The Hill & Dale Series continues to provide escapism from ‘normal life’ every Thursday
evening during the spring and the early summer, as it has done now for a few decades.
The most recent race of the series, Millstone, was the 7th of 10 and this means that the
overall series category battles (needing to finish 6 of the 10 races) are beginning to take
shape.

Standing at registration at the back of O’Hares Lounge Bars the most regular question
was which one is Millstone? The obvious features on the front of Slieve Donard are the
waterfall into the quarry and the two ‘lesser peaks’ either side of the river that becomes
the waterfall. These lesser peaks are dwarfed by the towering Slieve Donard at 850m but one of them, at over 450m above sea level, Millstone can easily be underestimated as a challenge, but a challenge it is for many reasons.

The property magnate himself is a race director of Millstone and whilst he regularly uses
an ankle operation as an excuse for limited running these days (when in reality much of
his time is focused on building the business empire) he is a born-organiser and comes
to life when his turn comes to be the race director.

By the way, regular series attenders will know that he has, for years, been the director at Luke’s (race 6) but the Club Chair, Android Ambassador, Series Administrator, Permit
Securer, Scanner Procurer, Webscorer/SI Entry Geek (some man for one man) the
Broken Wing Commander pulled a fast one this year, with the McVeigh Brothers unavailable for their ‘normal’ race, he quietly engineered a switch for them to Luke’s
while reassigning Millstone, explaining to each of the co-directors that the other had
agreed to the switch when neither had – worth watching that boy – but I guess that’s why he has reponsibility for so much.

Anyway back to the property magnate. Thursday morning dawned bright and sunny (well actually grey and mizzly as per our normal summer) and o^ he set bags of sawdust in tow with a few randomers, doing community service, supporting him to mark the course. Thanks for the local ‘stigs of the forest’, otherwise known as forestry service, who had cleared the race route of fallen trees in advance and all should have been good until the Wing Commander got a call in the afternoon asking him to remove the ‘plastic arrows’ from the forest – ‘not us governor, our operation is as sustainable as possible’.

By 7:15, 259 runners had scanned in ready to go, full body cover mandatory, for the
assault on Millstone – the weather was fine but the northerly breeze providing a chill in
the evening air – in fact not so much as a breeze more of a gale on the summit – with big thanks due to the hardy souls of Hanna & McCracken, the summit marshalls who spent longer than is clearly good for them on the top – brilliant views but brass monkey
temperatures despite it being the last Thursday in May.

Tom Crudgington, favourite for the series was first to the summit well clear of Ashley
Crutchley, favourite to be the series bridesmaid. ‘I’m a much better descender these
days’ said Crudgington in an interview with Sky Sports afterwards – well then in that
case Crutchley must be a much much better descender as he closed all the way down
to come home only 8 seconds behind in the end. Josh McAtee was 3rd a further 45
seconds back.

In the women’s race, Esther Dickson brought her incredible descending into play with, in the end, a comfortable 47-second victory over Tanya Cumming. Dickson loves the rough and many a ‘mill-stone’ seems to have been taken o^ this mountain leaving gaping holes now covered in heather for the unsuspecting ankles – this is her playground. Diane Wilson, recent Donard race winner with a spectacular descent, another woman who loves the rough, came home in 3rd place to lead the series overall but is looking over her shoulder as other women have the opportunity to make it to 6 series outings and pip Wilson at the post.

255 runners made it home meaning that unfortunately 4 succombed to the rough
conditions underfoot. It’s a record, though, for number of finishers ever at Millstone. A
massive thank you to all the volunteers – the registration team, the start/finish guru
Frank, the sweep team and all the marshals throughout the course, without them we
couldn’t have safe racing. Also a thank you to James Patterson Esquire for a particular
and consistent ear bending that he gave the organising team before and after the race –
7 plus decades of experience bring put to good use as ever.

Next week is Loughshannagh, which is the toughest race of the Series but with Ott first
the killer steep climb is left until the end of the race (rather than it being an ankle killer
steep descent at the start of the race) – however, it is a beautiful race with runners
circumnavigating the secluded lough and climbing the beautiful mini-alp Doan. So from
the property magnate race director to the school principal (gotta say that while we can)
race director, next week’s report promises to reach a pinnacle following 2 weeks of
warm-up acts. Race time as ever 7:30 – register by 9pm Tuesday and there are no entries on the night, much to the disappointment of some who still turn up entry-less.

The original & the best,
The Rambling Landlord & Assistant Bogboy