You wait ages for a hill race and then three come along at once with the Scald Law Hill Race, Scald Law Fun Race and the Carnethy 5 all taking place on the same day and sharing part of the race route, facilities, marshals and equipment and the same level of enthusiasm and excitement in all three races.
Its a Carnethy showcase requiring a huge turnout of marshals but providing an occasion where the whole spectrum of runners take part. Despite blizzard conditions on the start line and white out conditions on the tops 12 juniors arrived on the start line with an amazing 8 of those runners being under 12.
Conditions led me to apply the foul weather route whereby all juniors run to the col between Carnethy and Scald Law then return rather than have the under 18s to under 14s run to Scald Law Summit which is actually higher than Carnethy.
Having delayed the start of the senior race to ensure that the last bus had arrived and all those competing in the senior race had made it to the start field, I started the junior races after the senior race to avoid any conflict on the initial ascent. Whilst adults shivered and shuddered in the driving cold and snow and no doubt berated me for the necessary late start, the juniors had snowball fights and built snowmen! Tough or what?
At 13 minutes past the hour Barry Craighead and I started the senior race and it was a seemingly long four minutes wait before we set off the juniors but the right decision as the way the juniors tore off across the bog they would have easily caught the senior tail enders before Charlie’s Loup and the first ascent.
Visibilty was so poor that beyond the Loup all competitors disappeared in the the wall of white and so it wasn’t until the first junior appeared zig-zagging through the gorse on the approach to the bog that the start/finish marshals felt more relaxed. Someone once said that “youth is the pollen which blows through the sky and doesn’t ask why” and they certainly blew through the extreme wind and weather and our partially reduced course and none of them seemed to ask why, it was more why not? First over the line a joyous Joshua some 10 seconds under 14 minutes and first female an annointed Anna only 8 minutes later. With the whole junior field back in around 26 minutes the finish team were greatly impressed. Tremendous running in challenging conditions but everyone of the juniors rose to the challenge… And enjoyed it.
Nick Macdonald
So the results thing…
The main result is that 12 youths dared to turn up and run and revelled in it.
In finishing order they were:
1 | Joshua | Boyle | Ronhill | 13:49 | MU16 |
2 | Charlie | Burnett | Carnethy | 16:10 | MU14 |
3 | Liam | Clark | Aberdeen AC | 17:02 | MU16 |
4 | John | Egmer | Settle Harriers | 17:04 | MU12 |
5 | Matthew | Ross | Carnethy | 18:20 | MU12 |
6 | Duncan | Gorman | Westerlands | 18:46 | MU18 |
7 | Thomas | Ross | Carnethy | 19:28 | MU12 |
8 | Andrew | Nash | Carnethy | 19:55 | MU12 |
9 | Anna | Burnett | Carnethy | 21:10 | FU12 |
10 | Sam | Bartlett | Interlopers | 21:11 | MU12 |
11 | James | Burnett | Carnethy | 23:57 | MU12 |
12 | Kai | Wheeler | Calder Glen Harriers | 26:22 | MU12 |