Chagford Two Hills
With the Platinum Jubilee celebrations happening there weren’t that many races this weekend. However, 6 ORC’s headed to Chagford for the popular Chagford Two Hills Race.
Now in its 45th year, the race was founded in 1977 as part of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. The race includes 1076 feet of ascent, up the hills of Meldon and Nattadon, with the notorious ‘bog’ in between. Although only 3.5miles/5.5km in distance the race is tough, testing even the most experienced runner!
With an excellent run the first ORC home was Andrew Vallance in a time of 29:45, he was fifth overall and third in his age category.
Stanley Wood had a tough race due to an injured knee, but he still performed very well and hobbled home to finish in fourteenth place, second in his age category in a super time of 33:32.
Ian Ripper finished in 35:35, beating last years’ time by 22 seconds and winning his age category.
Next home were Joe and Art Lane. They flew round the 3.5 miles of steep hills and waist high bog together, for Art to finish the first U10 in 37:42, timing his run to perfection, pulling away from his Dad and taking the lead with 200m to go!
Kate Wilson was the only female ORC and she finished in a time of 46:48 – well done to all the runners in this challenging race and thank you to Chagford Runners for hosting the event.
Fort William Park Run & Blair Castle Trail Weekender
True to form Jo Page was again running this weekend during her stay in Scotland, with 2 runs on Saturday. Her first race of the day was the Fort William Parkrun, a great place for a Parkrun, a nice trail route through the woods in the Nevis range.
Jo was in a small group that may have missed a turn and got a little lost at the end, but a lap of the carpark soon got them to the finish line. Jo said it was a lesson learnt, follow the arrows and not the person in-front! Her time of 22:54 gave her first female and seventh place overall out of 60 participants.
The midges get a mention, from the moment she crossed the finish line they are crawling all over her…. Not fun.
Jo followed this with the Dianas Grove 7km. This race was part of the festival ‘Blair Castle Trail Weekender 2022’ which hosted 4 difference distances. Jo chose the shortest one, not being conditioned to running up Scottish Munros.
The iconic Blair Castle on the Atholl Estate, is nestled at the base of the Cairgorm national park. The 7km rolling route went out of the grounds and then back through beautiful forests before returning to the Estate.
It was a touch race as it was very warm, but Jo finished as second lady and fourth overall in an unofficial time of 36.09.
