.fifeac.org/events/fife-ac-events/devils-burdens/1277-devil-s-burdens-2018.html
but at the time of writing/posting this, they are updating it, so I hope the results do not change and they are just adding the split times etc
I am pretty sure 18th is the best place we’ve ever had. Our time was even 2 seconds quicker than last which despite the extreme windy conditions of leg 2. The V50 first male team was 22nd, so we really need to find a couple of old codgers for next year.
FaceBook has gone nuts with photos which I will not post here, but rather than write a multi-author blog post, it might be best if people simple write their experiences below in the comments section. I’m pretty sure there was some experiences.
One particularly good one can be viewed here. 🙂
https://www.relive.cc/view/1377672457
Fabulous!!!
some select piccies from the day
A great day out as always, such a pity we went wrong coming off West Lomond. If it hadn’t been so wet and windy we may have taken more care in our choice of descent. It took us a while to work out where we had gone wrong and we made the difficult decision to return back to the summit as we thought attempting a traverse may have gone badly. A map and compass is only useful if you know where you are! We weren’t the only ones who had gone wrong and when there are others with you it brings an unwelcome responsibility. Alls well that ends well and we made it back to the top. There were other runners there and we followed our compass and a path down. It can’t have been the usual one as once we were out of the murk we could see the other runners in the distance (late start leg 2 runners had started to come through by then), so had a tough run across the heather to get back on track. All in we managed to add about a mile on the distance and quite a lot of climb too. As the day went on the cloud lifted and so the rest of the run went much more smoothly. I quite enjoyed being out in the hills all afternoon and both my running partners were excellent company. I am very proud of how our team performed, we kept it together and kept our chins up despite things not going to plan. Charlie and Julie were absolute heroes doing all the driving and Lynne did a very good job of making sure no-one was left in their cold wet kit for long when they had finished their leg. Fantastic team spirit all round!
Great to have two “late start” teams, and four in total. Peni-tense began with a fine first leg from Anderson, handing over not so far behind that young whippet Greens. Hall and Dunbar set off on the easy tarmac and forest trail that provides the opening kilometres of Leg 2. Rather than skipping past teams, as they did last year as early starters, they did well to hold position. Ascending West Lomond was hard, until they hit the west face, when gale force winds forced them to cling to the greasy turf with their finger nails. Stones from West Lomond’s cairn were being whipped away as unguided missiles, so they were thankful for their upwind approach to the summit. From there they chose the right descent route and crossed the undulating fathomless bog of the Devil’s Burdens plateau. Later, they passed Kemp and Crawford, who were tiring from their hill reps on West Lomond. Feeling frisky, and a stickler for the traditional route to Scotlandswell, Hall led them all over another attractive summit before the helter-skelter dance on a path greased with liquid mud, and still with a hurricane-force cross-wind, down into the woods. After a final traverse to Kinnesswood, they were glad to hand over the control card to Cairns and Hind.
Leg 3 started with a calf stretching climb straight up the hill. The wind was blowing some as we followed the edge of the hill north and I was happy it was mostly beside us. Cairns (sticking with Hall’s football style commentary 😉 ) was having so much fun in the gusts she kept doing extra little loops off the path. Once we turned east and headed towards the bonny, bonny flanks of West Lomond it got much calmer. With the sun now breaking through it was lovely jaunt along the track before the descent to the handover. Hind had claimed the leg 4 runner would be chosen with a game of paper, scissors, stone and it almost came down to it. Hind won the bonus and did an about turn and headed back up. Managed a steady climb but the run across to East Lomond was a struggle – getting to walk up the last steep bit was a relief. Almost blown the wrong way off the top and then headed for the rainbow. No pot of gold at the end – just a welcome cheer from Kate. Down through the woods and the day was done. If only I’d known how close to 4 hrs overall we were I’d have rolled down East Lomond… Great team effort.
Thanks again for doing leg 4 Alasdair! My knee is very achy, so glad I bailed 🙂
Fabulous day that started with pishy rain but evolved into nice sunshine.
Leg 2 was tough for those who ran it with rather extreme winds in places.
Duncan and I ran leg 3 and we busted a gut (pushing each other) and were not passed by anyone – luckily we did not know that Steve Fallon was breathing down our necks 60 seconds behind 🙂 . Bar a strong crosswind for the few kms from Bishop Hill, the conditions were pretty good albeit the ground very wet and muddy in places. Gonna feel this in the morning, but happy to have my running legs back finally.
Complete kudos to young Michael for running leg 1 and 4 – I think that was a good strategy. Good place team!!! 19th 🙂