What a wonderful turn out we had for the smackdown! The four weeks saw more than 85 runners taking part and a grand total of 247 segments being completed. The breakdown of these segments is 137 by HBT and 110 by Carnethy.
The week-by-week breakdown is as follows:
Totals | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | TOTAL |
HBT | 12 | 16 | 30 | 89 | 137 |
Carnethy | 11 | 29 | 18 | 52 | 110 |
As you can see there was a fantastic kick to finish by both clubs, with several individuals running segments more than once.
Highlights from each week include:
WEEK ONE: Eoin suggested we use the segment ‘The whole hog’ for which he is actually very keen on keeping the record of 5:58 on. The conditions were suboptimal however there were several attempts that, considering the conditions, were outstanding. Iain Whiteside actually managed to defeat our reigning champions time on this segment so watch this space for a summer attempt to take down our very own men’s captain.
WEEK TWO: This week saw the participation really taking off as a segment to the top of Braid hill was thrown in the mix. Some very strong performances were noted on this segment, including some from HBT who were within 30 seconds of the current record held by Jacob Adkin.
WEEK THREE: Jill suggested a very dramatic climb up Caerketton (21.5% incline). This is tough on its own but when you throw in a foot of snow, things get even more challenging. Interestingly, this segment was abandoned in favour of a one km flat road segment along the seat. The snow clearly brought out the road runners in us all, but I must say we could maybe make a few road runners sweat with some impressive times.
Hats off to Mark Hartree, Steve Best, Alan Renville, Hugh Brady and Stewart Whitlie who stuck to our true hill running roots and braved the snow and 21.5% incline of Caerketton.
What a week. On Friday I announced we were leading with 84 to 81 segments ran. Unfortunately, I spoke too soon as HBT rallied together and ran a further 56 segments over that weekend to bring their total to 137. We did also have a good number of segments attempted that weekend bringing our grand total to 110. We had three segments this week as per the request of Jim Hardie. He proposed a Corstorphine hill segment which was taken on by several of the members and turned out to be a wonderful addition for the final week!
I have been contacted by several individuals from HBT, in the last few days, to say that they really enjoyed being a part of the ‘competition’ with us and thanked us all for keeping them on their toes with some great runs. If anyone would like to see the final numbers, the google doc is available here
Kirsy Dickson