Goatfell Hill Race – “……better go to Specsavers”

 

Roddy Pugh, Stephen Gilmour and I headed to Arran on Saturday 18th May for the Goatfell Hill Race. This year, being part of the Scottish Hill Racing championship series, the race had an entry of over 200, probably double the normal field.

The race is an “out and back” from the edge of Brodick to the summit of Goatfell and listed as 13km and 870m of ascent. Personally I’ll go with my Garmin on distance 15.4km -but their ascent (mine showed 856m).

Overcast to start with, the weather soon deteriorated as I left the initial road section – having just passed Roddy – and on to the hill path. I managed to run a bit longer than I normally do at Goatfell but still not enough as Roddy passed me before the deer fence, although I managed to hold the gap to about 50-100m.

As we approached the shoulder and onto the ridge leading to the summit the wind started to pick up, was pretty blustery at times and close to the summit the hail started. By this time many of the quality runners were well on the way down. The leader and race winner passed me at 51mins as I was on the way up and still a further 14 mins before I reached the summit, never mind on the way down!.

As I started my descent it wasn’t long before I met Stephen who was 7 mins back and just short of the summit. Having got down the worst of the initial descent from the summit it wasn’t long before I was to see Roddy. At first I thought he was dazed and confused as he was facing the wrong direction, only to find that a gust of wind had blown his glasses off and he was looking for them. I stopped briefly to aid the search but I was ushered away by Roddy who continued his fruitless search for as long as he could before the cold started to take over and he had to get moving.

It was a cautious descent therefore for Roddy. For Stephen, in his first outing to Goatfell HR, he too has probably lost something on the descent – his toe nail – after misjudging his footing and hitting a rock. It was a fairly painful descent from there. For me I had a relatively comfortable descent, passing a few runners, and saving enough energy not to be passed on the road section to the finish.

Finished off with the usual excellent buffet laid on at Arran events, and a visit to the Ormidale Bar, another good day out in the hills.

Results

78th Alasdair Murray 1.45.28

132nd Roddy Pugh 1.58.33

145th Stephen Gilmour 2.02.21

204 finishers – Winning time 1.15.56 (Finlay Wild – Lochaber AC)