The last time I did this one was in 2007 over a longer tougher route. It’s a bit of trek from Edinburgh, but this year I was only an hour’s drive, so decided to have a go. The route seemed to have reverted to the old one with the steep ascent up Fell of Eschonchan, but forestry work meant we had to go up the “tourist path”. The tourist path turned out to be very rocky and stony especially at the beginning and the first serious climb through the trees. After that it became a lot better.
The first summit Benyellary came earlier than I expected, but it was in heavy mist. The path is fairly obvious and the luminous yellow marshall even more so. There was some decent fast running here down the Neive of the Spit. The winner Gregor Stewart had already passed me on the way down. The final ascent of the Merrick itself was a bit of a slog and it was hard to see the best route to the top. A quick tap on the trig point and I set off full pelt on the way down. I could just see someone ahead and managed to catch them.
Back at the Neive of the Spit the mist cleared, so I took a couple of photos. I’m not as adept as Digby, so I lost some time. The climb back up Benyellary took a bit out of me but once on the descent I recovered and gradually closed on another runner, who seemed worse at descending than me, if that’s possible. The run back at the bottom was pretty horrible over the boulders on the path, but I got back unscathed but lost a lot of time.
I finished 1st V60. Ok there were only two of us, but nevertheless. The only other Carnethy was Adam Anderson who finished 6th.
Results http://www.shr.uk.com/RaceResults.aspx?RaceID=RA-0101&Year=2015
Thanks to Girvan AAC. I hope next year we can avoid the “easy” tourist path
Brian Howie