Last Saturday was the annual Goat fell hill race on Arran which I’ve been focusing most of my training for.
It was a challenging day weather wise but it all added to the excitement.
Arran Mrt www.arranmountainrescue.com marshalled the hill to ensure all the runners made it up and down safely. Without Mrt supporting these hill races, they wouldn’t be able to run.
I think it’s important to keep these races going as it’s part of our history and it’s nice to see that the insurance to cover Mrt teams has been sorted out.
My first attempt of this race was last year, where I made the mistake of going far to fast in the first few miles and burning out fairly quickly. I also didn’t have the knowledge I do now with regards to proper nutrition.
This time I made sure I was stocked up with gels & energy drink from http://www.torqfitness.co.uk
I can’t recommend this stuff highly enough. The gels are really tasty, easy to swallow and most importantly don’t leave that residue in your mouth that you sometimes get with other products.
Last years time over the line was 2hrs 10mins and I literally had to walk for a good majority of the way as I had raced off at the start.
This year I ran my own race, a tip a friend had reiterated to me by message a few hours before the race.
I kept myself focused and ran the entire way until I reached the boulders just past the shoulder. From here it was the spider man sprackle up to the summit where I was greeted by my good friends and MRT marshals.
They were doing a grand job in the torrential rain.
It was raining hard the entire race and I was aware of how slippy it was underfoot on the way down.
I had a couple of “nearly!” moments on the way back down to the shoulder but managed to let my feet do the work & disengaged the brain a bit.
Past the shoulder, I gained more speed and managed to fly past a few safety conscious(sensible) runners.
I flew down, ripping open another Torq gel to keep me going when I hit the flat again at the castle drive.
I’d managed to catch up with a runner who was going at my pace so I stuck behind him, focusing on his feet.
It was a short while later that I was met with a mouth full of stones.
I can’t remember falling but knew id fallen hard.
I lay there for a few seconds working out if I’d damaged my neck but I was ok so I jumped up, wiping away the blood as I had put my teeth through the inside of my lip.
There was quite a lot of blood but apart from my mouth & gravel burnt chin I was ok and good to keep going.
The guy in front had stopped to check if I was alright but after I’d assessed myself I told him to keep going.
20 minutes later I was crossing the finishing line in a time of 1hr58 and although I looked like I’d been in the wars, I was a very happy bunny for beating last years time !
A great race which can hopefully continue to run for a long time.