Well, the weather *was* good and as Alex said, it is a good one for newcomers to hill running.

Not so sure about being entirely runnable uphill for ordinary mortals (I probably ran about 90-95% of the uphill route) but the descent is great. Not too steep and if you avoid the main track and follow the quad bike trails instead, the footing is very good and on bouncy peat so little impact to worry about. Never too steep and you can fairly fly down it.

There were only 20 of us at the start and for the first half mile, I found myself in 3rd position which felt a bit odd given the experienced runners around me but I think the effort of last week’s Merrick hill race had slowed quite a few runners.

Of course, my third position didn’t last and I was soon passed by 3 runners dropping me to 6th which I held till about 2/3rds of the way up. Rather surprisingly, I then caught Findlay from Irvine and regained 5th, a postion that I then held all the way to the finish.

The winner finished in 33:48, I finished in 40:31 and Alex limped over the line in 43:10, clearly suffering with his hip injury from last weekend.

Great views from the top and well worth visiting just for a walk if you don’t fancy running up and down it.