Beanie & Biggles love hills and we love running, and we’ve been trying to combine the two. Our first attempt – a couple of weeks ago – was Kaim Hill in North Ayrshire. It seemed like a good choice on the surface; it’s the venue for a popular annual race and by all accounts is a good laugh to do. Unfortunately our experience was a little different. In the asbence of any obvious path we chose our own route up (never a good thing!) and soon discovered that the “hill” was really a heather-covered, insect-infested bog. We ended up walking more than we ran and I counted myself lucky to make it back to the car with both shoes still on my feet.

So, with the need to run up a hill still unsatisfied, we tried Dumgoyne (one of the Campsie Fells) on Sunday. This time there were no bogs or swarms of insects, but there was a well-worn path leading right to the top. In fact there were two paths, and that was the problem. One of the paths takes a winding approach to the summit, whereas the other one takes a very direct route straight up. Guess which one we chose?

One of the descriptions of the run I’d seen mentioned that at the steepest points we may have to drop from a  run to a brisk walk, but on the route we took, I ended up crawling on all fours with two sniffy beagles merrily tying me up with their leads.

Still, we did eventually make it to the top and got to enjoy some great views despite the hill’s modest height.

We got to do a lot more running on the way down when the alternative, much gentler and winding route revealed itself. Beanie and Biggles – who had pulled very little on the way up – now decided to coordinate their efforts in an attempt to get me arse-surfing my way down the hill. First there was a united all-out tug-fest to get me going faster than I wanted, then Biggles abruptly switched into sprint-stop-sprint mode while Beanie did her best to get under my feet. Somehow I managed to stay upright, but when we reached the final style they got me with the old “straight under the fence” routine.

Why is it that Beagles never have a reverse gear when you need it?

All in all it was a great work out and Beanie and Biggles loved it. I’ve a feeling we’ll be doing it again soon, and now that we know about the gentler path, we should be able to keep running more of the way up next time!