Screel Hill Race - David Parrish Race Winner!

Contrary to all weather forecasts, Saturday was a lovely sunny day and so several DRC members took advantage of the conditions and entered the Screel Hill Race, which may seem a short race to some, being only 3.3miles long, but it is certainly very demanding with 1000feet of elevation gained and lost over that distance.

Far and away the best performance of the day was from David Parrish who won the race by a margin of over 90 seconds, finishing in 30:17, over 2 and a half minutes quicker than he ran it last year. Craig Malcolmson bounded away down off the summit like a mountain goat and was very pleased to finish in 6th place in 33:37. Sebastian Pflanz ran a strong race and finished 8th in 35:08. Jo Zakrzewski decided to test out her recovering tendonitis and was happy to be 2nd lady in 16th place in a time of 36.42. Allie Wilson has been doing a lot of steady distance training in her build-up the the 53 mile Highland Fling, but showed she still has the speed and determination on the hills for 23rd place in 40:09. Kerry Walker seems to be appearing more and more in race reports as her ability and confidence grow in leaps and bounds, improving her time by almost 5 minutes to finish 34th in 46:32.

The runners, timekeepers Doug Brown, Marian McPhail and Sheena Green accepted post-race refreshments on the Pflanz Estates. It was announced that this race, along with the earlier Criffel Hill Race will make up part of the Dumfries and Galloway Hill Race Championship, with 4 races out of 5 counting (others to come are Merrick, Durisdeer and Devil's Beeftub)