12/04/25 – First Scottish Hill Runners championship race of the year. Today it was Screel. It is a short course race of 5.6km up Screel hill with 370m elevation (or so watch said). Given I’ve been training for Cape Wrath ultra with long slow runs and after a 40km yesterday my legs weren’t feeling the love.
I wasn’t sure where it was but Google maps took me there, basically past Dumfries and keep heading to Castle Douglas. The weather was nice so made the long drive for a short race worth it.
Anyway, got there in plenty of time for the team pic of Westerlands CCC once we’d managed to round everyone up. It really is worse that a heard of cats. The race started off with about 1.5km up forestry track before hitting the trails and more up. At about 2.5km we plateaued and it was straight across (well trying not to trip on all the rocks) to the cairn. Round that then down through heather, rocks and boggy bits. It required lots of concentration to not trip up. There were some good downhillers going past me. When we hit the forestry track back down I was off. I do love a downhill I can generate speed on. I don’t know where I came but it was a lovely wee hill race.
