Carnethy Five

Valentines Day Hill Racing

Took part in the Carnethy 5 hill race (results, photos and more photos) on Saturday with 499 other runners. The race is loosely connected to the Battle of Roslin in 1303. The start was quite a thing with bagpipes, flags, swords being swung about and a proper starting gun. Then there was a rumble of 1000 feet pounding the bog as we set off, like a stampede, over the slush and up to the style at Charlie's Loup.

Then we began the long slog up the side of Scald Law. Powered by a romantic breakfast, three more peaks -South Black Hill, East Kip and West Kip- were taken in quite easily. The steep decent off West kip saw many runners trip, cartwheel and slide down on their backsides. All in all a reasonably speedy tactic. The fun continued all the way down to The Howe, but then we had to head back up a grueling last climb to Carnethy Hill. From the summit it was another mad downward dash on snow, rocks, mud, heather, and back across the slushy bog to the finish line.

Back to the Pentlands

After a night out in town, and a few beers it was quite a struggle to get up to the Red Moss car park for 9:30am to meet up with a group from CAAC. We took in the same hills as in the race the day before, but in a different order. The weather was milder, although there was a fair bit of wind, and a good deal of the snow had now melted into even more slush. Firstly we jogged, at a fair pace, up The Avenue and along the drove road to West Kip. Then we ticked off East Kip, South Black Hill, Scald Law and finally Carnethy. We dropped off the back of Carnethy to Logan Burn, and took a route around the back of Black Hill to Easter Bravelaw Farm, across the reservoir and back to the cars.

And Then
Magda fancied a bike ride so we peddled off along the old railway line down into Granton and back along the Water of Leith. By this stage the sun had come out and we spent a good proportion of the time avoiding dogs, toddlers and pensioners. Legs are pretty goosed now.