Colmonell Trail Race

On Saturday 14th of June Matt Ferguson and myself (Connell Drummond) headed down to Colmonell for their 1st trail race. For myself, I’d planned this race as soon as I seen it. I’ve always enjoyed trail races so, sort of, knowing the area, I thought this would be a nice addition to the others I attend. For Matt though, he decided at 11AM and headed down himself to an area that he was a lot more familiar to than me.

Organised by John Goodenough and Deborah Reed, The 5 mile race started in the entrance to park and turned left to head for the hills. You took a left and then past then started a lollipop loop that would take you from road onto a trail of large stones in the second mile. The first mile was relatively fast (my split was 6:03). The second was the hardest with the greatest incline. My split was 8:46 and I did walk a huge chunk. Ross Bark (Leader) wasn’t putting a huge gap on me at this point, but Brian Wallace (Girvan) caught up and went past at one point.

Sitting equal with Brian when the Trail change to compact ground, I bypassed the water stop although I was very tempted as the sun beat down. The next mile was a grind but I had regained some pace and for the next mile and a half I managed to increase the gap between myself and Brian although Ross was increasing the gap quicker and disappeared out of sight. The trail (unlike most the trails I do) was out in the country rather than through woods and parks. This made it less winding but more scenic. Although I like winding courses, this was a refreshing change. Reaching the top after a ascent of 192m the last 1.5 miles was downhill back to the start. At this point, my fear was that some hill runner would fly by at a great rate of noughts. My pace for the last 2 miles went from 7:07 pace to a rapid (for me) 5:11 pace. The last little incline was a last big push to the finish but I completed the course in second place with an approximate time of 32:11. Ross came in first with just over 30 minutes and Brian wasn’t too far behind me. Elaine Rennie (Girvan) was the 1st woman and picked up Gold.

Matt (Toast) said he coughed and spluttered over the finish line and he had a good finish time over this demanding course. Although he looked to be working hard, to me, he was far from struggling.

This is an undulating course with a testing hill on it. However, you’ll struggle to find a better finish to a race. As Toast said “A weel run wee race put together by two members of Girvan Club, worth the 90 mile round trip if it goes next year get doon and support it.”