On Wednesday 6th May I ran in the Dumyat Hill Race. Dumyat (pronounced ‘dum-aye-it) is a hill in the Ochil range and is 418m high. 418m is relatively small as hills go, but it’s still tough to run up and as I type I can still feel every one of those 418m in my legs!
The race started in the grounds of the University of Stirling campus and after 600m of running on generally flat ground and on tarmac, we squeezed through a doorway in the campus perimeter wall and began out ascent through woodland. I had been warned about the bottle neck at the door so I made sure that I made a fast start to reach it before the big rush. The woodland section of the climb was the toughest and steepest. I had in my mind that although the distance of the race was 8km, it was “only” 4km uphill so I would push hard for that short distance as the second half would be a lot easier. It didn’t really work out that way as the ascent was possibly the hardest (and definitely slowest) 4km of my life.
A flat section near the top
I had started the race standing next to my club mate Sinead. I knew that she was a good runner and I decided that if I could keep pace with her throughout then I’d be doing really well. Sinead passed me at about the 1km mark and was always within about 100m of me all the way to the top so remained a good target to chase. When I was about 100m from the top, she passed me on her way down and I never saw her again! But like Sinead, I am getting ahead of myself…
The conditions were almost perfect. No wind (at the bottom), and cool but not cold. I felt reasonably fit and rested after a break from my exertions of racing twice a day last week, and I was in a good frame of mind for the run. Not having any expectations or targets in terms of time, I decided just to run and enjoy it as much as I could. I had looked at the previous years results and concluded that a time under an hour would be acceptable, and secretly I was aiming for 50 minutes. During the steep wooded section, hands and sometimes fingernails were needed to get up the terrain. In one particularly memorable incident I went to grab a willowy branch at the same time as a girl behind me, I narrowly reached it first and consequently pulled it out of her reach! She fell forwards and slipped back down the hill. I felt pretty bad about this even although it wasn’t my fault, and a quick check over my shoulder showed that she was back on her feet. I asked after her, she said she was fine, so I kept going.
A photo from a previous year
Coming out of the woods at about the 2km mark, a marshal shouted encouragement and told us that the hardest work was over. I hoped that this was true and it concurred with what Rachel and her husband Hector had told me before the race, so I was suitably encouraged. The sweat by this stage was pouring off my forehead. Not dripping – pouring. Exhaling blew a spray of sweat out in front of me and I reiterate – this was at 2km. I slogged up the hill as fast as my legs and lungs would carry me, but I wasn’t fast and at the 3.5km mark I was starting to get worried that I hadn’t actually seen anyone coming back down yet. Where exactly was the top?! No sooner had I had this thought but who should appear bounding downhill with the speed and agility of goat on a mountain bike, but the aforementioned Hector. He was soon followed by a crowd of similarly talented runners. I took encouragement from this and powered on with the speed and agility of an elephant on a space-hopper.
Finally reaching the top, I rounded the beacon marking the halfway point of the race, and began my descent. Almost immediately I went over on my ankle at a rocky section and thought to myself that at about 30 days from he end of “The Most Runningist Year Ever”, a twisted ankle (or worse) wasn’t worth the risk. I carefully picked my route down, being overtaken by dozens of fearless and/or reckless runners. Not far from the top there is a bog with a fence in the middle. I remembered the bog from my way up about 10 minutes ago and after a quick deliberation of the best way to negotiate it, I decided that the answer was, “straight through the middle” and “quickly”. Unfortunately you are slowed by the fence in the middle, giving adequate time to get totally soaked, and totally filthy (my left foot squelched all the way down). I spoke with another of my club mates at the bottom (Jill) who told me that she had got stuck in the bog up to the top of her leg and had to be pulled out by a kindly stranger (she still beat me by 5 minutes).
Some highlights of the descent;
· Remember the section on the way up where I had to pull myself up using tree branches and nearly sent a fellow runner falling to her death? Try going back down it and staying upright. Reaching the top of this downhill section was like running at pace towards a cliff face – there was some comedy arm wind-milling. Someone slid past me, upright, in a seemingly controlled fashion, as if on skis. They might have been on skis, they were going too fast for me to tell.
· A style over a fence – someone ahead of me stood on it, sipped, and summersaulted over the fence. He got up and kept running.
· The steep tarmac stretch near the end. I had no confidence of my grip on the tarmac in my big studs covered in slippy, thick mud. I must have looked quite camp as I pranced down that section very slowly.
· Slight but long uphill just before the hole in the wall going back into the campus. Cruel and gruelling. Someone in front of me gave up and started walking.
I finished in 52:42. 171st out of 292. Well under an hour but outside my made up, secret target of 50 minutes. There is plenty of scope to make up two minutes if I practised hill running, specifically downhill running. The question is whether I want to or not. Well done to Hector and Rachel who completed a Haines double as husband and wife took first place in the men’s and women’s races. Thanks also to them for giving me a lift to the race and back, and for giving me an oat bar for dinner from their stash in the car.
Rachel and Hector with Dumyat Hill in the background. I was going to caption this photo, "Smug B*st*rds"...
But they gave me a lift to the race and this oat bar.
Here’s the official race report….
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