Quick sprint round hill-running stats

There is an interesting round-up of last year’s Scottish hill-running statistics on Chris Upson’s excellent Scottish Hill Racing site.

Upson lists 95 races in total, starting with the annual Ne’erday uphill-only race at Aonach Mor and ending with the Law Breaker above Tillicoultry the day after Boxing Day.

An impressive total of 366 runners competed in six or more races during the year. The most prolific runner was David Duncan of Ochil Hill Runners, who competed in 57 races despite (or perhaps aided by) having recently moved to Aberfeldy. He was a whopping 18 races clear of unattached Auchterarder athlete Jonathan Weir, while Ian McManus of Irvine Athletic Club was third most active, with 30 races.

Busiest woman was Tilly Smith, who wore the Deeside Runners vest in 27 events.

David Duncan’s best result came on Traprain Law in East Lothian in June, when he finished eighteenth. He used to live at the top end of Upper Mill Street in Tillicoultry, the nearest house to the standard approach to Ben Cleuch, a hill which he has climbed well over a thousand times.

In those days, if you saw someone crossing the main Ochil summits of a summer’s evening, moving fast and dressed only in shorts, it was probably David Duncan. He was not averse to running barefoot, although comparisons with Zola Budd tend to end there.

Most successful Scottish hill runner in 2009 was Prasad Prasad (so good they named him twice) of Clydesdale Harriers. He ran in eight races, winning six of them (Birnam, Chapelgill, Ben Sheann, Melantee, Tinto and the Law Breaker) and finishing second in the other two (Carnethy 5 and Dollar).

Prasad was ranked just ahead of Tom Owens of Shettleston Harriers, who ran in nine events – no overlap with Prasad, oddly – and notched up three wins, two seconds and four thirds.

Leading woman was Clare Whitehead of the Aberdeen-based Cosmic Hillbashers club who ran in nine of the 95 races, finishing as first woman in seven of them. She was third overall, behind two male Cosmics runners, at the Durris Mast race in May.

The 2010 season is slowly picking up pace, and there are races at regular intervals even at this time of year. Saturday week, 13 February, sees one of most popular events on the calendar, the
Carnethy 5 Hill Race. This takes in five Pentland summits – Scald Law, South Black Hill, East Kip, West Kip and finally, after a considerable down-and-up, Carnethy Hill – in a loop from Silverburn.

Last year, a remarkable 499 runners completed the course.

Dates for various other races during 2010 include: 1 May for Stuc a’Chroin, 8 May for Ben Lomond, 15 May for Goat Fell, 29 May for Jura, 26 June for the Arrochar Alps, 27 June for the Lairig Ghru (will anyone run both this and Arrochar?), and 4 September for the daddy of them all, Ben Nevis.

There is one new race, a circuit of the eastern part of the Tarmachan Ridge from the National Trust for Scotland car park on 18 April.
This is
being organised by mega Munrobagger Steven Fallon, with entry fees donated to Cancer Research.

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