North Berwick Law Race

August 7th 2019
Catching up on a couple of unblogged events: I notice I hadn't written up the North Berwick Law Hill Race. This is a weird event but also lots of fun. Weird because it happens at the beginning of August on a Wednesday evening and is a combination of short road race and short hill race. It is about 3 miles in total and this year was a Porty Club Champs race. I went along because it is good fun even though the organisation is a bit scrappy: I can't find regular results which say they might appear on some websites but rarely do. I think it is Edinburgh Athletic who are behind it but in conjunction with East Lothian or North Berwick. Anyway good luck finding the results. They appeared briefly then disappeared for ever!

up to the top of the hill and back to the harbour

Anyway it's not about the results it's about the taking part! Even though the organisation limps along the course or atmosphere is usually sufficient to get a decent crowd. Registration is at the Lifeboat place and you can leave a bag there if you, like myself, arrived off the train. There are toilets nearby and at 7 or 7.30 whats-his-name in the red jacket did a quick speech then fired his gun. Always worth a bit of a gallop at the start - it's only 3 miles after all.

Sandy

You get a slight recovery on the road along to the Law although there are a couple of steep enough gradients on tarmac to warm up the hill climbing legs. I kept Richard L in sight knowing he would disappear ahead on the hill. New Porty Peter came past us both but Rich got him on the hill and I hoped I'd maybe catch him later. (Didn't happen!)

Jamie Thin also came past on the hill and although my game plan was to catch him on the last mile of tarmac somehow he evaded my scheme. I suspect he was first 50 though in previous years they had no age group prizes. This year they seemed to have added at least one trophy but I didn't hang about for prizegiving due to lack of age cats in past. I don't think they even asked our age at registration. Anyway well done Jamie although he went so fast on the last corner leaving the hill that he left the path and had a yard of dirt and scrape up his side.

did I want a lift home - yes thanks!

It was really great to see George and Ben. Both have been PRCers in the past and although neither are quite as keen as they were in their glory days in the club, both keep the running going and turned up to run and support the race. Good to have a quick chat before Rich offered me a lift back to Edinburgh and home.

There were a number of familiar faces from Porty and elsewhere and it really is a race that embraces both road and hill racing. Due to the heavy rain earlier I wore hill shoes for grip; although even they were incredibly slippy on the wet rock and it would have been easy to take a tumble. I suspect this year was my slowest ever but luckily the results are hard to track down. Good luck to Richard or whoever is sorting out the club champs points! Great fun event.