Hallucinating from insomnia and terrified by the description of leg 2 I set off with Helen after the handover from a good run by a cold choked Nicola. The drive from Dunblane over the moors had been beautiful in the still morning sunshine with rather ominous cloud wreathing the hills. However it cleared and the run over the knobbly ridge had tremendous views. It was nowhere near as bad as I expected, particularly after doing Matt’s Cairn-ethy route.
The descent was quite reasonable and not steep, though unfortunately Gina, running with Fionna, turned her ankle and later sported a most original improvised cold pack.
Following the dictum “We have learned from our mistakes and feel sure we can repeat them” Helen took a left turn after the descent declaring “This is where Heather and I went wrong last year”. So I ran back the correct way around the farm to get the token punched at the road where the leg 4 runners were waiting. Reconnecting with the errant lady we finished 10 mins before the mass start of leg 3 to send Joel on his way.
Ok Willie… you wanted it in writing… I enjoyed it! Would have been a different matter in clag and rain but. I had no idea the area was so pretty. A few years ago I did leg 3 and don’t think I ever saw the landscape.
Joel here : I’d been waiting so damn long for Helen and Digby I was seriously thinking of going off for lunch somewhere, but eventually they came sprinting down the road, though not so fast that Digby couldn’t get some picture before handing over the punch card. I did my best to run down Mary, who was standing in my way. Caught one Strathearn on the lower part of the hill, and another on the descent, and other than that very uneventful. Win had already started so we passed a few minutes from the end of leg 3. Seemed that everyone had already gone, so there was nothing to do but head to the finish for a long delayed lunch.
And so to the excellent barbecue and cake feast, punctuated every so often by a leg 4 finisher. Win, our leg 4 runner, suddenly realised he had a competitor on his tail and in a remarkable display of turbo boost thrust forward to victory and general cheers and laughter.
Meanwhile a toast was raised by the president to the impending marriage of Euan and Lisa.
Full gallery here
Digby
Margaret’s photos
Carnethy mens team Andy Fallas, Andrew Gilmore/Mike Reid, Iain Whiteside and Dessie Flanagan won in a fast 3:12:13. Andy Fallas was fastest on leg 1 and Andrew Gilmore/Mike Reid were fastest on leg 2, all winning a bottle of Grouse for their troubles.
Carnethy V40 men – Mike Lynch, Simon Titmuss/Steven Fallon, Graham Nash and Adrian Davis won that category, with the second veterans team being the Carnethy Over 50 team of Andy Spenceley, Willie Gibson/Bob Waterhouse, Harry Gilmore and Bob Johnson. 7 Carnethy teams ran. Results here