Foxtrail Series Race#3 (Balgone Estate)

The third race of the 2018 Winter series, but only my second as I couldn't fit the 2nd into my incredibly busy social calendar - not. Having raced in the first one last month, I knew what type of organisation to expect. The second race had been a night run at Foxlake, on an evening that didn't suit so I'd not bothered entering that.

In the reminder email sent a few days before this race, it warned of a muddy quagmire and looking at the route map, I could see it went through a lot of farmland. But as the weekend approached, so did freezing temperatures and the mud warnings turned to rut warnings.

The forecast was correct with a light south easterly breeze chilling the bones at around 3C in the farmyard at Balgone where we had to register. The parking area in a field was well marshalled, but I do wonder what they'd have done if it was muddy. After registering, I returned to the car to tog up, folding and pinning my number to my leg. I didn't want to wear it on my top, since I expected to be unzipping at some stage which wouldn't work behind a pinned number.

At 9am I jogged back to farmyard start area, only to be told in no uncertain words to unfold my number and pin it to my top, otherwise risking disqualification. The guy's attitude wasn't great, but neither was mine. I couldn't really understand his reasoning - "A lot of sponsors have paid to have their names on these numbers so they need to be visible". To who?? I wondered. We were in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't as if there'd be crowds of spectators to be advertised to, and any competitors would already be well aware of the sponsors names through other sources. Even through the event photography - who is going to be looking at that?? I briefly protested, but reluctantly repinned my number as requested.

I set my watch to seek satellites so had to trot about in the farmyard to keep warm, whilst the rest of the smart-phone field sheltered inside the barn. Then we were off. I had positioned myself about 20 back from the front, and could see Roger Peppiette in his luminous yellow top nearer the front.

We horsed along a farm track for a km or so establishing our positions in the pack before changing terrain onto a lochside path. Keeping my eyes on Roger, I slowly gained places on him until I was about three behind. He was going well.

Along the lochside track, the chap to my right wanted to chat

Round the loch, and then along the foot of the Balgone Craigs, a series of small cliffs hidden in the trees. I glanced a few times up at them, all a bit lichenous and north facing for any rock climbing. Then we had a shock of some climbing into woods weaving along a field edge and I was overtaken by a couple of others.

Out of the woods, and across open farmland with hard frozen grass. I upped the pace and got into a good rhythm on this flattish section, but noticed Roger was now in the distance. The 2nd placed female and I played cat and mouse here passing each other at least three times on various sections, but the final big climb to the top of the Balgone Craigs I lost her, and even more on the steep descent.

After the steep descent from Balgone Craigs, I was on my own. Photo by Sandy Wallace

There was a really nasty section of cross-slope running on potholed muddy grass which was much harder than it should have been. Then a good track section back to the finish at the farmyard.

Hardly any other runners were through at this point so I quickly grabbed a drink of freezing Active Root ginger water, got the camera from the car to take some finishers pics and then left.

00:46:35 15/191