Sunday 12 April 2009

SHR Scottish Championships at Clachnaben

Russell Anderson and Johnny Hall travelled north for the first race in the SHR Scottish Championships at Clachnaben,on Saturday.

Johnny's report is below:

I've been out of action for most of the last 3 weeks with flu and then food poisoning but I was well enough to give the race a go. Hopefully, I've kicked my system into touch now with this very demanding race. For most of it though, I was wondering what I was thinking.Clachnaben is very, very tough. It's only 10.5 miles and about 1100m of ascent but the ground is very rough - deep heather, boggy tracks, steep climbs and descents. I was going ok until the summit of Clachnaben, which is probably about halfway round but the descent off the back broke me in two and I couldn't recover - my legs weren't strong enough. I think I lost about 20 places and a boat load of time in the second half of the race.Russell fared a lot better than I did, although he too suffered on the descents. Russell raced round in 1:45:12 and 45th place, whilst I trailed round in 2:01:56 and an ignominious 91st. Not what I'd hope for but in the circumstances, it could have been worse.

More details on Johnny's personal blog

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