Race 4 of the series was held yesterday at Dalkeith Country Park and was not without its problems. The third (night) race was blighted by some directional/signage/marshalling problems and yesterday was in a similar vein.
At the start line we were told that the 17K route was to be cut by 2K or so due to a problem with the landowners’ horses. Or something. So it was billed as a 15K race, which turned out to be shorter in the end. Or did it?
Although the field was smaller for this run, the overall attendance for the series has been good, with 337 racers having completed at least one race after yesterday. Yesterday there were 72.
The route was a twisty one through the Park, some hard packed trail, some concrete and a fair amount of churned up mud (those horses again) which made for a stop-start type of race. We ran through the stable block courtyard at around 2/3 of the way and there was a water station for those who needed it.
Afterwards there was some grumbling about missing directional signs and people taking shorter/longer than others and indeed it seems that an arrow marker had been removed and the organisers have informed the CID (I’m not sure what they can do, but that’s three races now in close quarter that seem to have been marred by some sort of tomfoolery – Devilla Forest being the highest profile). In any case, the leading group of 10-15 all seemed to be in visual sight of each other for most of the race so if we went wrong, then we all did. We all seemed to run around 13.5K, so the lopped off loop was obviously more than 2K in the end.
Prasad Prasad again won for his third win. Elke Prasad also won again in the female category. The best 3 race scores count (based on gender race position), and there is the reverse route of yesterday’s race and the 50K Ultra on John Muir way still to come to complete the series.
Strava upload of route here: Race results here. Series results to date here
Mike Lynch