Today was the 4th race in the Border series and it was a long trip down to Berwick.
There were Three Wise Men that made the journey, aka Me, Greig Glendinning and Graeme Paterson.
I know what you are thinking where was Peter Gallanagh???
Well he couldn’t make it today, we received a text to say that he had “a lot of decking work to do” today! 😯
I was amazed that he put his decking before a XC race! But as it’s Christmas we won’t call it decking work we’ll just say he was building a Manger for his festive garden display.
Also we had a travelling support from Danielle Glendinning aka Mrs Clause and 5 Border Collies aka The Reindeers.
I had never been to Berwick before so I didn’t have a clue how to get there. With no star to follow as it was daylight it was down to my Satnav.
We arrived in Chirnside just outside Berwick and I’m happy to report the weather was a lot better than the previous week at Linwood.
With the warm up complete it was down to business. There weren’t as many people that turned up for this race as there were in Peebles. But there were still loads of fast guys and gals as we were about to find out when the wee women shouted GO at the start line.
It started with a dash around the football pitch to spread out the field a bit and Greig shooting off like Blitzen, followed by Graeme running like Dasher and finally me trundling along like Little Donkey.
We then followed a route which took us through many farmers fields. This was to bring gifts for all! The first field was filled with brussel sprouts then on the way back there was another field full of potatoes, so that’s the veg sorted for Christmas day!
It was a bit of a nightmare trying to run with 2kgs of potatoes and sprouts stuffed down our shorts. But we did manage it.
Greig finished in 6th place (1st old boy), Graeme in 13th (3rd old boy) and me in 17th. It’s fair to say that we were all really pleased with our finishing positions.
This course wasn’t as hilly as the previous courses we have ran in but the terrain was heavy under foot. And I lost count on how many fields we ran through. It was still a brilliant route!
We then did a warm down run with the reindeer before we heading home via a nice wee cafe just off the A1 for refuelling.
The trip back home seemed a bit longer than the way there but this was broken up in the car by Graeme belting out Christmas Carol classics in the style of Aled Jones!
Looking forward to the next race in the series in the new year.
By Davie Weatherhead
