Checking the weather forecast the day before a race and seeing predicted winds of 50 mph, gusting to 70 mph, doesn’t exactly lift the spirits. However, sometimes when you have faith that it’ll be alright on the day and travel anyway you get to the start line to find the predicted bad weather is nowhere to be found and you run the race of your life in glorious sunshine, zero wind and temperatures that just keep you from overheating. Other times the race is cancelled or you have to run the bad weather route.
For the Mourne Highline, the first counter in the British Hill Running Championships, it was one of these other times (bad weather route). Sixteen Carnethys made the trip to Northern Ireland this year. Most of us travelled over on the Friday night and stayed in two houses located about 50m from the race centre and 150m from what turned out to be the race start. The bad weather route was around 12k (900m elevation) and headed along a forestry track before hitting the first slope. At this point my legs indicated they weren’t on the best form and the remainder of the race was going to be a case of getting round without throwing in the towel completely.
The run up the glen to the col between Donard and Commedagh was into a strong headwind so it was a relief to reach the Mourne Wall for the final stretch to the summit of Commedagh. From there it was back down the glen, for an unnerving wind assisted descent, and then onto single track and forestry tracks down to the finish. Some good results from Carnethy with Andy Fallas 6th overall and Dessie 4th V40 probably the pick of the bunch. The Carnethy Ladies were 4th team, one place better than the Carnethy Men with the Carnethy M40 team in 6th in their category.
The rest of the weekend passed enjoyably with Chef Lynch cooking up some great meals, with the support of various sous chefs and kitchen porters, for the group. We didn’t make our usual group visit for ice-cream this year so we’ll just have to head back for one in 2020. The next race in the British Championships is the Great Lakes Fell Race which is filling up fast so enter now https://www.sientries.co.uk/event.php?elid=Y&event_id=5543!