Symonds tops at Ben Rinnes
Andy Symonds, record from at Ben Rinnes
After a few weeks scaling European heights it was time for Andy Symonds to return to Scottish earth and the heart of the Grampians. The Ben Rinnes 5 Tops is part of the Dufftown Highland games and Andy utilised his current form to claim the 9 yr-old course record
Andy Symonds
Ben Rinnes Record Broken! Andy Symonds has won the Ben Rinnes Hill Race in a record time of 1:56:55, taking 5 seconds off Jon Duncan’s record set in 2000. Simon Peachey was 2nd in 2:02:09, and Stewart Whitlie 3rd in 2:03:34. Megan Mowbray was first lady in 2:33:09, followed by Ellen Homewood in 2:35:27 and Veronique Oldham in 2:38:28.
Speaking on his Saab Salomon Outdoor Team blog , Andy said:
After the Alpine excursion and training camp which included some long days on the bikes and on foot in the hills (see via ferrata photos etc below) I’ve come back feeling pretty fit (which is after all the purpose of training camps!). So I set of pretty hard reasonably confident that the legs would hold out.
I had a comfortable lead of about five minutes, but with the record incentive I ran flat out for the last few miles, legged it round the obligatory highland games sports field (to the delight of the crowd!), dived for the line and stopped my watch on 1hr56′55”, five seconds under Jon Duncan’s 9 year old record
Full results and race report courtesy of that excellent resource that is Scottish Hill Racing
