SOSOL at Culteucher & Dron

Nice event just south of Perth in some of the medium sized hills. Mainly open hillside with just a few bits of plantation and the odd tree. Navigation was pretty good but didn't have a lot of energy in the legs. An interesting hill fort and some nice views.

Did a quick cycle round Loch Leven to try out the new path which now offers a traffic free path all the way round. It's a little bit dull at times and probably wouldn't recommend as a walk. For a leisurely 2 hr cycle quite nice.

Dreghorn Handicap Race

It turned out to be quite a nice evening for a fairly easy run in the Pentlands. Did reasonably well coming in the top 5 or so. Good route taking in a few minor summits and finishing with Allermuir and a sharp descent back to Dreghorn.

Selkirk Mountain Bike Orienteering

Travelled down to Selkirk for some mountain bike O. Pleasant start along the river along some pleasant single track trails. Later hit a very muddy section and further on made a long assent to hilltops around 500m high. A tough slog pushing the bike up. After this it was a case of making it back as quickly as possible to complete just within the 3 hour limit. Pretty tiring effort after the run yesterday. The usual generous selection of cakes was again available.

Penicuik 10K

Nice run on a hilly road race in Penicuik. Good well marshalled event. Ran pretty well coming in faster than last years 10k times but a few minutes worse than my PB on this course. The rain (and hail) came down at around the half way mark.

Stuc A Chroin Hill Race

After recent dreadful performances I was very nervous about this long tough race. 22 km and 1500 m of ascent with a lot of the course over very rugged terrain. Having failed miserably at the Lochaber Marathon with a planned slow steady pace I decided to head off at a good pace and try to maintain myself at a 160+ heart rate for as long as possible.

Things went well in the early stages feeling confident on the long 2.5 miles track at the start. Got a real high on the next rough segment and the first downhill which I took at speed.

This was followed by a very tough ascent straight up to Beinn Each and then a long technical section to the summit, after many false summits. Still pretty strong on the way back and the grassy decent off the main hill went pretty well, passing a couple of runners.

The next ascent was tough and I really slowed down. A few runners ahead accelerated away but others were in a worse state than me. After reaching the high point I was able to keep going over the rough terrain and also managed a good pace on the track back finishing feeling very strong at the end.

Delighted with the performance. About 15 mins better than in 2012 and around 10 mins worse than 2010. Really enjoyed it.