259 West Lomond

click for map
15/8/10 Pete (twice!)
This was the first and last hill of a very very hot lomonds of fife hill race. The race begins with a steep run up and down the gully that forms the decsent for he 3rd leg of the burdens relay (why i ask). The route then heads out to east lomond through the trees, which would be a really nice run in sensable weather, before zig zaging back along the plateau to the top of west lomond again. horrible. burned to a crisp. The route then gets exciting with a comically steep decsent/ slide down to the start. i had good grippy shoes on and tried to stay on my feet but in the end i gave up and slide down on me backside with the rest. This descent would probably be better in the wet as the grass was dry and a bit grippy, which lead to cuts and burns...and grass where there shouldnt be. Having taken the opertunity during the race to have a nosie about the old castle i was also tempted to stop and have a look at some cool looking buildings built into the hillside above the start, but it was in full view of the finish area bellow and i thought i might look a bit silly stopping so close to the finish, and tilly was not far behind me. Has anyone been at these buildings/caves??? im just not sure about this race, some of it seems really nice, but the steep slog up and down west lomond at the start and the zig zag on the plateau feel a bit pointless. I suppose it makes it a tough race- another wee loop somewhere and it would be one of the classics! it also seems to have a lot more climbing than decsending; there are three decsents that must take about 10min between them... the rest it varying degrees of uphill... which is not a good trade off on a 2 1/2hr race.