Turns out, the “something different” was to carry a camera round the course for the BBC show Country Tracks. It also involved me doing some to-camera work as well, a sort of video diary of my day at the race. I’ve no idea how it’ll all turn out, but it’ll be broadcast to the nation at some point and unlike last year’s Rat Race show on C4 you’ll be able to see my face. And hear my whiney voice. There are altogether too many recordings of  me available online these days, but never mind.

The act of carrying the camera was as awkward as I’d feared. They didn’t have a head cam so instead it was a fairly standard-sized palmcorder, loaded with a 40 minute tape. This meant I had to keep starting and stopping the recording when I thought something interesting was happening. Like I say, we’ll find out if it worked when it’s broadcast.

Even when racing and carrying a camera, my time spent marshaling still managed to kick in. On the way to the scree ascent, the headtorch belonging to the girl behind me gave out which makes the race more than a little dangerous. So I offered to run at a pace that meant we could both see by the light of mine. We did that and managed to post a fairly pathetic time of three hours.

As with last year, Sunday was a bimble round the red run in Glentress and we had a big turn out for the event.

Photo stolen from Pyro who wrote up an official and less-official report of the weekend.

A good weekend, new friends, new experiences, new brakes and new scars. They don’t come much better.

My legs still haven’t recovered properly so I’ve decided to skip tai-chi this evening. Much as it pains me to do so since I’m enjoying it so much, I just can’t imagine I’d be able to get much done. Instead, a quiet evening in which will probably be the only one this week.