Two Carnethys John Morris (4th) and Olly Duffy (8th) finished high up leader board in Ultra X 50 Scotland (50km race) on Sunday. A trail race on the east side of Loch Ness with +1,300m elevation. The event also holds a 2-day Ultra X 125km.
John reports:
Race day…seemed a thing of the past so I was more nervous than usual… especially standing on the start line with the likes of Robbie Simpson a GB and Adidas Terrex athlete so I knew right away this wasn’t going to be an easy race.
I was aiming for sub 5 and is it stood my 50k trail time was 5 hours 12 so I was up against it, I started off quite hard. For the first couple of miles we ran in a pack but then it started to fade out and Robbie flew off very fluently. I was in 2nd place with Colin who runs for Orkney runners so we led each other a lot of the race passing each other and taking the lead…it seemed to help…he was stronger on the up hills but I always had him on the downhills and the flats. It got to about mile 29 and I felt my wheels started to fall off…the last two miles were the muddiest it felt like I was on an obstacle course with the amount of mud… In fact it reminded me of the nationals a couple year ago, proper squelchy. I managed to scrape through that and not far from the finish line Meryl Cooper (female race winner) appeared from nowhere and took me… I had nothing left to give by that point and managed a 4th place finish with a time of 4 hours and 35 minutes knocking 37 minutes off my 50k time… winter training paid off.
All in it was great to be back racing amongst other athletes. HAPPY RACING.
John Morris