Glenshee 9 2025 - Dominic Williams

8 DRRs headed up the glenshee for the Glenshee 9 hill race on Sunday. It was the 4th race in the Scottish Hill Running championships so a strong field turned up. The race is a 32+km loop taking in the 9 Munros surrounding the ski centre. DRRs were split evenly between the two waves with 4 taking the earlier start at 10am giving them an extra hour to make the cut off at the road crossing.

The race starts through the car park then the climbing begins heading to Creag Leacach via the slopes of Glas Maol. I let the fast runners carry me along a little too much and took the first climb a bit too fast. Hitting the rougher ground on the way up to Crag Leacach I tried to take it easy and start eating. Turning around and climbing Glas Maol I tried to settle into a rhythm of eating on the climbs and letting people go before catching them on the descent.

This was working ok until Tim Buidhe where I decided to take a more direct line to Tolmount than most. I rejoined the path in a similar position to before but probably had gone a harder way (and had bypassed overtaking Steph and Amy from early start). The way to Carn an Tuic from Tolmount is a long slog. I stopped for water for the first time then again struck out on my own line which was definitely worse here and I lost the person I had been trying to stay close to and also developed a bit of a stitch.

I passed John on the summit of Carn an Tuic. The start of the descent was very rocky and rough with people all over the place the path appeared and the descent got a lot easier but at this stage you are very aware of the big climb coming after the road crossing. I was still not feeling great so took it a bit easy especially after it flattened out a bit. Just before reaching the road I filled up water on a side stream again.

I crossed the road and began the dreaded climb up Carn Asda. I used the climb to eat some gels and repack my soft flasks being a bit too close to a stitch to want to try solid food. I passed a few people on the climb though probably mostly early starts. Finally the summit appeared and shortly beind me Alan Smith who normally manages to pass me in the second half of long hill races.

I pushed on from summit trying to run the downhill but the stoney ground was not kind on my tired feet. Starting the long way in to Carn a’Gheòidh I again made some poor route choices trying to find a shortcut around a minor peak that wasn't there (Alan stayed on made path and passed me then). This section is out and back so I saw Evan, Mark and Dominic all coming back towards me. Mark last and a lot closer in front of me than I thought (sadly I think he was motivated by seeing me close more than I was motivated by seeing him).

On the final climb to the summit I got cramp just as I was trying to push past and overtake someone but finishing off the last of my homemade gel sorted that and I could soon run again on the descent and overtake a few more people. There were vague sightings of Alan and someone who could have been Mark ahead but I was not making any progress closing them down and got passed by one person on this point. At the summit of Carnwell I was relieved it was pretty much over and managed to pull away from the person who had caught me on the climb. Running down the pathless heather to the finish was not easy but my worries of being caught were unfounded and soon I was crossing the finish line and was happy I could stop.

Definitely one of the harder long hill races but a good route and one I would do again (hopefully making better route choices). Possibly having been ill the week before didn't help me (or maybe it meant I was well rested by the start line).

41 Evan Bowers 4:10:24

80 Mark Bell 4:33:55

82 Dominic Williams 4:35:43

111 Doug Gillespie 5:12:47

129 Dominic Hughes 5:24:19

158 Amy Gilligan 7:05:33

161 John Tierney 7:14:32

Steph Devlin ran the Glenshee 6 instead.