The Deuchary Hill Canter

 I have a couple of good friends that regularly kept in touch and checked up on me whilst I've been in Australia, so I could not visit Scotland without going to see them. I started off with a trip to see my "running mum" Fiona in Falkirk......and not only did she treat and pamper me....but she also dragged me along to her running club session that evening. 

Our morning "recovery run"

It's a long time since I've done any group run, and especially efforts but it was fun (well, it was fun afterwards if not at the time!!) and then we rewarded ourselves with a nice recovery run out along the trails for a coffee the next morning - though we had so much to catch up on, it was hard to stop blethering!!

More coffee....and more blethering....

From Falkirk I headed up to visit Sam, who lives out in the countryside near Perth. She and her partner have moved since I last saw them, but their new place was amazing as they've done so much to it (and even got a new cat who welcomed me by bringing me all his toys as gifts). There's never a dull moment when I stay with Sam and Mark, with lovely food, plenty of alcohol and banter a plenty. Unfortunately this means that we talk each other silly things, eg Sam agreed to run parkrun with me as long as I agreed to do a hill race with her (any plan agreed upon after lots of wine has to be sound doesn't it?).

My new bestie.... 

As previously mentioned, we did a lovely parkrun around Loch Ore in the Saturday, so that meant I had to do the "Deuchary Hill Canter" on Sunday morning - eek!! It was only as we drove up to Dunkeld to register (and the hills sprung up around us) that I realised exactly what I'd let myself in for.....it was an 18K run with 800m of elevation gain!!! Not only that, but I wouldn't be running with Sam as she'd elected to go off the "early start" which was half an hour before the main field set off :-( 

The Deuchary Hill Canter

Registration and kit check done, we then had to drive through town and out the other side to the sawmill carpark that was the closest place to the race start/finish. A gentle meander through forest took us to a muddy lakeside trail in plenty of time to wave Sam off on her run. The race starts with a rather steep climb after just a couple of hundred metres, but I guess that thinned us all out as we could only really go single file due to the narrowness of the path. I was certainly feeling both the session with Fi and the parkrun in my legs and so was more than happy to let everyone zoom away past me. Once we'd finished climbing, the path contoured round the hill below some small cliffs and I found it very unsteady going as there were lots of wet roots underfoot and the path was on a rather dodgy camber, making me worry about tumbling off down the side of the hill again. I was glad to have no-one in sight of me up ahead as then I didn't feel any urge to push faster than I was capable of....or no doubt I'd have come a cropper!!

Pre-race in the sawmill carpark

I was actually surprised to see a couple of people some way ahead of me when the forest opened out onto a forestry road that wound a good long way downhill, and it gave me the motivation to get my legs moving, especially as the first one I passed was a lady :-) Unfortunately the next man that I passed told me that I'd not even started the climb up Deuchary Hill yet, but at least he warned me that it was an unrunnable climb, even for the top guys, so I didn't feel so bad about having to use my hands to haul myself up. The climb was certainly way more than the first hill we'd ascended so I realised that had just been a little warmup....but it was nice to get to the summit as there were fantastic views in all directions.

The climb up Deuchary Hill?

The "fun" wasn't over yet, as the route wasn't just a simple out and back to the top of Deuchary Hill - instead we carried on over the top and down the other side. Some of it was lovely runnable descent, but some of it was a bit hairy for me, so I was overtaken again by those I'd just passed (all that work for nothing!!!) - pah!! Och well, I managed to get them back again as soon as we had some more climbing to do (as this was a runnable climb)....and it was on this section that I passed Sam so we gave each other a good cheer of encouragement.

I remembered the map showing a short section where we retraced our steps from the outward leg before we should turn off to the left to complete a (vague) figure of 8 shape. After a short way, I spotted some walkers coming down a track to my left, so thought that must be the way to go, especially as there were no marshals to ask, nor route markings to follow. After about half a mile, I did stop and check my map as it just didn't feel right to be near water - and as it turns out, I had turned off way too soon so I had to retrace my steps again (picking up a couple of other runners who'd just seen me heading that way and followed - including the very same lady I'd been playing cat and mouse with all run).

Back on course I climbed up for what I hoped was the last time - first on a forestry road and then on rough tussocky open ground, and then trotted off down the far side, convinced I was going to be passed any minute. At the pre-race briefing. they'd described a "fast and furious" descent down to a carpark, which implied a short distance to me so as soon as I was off the rough ground, I went as fast as my legs could take me. Unfortunately for my burning quads and chest, it was actually about 3km of descent, allbeit broken up slight by me trying to find a way across and out of the other side of the carpark (why do cars park so cunningly as to hide the path?), but I was delighted to see that I was the first lady back as I wobbled across the finish line.....and then to realise that I'd put about 30s per km into those following me down that last descent. It gave me a chance to get my breath back, have a drink and accept my "prize" (1st, 2nd and 3rd all got the same) of a buff depicting the beautiful lake where we'd started and finished, before cheering and whooping Sam across the line!

With my prize (and compulsory kit)

Looking back on it, I am so glad we made the trip up there and ran the race, as it was new countryside for me....and another lovely day out :-)