Saturday, May 04, 2013

Race Facilities - Hunters Bog

Not what you think. Over the weekend there was a very faint distant bleep from Far Far Away as TS reactivated and went racing again, the first time for over a year - something distant and out of sight while getting some semblace of fitness back. So on a weekend away an opportunistic peek at the calenders threw up the Hunters Bog Trot in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. And make no mistake, this is a race with facilities.

We've all done races with nil zilch none facilities other than a gate into a field and some slight shelter under a tree; we've all had that sinking feeling as we've looked across at the line of plastic Portaloos knowing that the expectation is that you'll have use them rather than the adjacent wall. In contrast the HBT is a race with facilities, a race with a John Lewis!!

Get your parking right and you have the walk to the start 5 minutes in one direction and the city centre 10 minutes the other way. The choice of after race eats or rehydration, well!

The race itself? Good. What I'd call a training race with a slightly contrived figure-of-8 course with the main climb and long swoop down to the finish done twice. But terrific underfoot, a proper grassy craggy run with only a short section of scrotty broken tarmac; proper hands on knees climbs and views to live for whenever you lifted your head up.

(Colin, sorry for late posting of this, I've been away and my portable technology hasn't heard of email; great to hear you're back racing, Ed.)

No comments: