Wow! This is what it’s all about. Beautiful weather, beautiful village, beautiful scenery.

The start takes place in the village of New Abbey a few miles south of Dumfries on the outskirts of Mabie Forest. A straight forward race of 11km, up and down. Conditions were near perfect with a light breeze and perfect visibility. On the way down I glanced up and the views were quite simply, breathtaking.

48 started and finished with the winner coming in on 54:26. I was happy with my own time of 1:20:58. From my point of view, anything under 1:25 was going to be ok. This time, to try to avoid the leg cramps I loaded up on salty crisps and made sure I warmed up well. There was a bit of a worry on a few occasions but I got away with things, mainly I think because I wasn’t under any real race pressure. It’s something I’m going to need to be very careful about.

Hill running can be tough but the rewards are immense. Road running can be great fun and can take you to places where you think, “this is nice”. However, until you’ve done a few hills you simply won’t know that words such as “this is nice” simply aren’t enough.

Next up which I’m hoping to go to is the Screel hill race on 12 April at 1pm. Screel is just a bit south of Castle Douglas. The race is around 4 miles and the course is fairly unchallenging AND the £3 registration fee can’t be complained about.

FOR THE DIARIES – KAIM HILL RACE, FAIRLIE – Wednesday 30 April at 7pm. The first Ayrshire hill race of the year. A short 5.6 km dash to the top and back. DON’T MISS IT!