On Saturday, the Pentland Hills were alive with Carnethy ladies’ chatter and laughter. It was a joy to behold. Apart from a snow flurry at the beginning and a short, sharp snowstorm near the end, it was a beautiful day with a fresh breeze. Much fun was had by all. In addition to the thrill of running in our beautiful hills, we had the Carnethy/HBT Bucket List to keep us amused.
Having run a similar event during lockdown last year (adhering to all covid restrictions of course) we knew the score and three hours after announcing the plan on our WhatsApp group, I had 45 ladies, a photographer and a Covid Officer all signed up. I duly shared this information with President Mark to keep him in the loop and to suggest some of the boys might like to do something similar… a few hours later he replied that so far he had only booked a photographer… for the top of Black Hill (see Bucket List Challenge for significance of this 😊).
Carnethy ladies are very organised and swiftly paired up, reccied legs and organised timings. We formed eight pairs running in each direction and four pairs and one trio running the whole route the race direction and one pair the opposite direction… 32 in the relay and 13 in the whole route group.
We set off from the bottom carpark at Hillend at ten-minute intervals straight into a lovely snow flurry on Caerketton which dusted the summits and provided us with a stunning view of the route ahead. We had a few small mishaps along the way but didn’t lose any runners nor have any injuries nor mountain rescue situations.
With ladies summiting several Bucket List hills and getting up to all sorts of mischief along the way, we racked up more than 500 points in the Carnethy/HBT Challenge. Well done us. We had four Carnethy support ladies too – Avril Roberts and Hattie Logan with delicious muffins and coffee at the Drovers Road, and Joanne Thin and Dawn Waitt, strategically placed on Black Hill Summit with chocolate and coke and to help us with the challenge there by turning all our discarded inside out clothing back the right way so we could don it quickly and get on our way before frost bite set in. A side note here… apparently our President pursued two of our runners up Black Hill with his camera.
As the whole route runners approached the last couple of ascents, a lovely snowstorm blew up and sped us on our way which was exhilarating. Many whoops of delight were uttered as we ran our last few metres and delighted in our great day out.
Next one planned in the Spring.
Well done one and all!
Nicki Innes