Race Report - Dumyat Hill Race 2015

For the last two years I’ve been laid out with a heavy cold in the first week of May. 

I know this because during the two and a half years I’ve worked in Stirling, I’ve been out of action during the annual Dumyat Hill Race, a long-established out-and-back peak-bagging adventure of mud and rocks which I’ve felt like a fool for missing.

It’s taken an embarrassingly long while for me to get to the start line of a race whose route I can actually see from my office window, but I’m so glad I did...

Dumyat [pronounced dumb eye at] has been run annually since a £1 bet in 1972 claimed that it was impossible to run from the University of Stirling’s Gannochy Sports Centre to the summit of Dumyat, a 418m/1,371ft peak at the edge of the Ochil Hills, and back, within an hour (a distance of five miles and total ascent of 390m). The hour is the watershed, therefore, between metaphorically winning the pound or slinking off home to think again. With men’s and women’s records in the region of 35 minutes, it’s achievable, but not without a fight…

Added pressure for me came in the form of many colleagues who have raced previous years, or entered this year, or who just know more about the event than I did. I’d also recruited a pal, Kathryn, whom you may remember as Deerstalker-in-Chief and whose mountain credentials are infinitely more impressive than mine. All this conspired to an impressive amount of pre-race excuse-making on my part. I mean look at the weather. My back hurts. I’ve been sat at a desk all day. Etc.

Dumyat has always been a low-key affair but I think this year it’s edging towards more infrastructure. The race is ‘gun-to-chip’ timed, entries are managed online, marshals are everywhere and almost 300 people finished the 2015 event. We are a long way from 1972.

But once we were away from the start line we’re into a magnificently scrappy, scruffy, off-road test that feels much more like I imagine oldschool hillrunning to be. It’s crowded in the middle of the field, and we’re ducking and weaving between trees and gaps in stone walls and stiles and streams, occasionally slowing to allow the crowd to thin out ahead, tripping over rocks and sinking into watery mud. I’m grinning madly with delight.

The first half is very up. But it’s also a bit down – we’re fighting to gain elevation but then keep maddeningly losing a little on our progress to the top. After the first mile or so we’re literally out of the woods and onto a broad moor-type landscape, which allows much more room for overtaking and the field spreads out width-ways as runners choose different lines up the hill. I’m surrounded by people of clearly varying ability, but the wild spectrum of terrain and profile mean that this race demands you to be a sturdy climber, fearless descender, navigator of rocks and mud, good at choosing lines and also pretty competent on the flat. I’m confident that everyone in the race will have felt great at some points and found wanting in others.

Out of the woods and chasing down the summit.
Photo borrowed from www.scottishhillracing.co.uk

After a couple of miles the leaders fly past me in the opposite direction. Dumyat is the prototypical out-and-back, so we’re sharing a boggy, hilly, rocky, narrow route trudging uphill with extremely talented hill runners who are flying back down. It’s perilous and thrilling and hilarious. Club and university vests dominate the leading figures and I do my best to stay out of the way whilst also trying to maintain some worthwhile progress of my own.

An odd phenomenon is the peer pressure to both walk and run certain sections. Kathryn and both found that whenever the person in front of us slowed to a walk on the steepest sections, we did the same, even if we were feeling fresh enough to run. When they ran, we felt compelled to run too. This may have something to do with the narrowness of the route in places – and for me my total lack of course knowledge – but next year I’ll resolve to ignore everyone else and run my own race.

I finally reached the summit and was blown away by the view. The concept suddenly made sense. Weather earlier in the day may have been abysmal, but at 7.30ish in the evening the view was so clear I could pick out the Forth Bridges and Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, 40 miles distant. Sadly, with no time to appreciate the full majesty of the entire Central Belt, I started a reckless, wild descent back to the Gannochy.

There’s really nothing better for the ego than being on the ‘back’ leg of an out and back race. The banter’s hilarious and you feel like a minor celebrity. I did my best to be brave and let my legs fly down the hill, moving so fast I could feel my insides shaking about with every impactful step. At points I was basically falling down a cliff and trying to keep my legs moving fast enough to keep up with my progress. Hill running – for me at least – is mostly about trying to think fast enough to work out where each foot can safely land next, and the added chaos of people running towards you makes for a major mental and physical test.

I passed Kathryn, on her way up, as we splashed through a waterlogged flat(ish) section. She howled in mock pain as we high-fived at high speed. The descent passed in a blur – although a small incline with half a mile to go almost finished me off – and before long I was back to the sports centre and accepting the incredulous congratulations of some colleagues who had come along to support. I clocked 51:19 and won my metaphorical pound.

Papped at the finish. #KeepUpLad

Kathryn beamed across the finish line a little while later and we debriefed, incredulous as to how much fun it was. We immediately resolved to be back for 2016 – and what’s more I know exactly where I can shave a minute or two off my time. A few practice runs wouldn’t go amiss either...

Happy running

Dave

2015 to date: miles run - 405.62, parkruns - 3, races - 3

Race Report - Bedgebury Forest Trailblazer 10k 2014

Holy cow, a race report!  It’s almost exactly a year since my last race, The Wall RunUltramarathon 2013, so you’d be forgiven for being startled by this post. My apologies. Take a moment to recover.

But first, a quandary. What on earth do you buy for someone who has no birthday gift list and no Christmas list, but has his birthday four days before Christmas?  You’ve got to start with buying two things, obviously, one for each gift-receiving event. And they’re both for your brother.

I ummed and aahed. I rejected clothes (I don’t think he believes in clothes), I rejected DVDs (no-one buys DVDs any more, do they?) and I rejected anything that was explicitly marketed as a gift (ie a disposable thing of inflated value and limited longevity). I pondered. I almost bought things. Then I had an idea. The Crew Chief and I have a habit of buying each other weekends away, theatre tickets or other such experience-based gifts, so I applied this idea to my conundrum.

So I signed Nick and I up to run the Trailblazer.

On his/our birthday I presented him first with a new pair of running gloves (something he actually needed), then with an envelope containing a print-out of our race entry confirmations. I prepared my gracious-gift-giving-face.

He didn’t seem impressed.

But fast forward six months or so, and he seemed pretty keen as we laced up our trainers and headed down to the forest for a few miles of muddy adventure. Nick had never run a Rat Race event before and I had a feeling he would enjoy it. The only recent occasions we had run together had highlighted that he’s in much better shape than me – doubtless owed equally to his 10-mile round-trip of a commute on his bike every day and a convincingly motivated running schedule which I do not possess. I had neither of these things to boost my confidence and hoped only to be able to hang on to whatever speed he brought with him.

In fact I had even less to work with. My stomach was misbehaving and the Gingerbread Man was a nagging concern all morning in the build-up to our wave’s 11.15am start time. Perhaps my sushi-and-lager dinner the night before, hurriedly wolfed down in Edinburgh airport before I dashed to my Gatwick flight, had done me no favours. But something tells me that I’ve developed a habit of inflicting physiologically-manifesting pre-race nerves on myself which I really need to get under control…

Things started predictably in Bedgebury. I’ve never been to this particular forest/country park/pinetum (new word for the day) and it makes for a great venue for the usual Rat Race set up of beer tent, kit store, warm-up area, stage, registration tent etc. We mumbled quiet curses at the summer rain and it eventually got the message and shoved off before our start time, leaving a sunburn-inflicting cloudless sky. By the time our wave was deemed warm and ready to go we processed down a steep gradient to the start, as I mentally and with muttered curses registered the number of feet that would later need to be regained in ascent. A final briefing (‘the park is open, mind the mountain bikes!’) and we were off.

Tight early turns and a narrow course, even for our small-ish wave of runners, made the first couple of kilometres a tough exercise in positioning and finding a comfortable pace. Nick seemed to fall into an early rhythm, and I tried to slip into his step but found myself working harder than I should have. Before long I started to worry about my stomach – I was sure that I was going to vomit or do something worse at a microsecond’s notice. I tried to suppress negative thoughts and enjoy the view.

The course is set in a lovely environment, along rough, stone or muddy roads and trails through a dense forest, and a wholly pleasant place to be of a Saturday morning. As ever with Rat Race events, the marshalls were cheerful and eager and the drinks table (cleverly visited twice on the course without having to run laps) was well stocked and was staffed by smiling, eager faces attached to quick hands. If I had any criticism it was that there wasn’t enough muddy, technical trail and a little too much tarmac for something billed as a trail race, but part of the issue may have been that we changed surface so many times that it was difficult to find any consistent rhythm. I guess I was hoping for something like a chunky, entertaining cross-countryish course rather than a forest-based road race with some muddy bits, but I can hardly complain. Rat Race offer plenty of races with much more nonsense if you’re so inclined. The only ‘obstacle’, as far as I remember, was a very small ditch, but the deceptively long hills, undulating profile and tight corners were more challenging than they first appeared.

Regardless of surroundings, my stomach was wretched. Nick and I had gone through 5k together in a little over 24 minutes, but at a water station shortly afterwards I slowed to drink while Nick carried on. I fought to catch up but only to tell him to stop waiting and to go on ahead. He didn’t need telling twice.

I lumbered through the next few km’s keeping Nick in my sights, usually about 15-20 metres ahead of me. At this stage I was sustaining myself by thinking that I could still partly salvage, if not entirely save face. But just before 9km the race chucked us out onto tarmac, and Nick lit the afterburners. I had nothing in the tank to respond with and watched him go.

Nick about to finish

I hauled myself onwards and up a final grassy incline to the event village, relieved to arrive in the finger-loop which immediately preceded the finish line. I tried to pick up the pace and look a little more impressive for the only section of the course to feature any spectators (including both of our parents), but spoiled it by immediately by landing on all-fours once over the line, anticipating a return appearance of my breakfast, which mercifully never came. My chip time read 50:37, Nick’s was 49:43, which was good enough for 68^th (me) and 59^th (Nick) from a field of around 600. Not bad.

Very relieved to be done. Ace goody bag.

We hustled ourselves more or less straight into the beer tent for some pints and watched the last few waves warm up and process down to the start. My dad, who I don’t think has seen me race before, took a lot of photos and marvelled at the slick set-up of the event village. My mum cursed her hayfever and gave the bored-looking first aiders something to do by soliciting an antihistamine.  They both fussed over us with towels and spare clothes, then immediately uploaded their finish-line photos to Facebook, accurately capturing how totally wrecked we were. A classic race day.

It’s rather good, this racing lark, eh? I might do some more of it.

Happy running

Dave

Race Report - The Mighty Deerstalker 2012

Hauling my torso out from under the tightly-pinned cargo net, I slumped face-first into the mud as both my thighs cramped up at the same time. I was maybe 30 yards from the finish line, with just two six-foot walls separating me from a medal and a mars bar. It was dark, and frosty, and I was soaking wet. Several other unfortunates were stacking up behind me as I was causing something of a bottleneck. Luckily I was wearing a stupid hat, waistcoat and tweed tie, which lent a jaunty and jovial air to my glorious suffering, and things probably weren’t as bad as they seemed. With a small whimper I dragged my right leg out from under me and planted my good ankle firmly in the ground, ready for the last, pathetic stumble to the finish line...

Rewind quite a lot of hours and I’m in a nice warm car, barrelling along a deserted rural road on a stunning, sunny day in the Scottish Borders. When the wilderness opened up to reveal the small village of Innerleithen, it was obvious that preparations for The Mighty Deerstalker (part of the Notorious Night Run series organised by Rat Race), were already well underway. Before long I found myself safely in the company of Team Venture Trust, whose expert wilderness skills had created a tipi base camp equipped with hot water, cold showers, a trestle table covered in chocolate and even a few cheeky pre-race beers.

For the uninitiated, some context might be needed. First read this, then read that, and also generally know that this event is an off-road, fell running, river crossing, scree-climbing, obstacle hurdling festival of mud and tweed-clad nonsense at Traquair House. There are two events; The Deerstalker, billed as 5k and a bit (clocked at 7-8k), and The Mighty Deerstalker, described as 10k and the rest (later reported as closer to 17k!). The Deerstalker would kick off at 2pm, with the Mighty version waiting until 5.45pm, or later if the organisers thought it wasn’t dark enough for the requisite volume of utter, magnificent nonsense.

Being a proud, self-assured, boastful idiot I always struggle to choose the easier option when it comes to registering for these kind of things, so I had dutifully signed myself up for the Mighty Deerstalker, leaving plenty of time in the afternoon for me to hang around, support VT’s 5k runners, misguidedly drink a beer and generally enjoy the tweedy light-hearted atmosphere that engulfs this race.  Not wanting to feel left out, I decided to don my waistcoat, trilby and tweed tie early on in proceedings, finished off with a fine moustache and VT facepaint. I was ready for some country pursuits.

The 5k started in a mass of colour and surge of tweed-clad bodies. The VT group, composed of some staff, some supporters and a very eager trustee, did themselves proud in a variety of ways, ranging from immense costume dedication to some really quite impressive runs, on a very, very challenging course. As we shall see. The glorious sunshine lasted long into the afternoon, and before too long the first few runners trickled back into the main site, the winner completing his ‘5k’ just under 50 minutes. We cheered and whooped and gasped as ‘stalkers hauled themselves over the final two obstacles (those six foot walls) and made ragged dashes for the finish line. Their broad grins and muddy boots confirmed more-or-less what I knew this race to be like, and I was pumped for my own crack at the course.

The temperature plummeted as we neared zero hour for the Mighty amongst us, and though the cloudless sky held the darkness back, it was clear we were in for a cold, dark night. I gave up on my shorts-only plan and threw on my compression leggings and gloves, strapped the mandatory headtorch onto my trilby and readied myself for the off. I was already shod in my Innov8 Mudclaws, and congratulated myself on the quality of my kit and general preparedness. If only I had actually done some training as well.

And so to the race itself. My nervous energy behind the start line was at least shared – I started with almost the whole Venture Trust 10k team; Brett, Andy, Marco, Mo, Karen and Owen (where was Nina? Good question). Even our cheerful murmurings that we would stick together weren’t reassuring, as I was pretty confident that as soon as the gun went we would be completely, irreconcilably spread out. And so it was – immediately after the gun we completely lost each other as we lurched uphill towards a modest hay-bale jump, before turning back on ourselves and heading out into the wilderness.

First we clambered through the shoe-stealing mudbath (my shoelaces were triple-knotted and stayed safe), then round a corner and up into the forest. The trails varied from steep to relatively flat to extremely bloody steep, all of them rough and muddy. I have no way of explaining how steep it was, except to say that when I got to what I thought was the top, it got much, much steeper. We cut through what looked like virgin forest, up a slope so raked towards the sky that we had to haul ourselves up more or less by hand. Then we plummeted straight back down, along a mountain bike trail that had to be negotiated either at a snail’s pace or at 400 miles an hour. I chose 400 miles an hour and started a bad relationship with my left ankle which is still in a negative spiral...

After that bit of extreme up and down came some more up, just for a change. Nearing the top of this section we plunged into a dense, dark forest, where balance beams and cargo nets sprung from nowhere and hindered my already slow uphill slog. At this point some poor unfortunate passed me in the opposite direction, mournfully looking for his headtorch. He would be needing it quite soon.

Finally reaching the top of this hill it was obvious what was coming next, and my tender ankle was already suffering on the downhill running sections. When I say running downhill, what I mean is pretty much just falling down a cliff with your feet moving near the ground. Plunging through various sections, more randomness started to assault the senses – there’s the woodland disco at an outrageous volume and with disco lights shining in the trees, yet more cargo nets, stray logs to leap over, random fences to avoid and much more besides. Darkness was gathering just as a vast firework was set off, signifying that the lead runner had crested the final hill of the race. I was quite a long way away from anyone celebrating my run with fireworks at this point, and was trying quite hard to deny the existence of further hills if at all possible. In fact I was trying to achieve some sort of higher plane in which my ankle and stomach didn’t exist either, as I was struggling with horrible pains in both. With the wild undulations in terrain and gradient, there was no hope of getting into a rhythm and ‘settling in’ – which is how I have always survived long runs – and instead I was focussing on calculating every single step to avoid calamity. My ankle was already careering towards disaster, and my stomach wasn’t far behind.

There may not have been many spectators out for this race, but we didn’t need them. The frivolous, silly, what-a-jape-this-is atmosphere meant that runners were always keeping each others’ spirits up, offering words of encouragement or concern to flagging ‘stalkers, helping each other over and around obstacles, and generally having little concern for ‘racing’. Quite right too, as things were getting even more absurd and darkness was falling fast.

Reaching the bottom of the valley, we hit the flat section along the river and were afforded a few moments’ respite from the insane gradients. A young woman barrelled past me and rather unsportingly shouted ‘come on boys, you’re being beaten by a girl!’. A hero behind me said ‘get the kettle on when you get there, love’ and the cosmic balance of sexist arrogance was restored. We followed the river for a short while, before hopping into the water for a short crossing to the opposite bank, our first real experience of the volume of cold and wet that would feature in our evening. Next a humourously-placed fuel stop (don’t drink the river water) and then straight back into the river, this time for several hundred yards’ trudge upstream rather than a quick paddle. This was probably my favourite bit – the freezing water soothed the throbbing in my ankle and a modest but enthusiastic turnout of supporters waved to us from bridges and back gardens. All too soon, it was time for another hill...

And here the Notorious Night Run really turned into the Notorious Night Queue. I had been warned about this, as the trails in some parts offer little room for overtaking, but after the next small (all things relative) hill we were onto the scree slope, and doomed to watch the backside of the person in front of us. I have tried to think of ways to describe the most extreme gradient of the scree, and this is the best I can do: stand up straight and stretch your arm straight out in front of you.  At the tip of your fingers is the trail ahead. It’s made of nothing but loose, shifting rocks. There are 600 people in front of you and a thousand behind you. You’ve been running for over an hour and half already. To your right is a drop of a few hundred feet onto more rocks and in front of you are several hundred more feet left to climb.

You paid good money for this. And are having a brilliant time.

I finally crested the hill, slightly disappointed to discover there was no firework to welcome the runner in 600-and-something-th place. Then I was back to more descending, my ankle weak and painful, my stomach threatening chemical warfare as I caught my first glimpse of a teammate for over an hour. Karen cheerfully greeted me as she sailed past me and off into the night. I apologised that I couldn’t keep up with her, realising that this wasn’t really bothering her at all as she skipped lightly down the mountain. I practised my gracious loser face.

The descent got so extreme at one point that near-vertical ropes had been strung down the hillside, making for more of an abseil than a run. This was getting ridiculous. I struggle to remember the order of events from here, but I think it was more or less flat (this can’t be right), before a zig-zagging series of hops in and out of the river. The final utter absurdity was a chest-high wade through a river tunnel that was later universally referred to as ‘the sewage tunnel’ due to its stench, as well as a few other dips in and out of muddy nonsense... 

Finally we regained the main site, where a last uphill barely registered on my mental altimeter compared to what had already happened, but then resignedly had to haul myself through a large plastic pipe, before crawling under a certain tightly-pinned cargo net. And there I am. Poised, ready to have a crack at the last two obstacles – a pair of six-foot plywood walls. After one miserable failed attempt at hauling myself over the first one, I enlisted a confused stalker to give me a leg-up over the bloody thing, then made a beeline for the marshal whose sorry job it was to launch people over the second wall. Moments later I was across the finish line, dimly aware of some familiar voices screaming my name as I stumbled over.

There was small satisfaction to learn that the course was clocked as being more like 17k, but my 2:28:07 still felt like it had lasted weeks. My left ankle was useless (still is), my stomach was achingly empty, I was freezing, wet and disorientated, and generally in need of being somewhere (if not entirely someone) else. There was little or no euphoria in finishing, only blessed relief...

My respect and gracious-loser face go to Brett, Andy and Karen, who respectively beat me by 10, 9 and 2 minutes, but in equal measure goes out to everyone who ran this race for Venture Trust. The 5k runners, including Kathryn (Deerstalker-in-Chief), Queen Sherien, extraordinarily-fast Mairi, Jenni, Jenna, and those legends from RGU:RAG, Steph, Sarah, Wiebke and Izzy, who achieved perhaps even greater acclaim for their costuming skills than their fell-running. Credit furthermore to the rest of the 10k-ers: Marco Biagi MSP (probably one of the few MSPs prepared to have his face forcibly painted before throwing himself around mud and mountains of a Saturday night), to the awesome Mo B Quick, tenacious Nina and barefoot Owen. It was immense, and has raised over £2,000 for Venture Trust already. It's still not too late to donate - click here!

Happy stalking

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 86.74, miles biked: 23.4, metres swum: 750

How I deliberately cycled 35 miles

Exactly one year ago, when the Crew Chief was away for the weekend, I packed a rucksack and fairly spontaneously ran 18 miles along theWater of Leith on my own. I don’t know where this impulse comes from, but when left to my own devices I seem to get an uncontrollable urge to go on some sort of self-supported adventure. Perhaps it’s because the Chief would point out the obvious flaws in my (lack of) planning. Or maybe just that I’d rather spend my free days with her when I can.

Whatever it is, it’s happened again.

This time there was slightly more planning, mostly because I recruited another person to join me on my frivolous jaunt – Will Wright. If Will had been born in the early eighteenth century, he would have been some sort of swashbuckling pioneer, discovering new lands and claiming them for floppy-haired Welshmen everywhere. Since he was born in the late eighties he has to make do with a lot of travel, mad business ventures and cycling all over the place instead. I also needed to make more of an equipment plan, as this was to be a cycling adventure. Since I know nothing about bike maintenance I ended up spending eleventy billion pounds getting my bike serviced before daring to use it over a significant distance. So slightly more planning, yes. But not much.

Having never cycled more than about 10 miles in one go, I didn’t really have a frame of reference about what was achievable. So instead we picked a route, the towpath that runs alongside the Union Canal, and a vague destination, the extraordinary Falkirk Wheel, planning to get the train home afterwards. The canal runs all the way from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and Falkirk is a little under two-thirds between the two. 

Ready for the off.

And so it was that at precisely 10.38 a.m. on Sunday that Will and I set off – the pedals on his mountain bike held together with duct tape and the narrow, brand new tyres on my hybrid entirely inappropriate for the varied terrain ahead. We cycled the early miles through the heavily-populated part of the canal’s path, where cheerful barges share the canal with rowers and kayakers, calm suburban gardens back onto the water and almost everyone seems to be walking a small white terrier. There was very little chance to pick up any speed, as this carefully-maintained part of the route is neatly tarmaced and often crowded with walkers, runners, cyclists and children. But no matter – it’s a lovely place to be. Once we had crossed the aqueduct over the Edinburgh bypass, we were deposited into beautiful green countryside. We were making good time and enjoying the freedom of a day on the bike, by and large, and I was waiting for some tiredness to kick in so I could get on with the ensuing endorphin surge.

We managed a little over six miles before needing a pit stop, when Will had to remove his rear mudguard to stop it angrily rubbing against the back tyre. Will is the kind of person who never goes anywhere without an adjustable spanner, a multi-tool and a roll of duct tape. He is a useful person to have around if things move when they shouldn't or don’t when they should. Five minutes later we were back on the trail, speeding though countryside.

Then more countryside.

And some more countryside.

Then, suddenly, even more countryside.

In fact, 15 miles in, we were getting a little bit bored of countryside. With the canal always on our left, a quickly-deteriorating trail under our wheels and fields spread out everywhere else, the view was beautiful but monotonous. Those few landmarks that did pop up quickly receded into the distance, leaving us to continue contemplating the fields. The trail was becoming an issue too. Perhaps when it was built by some bearded Victorians it was carefully laid down and relatively smooth, but in 2011 the majority of the path is either hard earth or broken stones, which my unforgiving tyres juddered over for miles on end. My hands slowly shook to pieces as the handlebars vibrated viciously in my grip. As I watched Will sail off into the distance, smoothly riding his mountain bike on chunky fat tyres, I conceded that I had brought the wrong tool for the job...

Two hours after setting off we arrived in Linlithgow, our nominally-designated lunch stop, and cycled into town in search of sustenance. We had covered just over 21 miles. I was utterly starving and starting to tire, with sore knees and a few other niggling complaints. Weirdly, I seem to have missed out on the endorphin surge that I would have expected from two hours of non-stop exercise. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but I know for certain that after running for two hours I am always exhausted and elated – two hours into our bike ride I was just exhausted.

After lunch, the trail got worse. Large muddy patches posed a serious skidding risk, as I frequently lost what little traction I had. In places we were cycling on what looked like a thin forest track, very far removed from the smooth, broad path we started the morning on. Weaving around puddles was turning into a dangerous activity too, as we swerved pointlessly away from the mud and water. We ended up covered in a thin layer of mud and Will’s lack of a rear mudguard made a predictable mess of his back and trousers. 

But as it deteriorated the route was getting more interesting. At one point we cycled through the most extraordinary tunnel, probably a mile long and bored directly through an enormous hill. The roof of the tunnel was lit up every 20 metres or so, showing the rough rock edges and giving the impression of some sort of underground boat ride at Disneyland, looking almost too spooky to be real. All we could do was focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, as in places it was so dark that when I looked down I lost my balance, unable to distinguish between the wall, the ground and my wheels. Veering off course here would have ended very badly indeed – specifically, in the canal, in the dark, with a bike.

The miles kept ticking along, albeit rather slower than they had earlier. We were both pretty tired, and happy to bimble along side-by-side where the path allowed, discussing the monotony of the landscape and generally putting the world to rights. Just a mile and  a half from Falkirk, Will’s duct-taped pedal finally snapped in two and he made the rest of the journey with his foot resting on its broken shaft. Closing in on the last mile we passed a lock, the first we had seen after the miles and miles of perfectly flat water, and suddenly we were cycling along a heavily developed section of canal, including going through a modern concrete (and mercifully well lit) tunnel. As we broached daylight at the end, the Falkirk Wheel popped up in front of us, an impressive and very welcome sight.

Mission accomplished. And before you shout at me, I took my helmet off for this photo.
Otherwise I wore it all day, promise.

We had a very brief look around (disappointed not to see the wheel in action) and then meandered into Falkirk in search of the train station. After having cycled over 35 miles and spending most of the day travelling under my own steam, it was quite depressing to find that my train fare home was less than £4, for a journey of just 25 minutes. Such is life.

I have concluded a few things from this cycling initiative. First, that cycling is much more efficient than running. If I was even capable of doing it, a 35 mile run would probably take me between five and six hours, and I would be struggling to walk for weeks afterwards. On the bike it took us less than 3 ½ at a leisurely, comfortable pace. Second, that my bike is really not suitable for all terrains. Third, and probably most importantly, I’ve concluded what I long suspected: that cycling, for me, lacks the magic that makes it so hard to explain the appeal of running. Cycling feels like a means to an end – just a way to get from A to B. Running isn’t about A or B, it’s about the journey. If I had run 35 miles yesterday I know I would have finished the trip forever changed by the experience. Instead I’ve just got some mud on my trainers and had a nice day out. Cycling lacks the magic.

Unless, of course, I just didn't cycle far enough...

Happy locomotion

Dave

2011 to date: miles: 1020.62, parkruns: 6, races: 6, miles biked: 155, metres swum: 1225

Mud, sweat and beers - why I love XC

In a road race, you will run exactly the number of miles you signed up for. The course will be smooth and tarmaced and lovely. Everything will be planned down to the last detail and you'll be given the best possible chance of running your best possible race. When you finish you have an isotonic drink and a banana, then go home to calculate your split times.

In a cross-country race the opposite is a true. The distance will be a rough guess, the terrain entirely unpredictable, you might finish the race with fewer shoes than you started with, and you will definitely get muddy. You could get lost, or fall in a river, or trip on a rabbit hole, or be abused by the countryside in any number of exciting ways. When you finish you have beer and cake.

I was reminded of this distinction when I met up with some old friends in St Andrews yesterday, Megan and Chris, who were both kind enough to contribute to the first load of my mates running, and Gardner, these days more of a boxer than a runner, terrifyingly. Our only plan was to run a few miles, but I'm nearly two years out of University now and I had forgotten what this means to members of the Auld Grey Toon's cross country club. We started at a light pace following the Lade Braes, a very well maintained footpath along the Kinnesburn river, until the old, familiar suggestion sneaks in, this time from Chris: 'there's a trail over there...'

We're on a rough trail picking our way through a forest and over loose branches and rocks. The terrain is mad and undulating. Suddenly we're in an open, grassy park, then on a different trail, now crossing a road, a dodgy log bridge, then wading through mud. Bursting into a clearing I realise we're at another road crossing, where I am assured that it's tarmac from here on. Maybe they think I've gone soft?

I think Chris took offence to my shiny new shoes.

We enter the next section of footpath - last time I ran here this was a wild, insane bit of trail, muddy and wet and covered in so much interesting debris it looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Things are different now - Fife Council has for some reason invested cash in paving remote footpaths rather than filling potholes on busy roads, so this path is now completely accessible, though still outrageously steep. Not sure how I feel about this... We lose Gardner around this point - I think she had to go and punch something - but the three of us continue on our merry way and disgrace one of the golf courses with our muddy presence.

I experience another XC nuance that I had forgotten - whilst I normally do everything I can to run a perfectly even pace for the duration of my session, in XC training we run hard for a couple of miles, take a quick break and a breather, then run some more. The hard runs are hard, too; Megan made her debut for Scotland XC earlier this month, and Chris has legs like a freakin' racehorse. I just about keep up.

We finish after just under an hour; muddy, sweaty, cold and happy. I tracked our route with RunKeeper, and challenged Megan and Chris to guess the distance. They were both badly wrong, which is exactly what XC is about.

Thanks guys, I had a blast. Sign me up for the next mad race...

Happy mud-churning.

Dave

2011 to date - miles: 175.49, parkruns: 3, races: 0