The Two Breweries is one of the oldest hill races in Scotland and this year is one of the SHR Champs Race so loads of fast folk turned up. Having never won an SHR series mug I needed this race plus one more to earn one so we all gathered on the lawn in front of the courtyard gates at Traquair House brewery with the simple challenge of heading over the hills to finish at the Broughton Ales brewery about 30km away.
While it felt quite cool at the start, but by 2km into the race I had to strip off to a vest and ran the rest carrying 2 long sleeve tops in my back along with the necessary full metal jacket. The route follows hill tracks then sections of open heather, a bit of bog, mud and steep up and down with some short bits on tarmac and a very steep finishing climb. Don’t be fooled, while not the biggest hills or longest run, it is an arduous race and incredible to me that it has been done in 2:33:57 by John Taylor in 1991 and 2:53:56 by Angela Mudge in 2000. I managed sub 4hrs in 2014 but was a long time behind this only narrowly getting through the various cut-offs yesterday. More hill running training needed me-thinks.
Given what were pretty good conditions, if a little wet underfoot here and there, the records were safe by around 15 and 18 mins for the boys and girls. Lots of Carnethy folk walked around grinning with V40 and V50 prize boxes of Traquair beers – so well done to them all. Shettlestone had crates of beers suggesting they did better. Full 2019 results are here. Thankfully there were plenty of free bottles going so even I got a beer, possibly for the special ‘Slowest 5’3’’ 52 years old Male with beard’ category. Go me.
Mark Hartree