Carnethy 5 2009 Ten Cosmics headed down to Edinburgh for the famous Carnethy 5 race. There was less snow in the Pentlands than in Aberdeen, but still enough to make the course interesting (one did wonder at registration when there were people selling crampons - but it was just a jumble sale for the local Mountain rescue). No sunshine but at least no precipitation either. The dress code varied - some people were in vest and shorts, some wore their "full body cover" for the whole race and there were two in kilts. The race started after a rendition of Flower of Scotland by all and a rendition of poetry(?) by a guy with that great big sword they have. It might have been a mistake to wear the new Innov8 MudRocs I'd bought at registration, but by the time I'd run through the bog and marsh after the start (might have been better if it had been colder and this had been frozen) I couldn't feel my feet anyway. There was the usual crush through the gate and stile, and the struggle for places while slogging up Scald Law, the snow underfoot making it even more difficult to overtake. Miraculously everyone seems to be sorted out by the time you get to South Black Hill and you have a little space. The snowy descent off West Kip was great fun and I overtook a few people there, then at the final descent to the Howe the marshals were advising us to "bum slide" - quicker than running down. The climb up Carnethy seemed to pass quite quickly, then the descent - disappointingly not too much snow here, then the final slog back across the bog. Thanks guys for cheering me on at the finish - if I hadn't sprinted those other two women would have passed me! The Adventure Show were filming the event, and there are some photos on the SHR site http://www.shr.uk.com/NewsItems.aspx?NewsItemID=438. Don't think I've ever seen so many race photos of people on their bottoms! Gillian is obviously the most photogenic of us as she appears 4 times, Stuart twice , then Elaine, Colin (Reid), Lois and myself once see http://www.flickr.com/groups/cosmic_hb/. Dennis, Richard (Lang), Colin (Larmour), and Murray must have run past too fast to be captured! Rob Jebb won for the 4th time in 53.02, closely followed by Prasad Prasad only 7 secs later. Times were slower than usual but not as much as the 15 mins mentioned on the Carnethy website the night before. Cosmics were 14th male team, 8th female team and I got to keep the F50 trophy.
Anita
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