February 14, 2011

Carnethy 5 Hill Race 2011

Carnethy 5 Hill Race 2011

More photo links at the bottom

Report from Allan Macaulay

The 2011 Carnegie Harriers Hill GP series started off yesterday with 20 members making the trip to Penicuik for the Carnethy 5 Hill Race. Conditions were near perfect for the 41st running of this incredibly popular event with clear visibility, relatively mild temperatures and little or no wind making it very pleasant for runners and the many spectators across the hill. An impressive turnout of 480 runners started the race with the event again being covered by BBC Scotland’s Adventure Show. The full list of Carnegie Harriers results are posted on the website but there were a number of promising early season runs from many of our members. Most notable was Pete Simpson who took 1st MV50 place and 35th overall in exactly 1 hour. The GP table has a familiar look to it again as Steven King, who was 88th in this race in 1.05.37 , ensured that we start off with Pete and Steven again occupying the top 2 places. Last year’s Most Improved Hill Runner, Neil Campbell, has continued his impressive form by finishing over 5 minutes faster than last year. It was also good to see Lynn and Sandy Bennett make a welcome return to competitive running after an injury stricken season for both last year. In addition to the individual placings our male team was 10th overall and female team 9th.

The team spirit was tremendous yesterday and it was great to see most of our early finishers wait behind to cheer in the slower Carnegie runners; their vocal encouragement certainly spurred me on across the last stamina sapping bog before the finish!

A very enjoyable and sociable day out for all concerned and hopefully we’ll have another big representation from the club at the next GP counting event which is the Bishop Hill Race at Scotlandwell on Sunday 6th March.

Twenty Harriers complete the Carnethy 5 Hill Race

The first event in our 2011 Hill Running Grand Prix took place on Saturday afternoon at the popular Carnethy 5 Hill Race. A field of nearly 500 runners took part with twenty Harriers completing the 6 mile / 2500 ft course. Peter Simpson put in a great performance to finish leading M50 (35th overall) in 1.00.00. Steven King was the next Carnegie runner to finish clocking 1.05.37 (88th) and Sandy Bennet was 93rd in 1.06.08. Isobel Burnett was the leading Carnegie lady in a time of 1.22.04 (3rd F50) and Melanie Sinclair had a strong race timing at 1.27.06. Lynne Bennet covered the challenging course in 1.30.12.

Full Carnethy 5 Results