Remember the date 29th August remember the place Straiton South Ayrshire the venue for my first and probably last hill race, i joined recently converted hill runner Jim Phillips and experienced hill runner Anne Noble in the beautiful village of Straiton today, as part of the village gala day there is also a hill run, the distance is a manageable 2.3 miles but the climb is huge (in my opinion).

After forgetting my Garmin i didn’t know the exact height of the climb (internet says 200 meters) but part of it included crawling up on hands and knees, anyway the start was in the center of the village from where you ran on road for about half a mile before turning into a field for the start of a gentle climb, from the field you then went though a muddy wooded area before a leap over a stile and then the fun started, looking above you was the hill to climb where you could just make out the stick insect size of the marshall at the top, about two thirds up i was almost crawling and the last 200 meters i was crawling hands and knees at that, finally making it to the top it was time to turn around and head all the way back down, remember this was my first hill race and it became quickly obvious that while Adidas Supernova are great road shoes they are not so good to run down grassy hills interspread with various boulders, while a lot of runners quickly left me on the downhill i did a good impresssion of a hill runner totally out of his depth (though i did not fall unlike Jim), after finishing the big downhill  i then was back over the stile and into the wooded area and then back into the field  where finally pace could be picked up, leaving the field and back onto the road my legs turned to jelly, it was a weird sensation and really felt strange, it was then back into the village for a finish at the gala.

For the pricely sum of £3.00 this was hard and i think the foam roller will be needed tonight.

Results will be published when available.

Darrell