Leading Lady

I was tutoring in Stirling yesterday and was still pretty tired when I woke up. Rosemary was doing the Bowhill Duathlon near Selkirk though so no morning of Radio 4 for us! Rather, friend Glen picked us up and we headed down to the Borders in the wet and wild conditions.

We were early as Rosemary was having a meeting with her Itera Adventure Race Team. Rather than sitting around bored, I set off to do the run course as quickly as I could. Most of it was on forest saturated trails but fortunately they were sheltered from the worst of the weather. I was having a ball running through muddy puddles and up and down hills! At one stage I reached a raging torrent of a burn and had no alternative to cross knee deep in the cold water. As there were no marshalls for me, the turning point on a steep wooded hillside wasn't immediately clear. But as there were no further bits of red and white tape to guide me, I decided a certain tree must be the point and I headed back towards the country house at Bowhill, a seat of the Scott family (of Sir Walter Scott fame).

Descending from the bank of an irrigation channel, I suddenly lost my footing in mud. Thud, pain went shooting through my arm as my elbow connected with a rock. "Man up" I thought, jumped up and started running again. I felt sick, Had I broken my arm? Nah.......it was sore but the pain started to ease after a brief bit shock. Then, I heard a large cracking noise! Timber! A pine tree just off the trail was being uprooted by the wind and started to crash to the ground. Wow, the weather was really bad!

Shortly afterwards I was back at race headquarters, finding Rosemary slightly frantic as she had my camera but was wanting to get warmed up! I thought my timing was impeccable too. 10 minutes later the race began with a challenging MTB ride. I had a quick coffee and then headed out to get some photos. My camera didn't like the rain and autofocus was struggling big time. Subsequently, only around 20% of my pictures were useable for Facebook.

The first rider to pass was my old mate Martin Graham who had over a 2 minute lead. It's nuts that he was a junior when we were riding together and now he's nearly 40! Martin is still rapid though. Rosemary was first female through, leading Jo Thom by a few minutes and one of my besties Caroline Wallace another minute back. R was having a storming bike, riding out her skin. She needed to though as Jo is a great runner and on her day Caroline is a class act too.

I did even more running, partly to stay warm but also to get about the course quickly. With a few km to go on the run, Martin went past retaining a 2 min gap from 2nd place, going on to win easily. Jo now had a clear lead in the women's race, and I managed to give her a cheer despite loyalties lying elsewhere. Caroline had also passed Rosemary and was running really well. My beloved came through next and I ran back to the finishing area just ahead of her to attempt a photo. My attempt was poor.

It had been a successful day, and a significant step forward for Rosemary to have beaten her main competition on a technical bike leg. It was great to catch up with Martin and Caroline too as I don't see my friends nearly enough. I had thoroughly enjoyed my day and suspect I was as tired as Rosemary afterwards. The evening was spent trying to stay awake, whilst not bashing my elbow....which had a wee cut and a big bruise!