Bruce's Crown - 2024 Results
Nicky's RO report and results below that....
8th April 2024 - We did it! Galloway Mountain Rescue, me and all our helpers organised the Bruce's Crown race last weekend and eight teams came and tackled the tough route with the added hardship of Storm Kathleen to deal with. I'm still recovering from organising and running so it's hard to put into words how happy I am. It's always stressful organising a race for the first time. I have started up www.hoppits.co.uk and www.marsdentoedale.co.uk but nothing compared to "Bruce's Crown race with Storm Kathleen". I am so grateful to James Anderson and Galloway MRT for helping me make some tough decisions about the possible weather and options that we had. The final decision was to leave the "low level route" decision to the latest possible time which gave the runners the best chance of being able to complete the full course.
We set walkers off at 4pm and then a relaxed approach meant that teams could start when ready, within reason. All the teams wanted to get off asap to do more in the better weather and daylight. From 4pm to 10pm the weather was warm, a bit windy and claggy. But nothing too awful. The terrain and navigation is the most challenging on the first leg but all the teams succesfully got to CP5 on the Dee Bridge track where there was a checkpoint with hot soup, drinks, cake etc. One team retired here so there were seven teams that carried onto Leg 2. Around the time the teams arrived at checkpoint 5 the rain started (10 to 10.30pm) and it hammered it down for six hours as the teams were crossing the Corserine ridgeline. After the initial two tops of Darrou and Miekle Milleau the route follows a ridge which has short grass and a well defined path so "better" terrain than a lot of the first leg meaning you can move faster. The rain and increasing wind meant that the teams had a torrid time and arrived at CP11 on the track wet through and needing sustenance. This they received in quantity and quality from MRT with more soup, hot drinks, cakes and snacks. Another two teams had to drop here due to sickness and injury so five teams headed down the 5 mile valley track to CP12. This section I thought everyone would hate, but actually it was a godsend in the weather to be able to have a break from navigating and be able to digest food and keep moving. CP12 was a smaller checkpoint with hot drinks and snacks before teams headed onto the final stretch up Shiel Hill, Craigmansheenie and onwards and upwards to Merrick. The rain stopped at 6am when the skies cleared and the tops could be seen from the valley. Unfortunately the winds were forecast to pick up around 11am and a decision was to be made then. At this stage there were three Ladies Teams, one Mixed team and one Male team left in the race. One ladies team decided to stop before Craigmansheenie and took a safe route back to the CP12. Four teams then made it over the final hills and were rewarded with clear views, a little sunshine and extremely strong, gusty winds. Shallock on the Minnoch was the worst hit as it's a big round plateau with no shelter. Once off there the teams were slightly sheltered by Merrick and even the summit of Merrick was not the worst place to be. Surprisingly halfway down Merrick to Bruce's Stone carpark the wind was pushing the teams uphill and this was extremely tiring. At the last checkpoint the Bruce's Stone the teams were met by Glyn Jones, the creator of the Rings of Fire round and the first race organisor for the Ring's of Fire races which comprised of the Bruce's Crown and the Heart of Granite. They then had a hard slog down the road / footpaths back to Caldons and a warm welcome at the Finish.
All the results are on Opentracking https://results.opentracking.co.uk/event/bcr2024 and the tracking can be viewed here https://live.opentracking.co.uk/bcr2024/ . I hope all the teams that didn't make it come back next year to get the job done and I thank all the runners for entering, preparing, running and making good hill decisions. It's a tough event and the weather made it doubly tough. Well done to all of you, no matter how far you got.
| Overall | Name | Team | Start | CP1 Lamachan | CP2 Curleywee | CP3 Millfore | CP4 Cairngarroch | CP5 Forest Track | CP6 Darrou | CP7 Meikle Millyea | CP8 Corserine | CP9 Meaul | CP10 Coran of Portmark | CP11 Forest Track | Time | |
| 1 | Girls' night out | Ladies Team | Lisa Watson, Despina Berdeni, Eleanor Johnstone, Holly Clifford | 2024-04-05 18:45:09 | 2024-04-05 19:49:37 | 2024-04-05 20:14:32 | 2024-04-05 21:06:23 | 2024-04-05 21:39:17 | 2024-04-05 22:04:13 | 2024-04-05 22:47:07 | 2024-04-05 23:41:56 | 2024-04-06 00:46:45 | 2024-04-06 01:30:19 | 2024-04-06 02:00:13 | 2024-04-06 03:00:02 | 14:46:05 |
| 2 | The Four Tussockteers | Ladies Team | Nicky Spinks, Emma Stuart, Kirsty Hewitson, Natalie Hawkrigg | 2024-04-05 18:30:28 | 2024-04-05 19:40:37 | 2024-04-05 20:05:32 | 2024-04-05 21:09:22 | 2024-04-05 21:44:15 | 2024-04-05 22:22:10 | 2024-04-05 23:20:00 | 2024-04-06 00:14:50 | 2024-04-06 01:09:22 | 2024-04-06 01:49:14 | 2024-04-06 02:20:11 | 2024-04-06 03:54:46 | 15:55:31 |
| 3 | Seaforth | Men's Team | Alasdair Meldrum, Mark Caldwell, Mark Smith, Aladiar McCallum | 2024-04-05 16:45:33 | 2024-04-05 18:01:29 | 2024-04-05 18:31:23 | 2024-04-05 19:40:11 | 2024-04-05 20:12:05 | 2024-04-05 20:55:59 | 2024-04-05 21:57:47 | 2024-04-05 23:22:33 | 2024-04-06 00:33:21 | 2024-04-06 01:21:18 | 2024-04-06 01:54:12 | 2024-04-06 03:20:58 | 18:19:11 |
| 4 | Merrick Muppets | Mixed Team | Fiona Horsfield, Matt Newton, Paul Manson, Richard Preston | 2024-04-05 17:34:36 | 2024-04-05 18:52:21 | 2024-04-05 19:25:17 | 2024-04-05 21:17:57 | 2024-04-05 22:19:46 | 2024-04-05 23:02:41 | 2024-04-06 00:16:12 | 2024-04-06 01:25:22 | 2024-04-06 02:35:10 | 2024-04-06 03:38:58 | 2024-04-06 04:12:53 | 2024-04-06 05:45:37 | 20:04:16 |
| DNF | Bog Hags | Ladies Team | Jessica Richardson, Sarah Hall, Anna Llewellyn, Lucy Richardson | 2024-04-05 18:56:09 | 2024-04-05 20:19:07 | 2024-04-05 21:05:57 | 2024-04-05 22:40:41 | 2024-04-05 23:28:34 | 2024-04-06 00:08:26 | 2024-04-06 01:01:22 | 2024-04-06 02:03:12 | 2024-04-06 03:13:01 | 2024-04-06 04:13:50 | 2024-04-06 04:51:43 | 2024-04-06 06:28:05 | 14:02:27 |
| DNF | Carnethy roughgrounders | Mixed Team | Alan Renville, Michelle Hetherington, John Ryan, Graham Nash | 2024-04-05 18:13:51 | 2024-04-05 19:37:49 | 2024-04-05 20:16:44 | 2024-04-05 22:20:22 | 2024-04-05 23:15:13 | 2024-04-06 00:00:06 | 2024-04-06 00:57:55 | 2024-04-06 02:05:15 | 2024-04-06 03:14:02 | 2024-04-06 05:34:27 | 12:01:58 | ||
| DNF | Apocalypse Now | Mixed Team | Steve Burgess, Steve Sanders, Marianne Heading , Andy Heading | 2024-04-05 16:02:04 | 2024-04-05 17:28:59 | 2024-04-05 18:10:52 | 2024-04-05 19:41:37 | 2024-04-05 20:28:29 | 2024-04-05 21:13:22 | 2024-04-05 22:26:11 | 2024-04-06 00:04:53 | 2024-04-06 01:46:16 | 2024-04-06 02:56:05 | 2024-04-06 03:44:55 | 2024-04-06 06:46:56 | 15:03:22 |
| DNF | The Ladies from the Dark Side | Ladies Team | Kirsty Bryan-Jones, Helen Elmore, Pippa Willie, Alison Wainwright | 2024-04-05 18:01:41 | 2024-04-05 19:19:47 | 2024-04-05 19:47:44 | 2024-04-05 20:59:30 | 2024-04-05 21:39:24 | 2024-04-05 22:16:18 | 04:14:37 |