Saturday 17th March 2012
section to Banchory.
Being an ultra virgin I started ultra-cautiously (I know, sorry, I’ll stop this punning right now).
I had picked this race as my debut ultra for three reasons, one it was run along a footpath built on the old Deeside railway, i.e. flat or gentle hills, two it was the shortest ultra race I could find (honest, 33 miles is short!) and, three and best of all, I got to visit my eldest brother and his extended family in Aberdeen.
As a result of my conservative start I reached the turn narrowly ahead of my target time but most importantly still feeling comfortable however the depressing part of an out and back course for those nearer the back of the field is seeing just how many runners are ahead of you and, even worse, by how far. Having exchanged
shouts and high fives with my experienced ultra running clubmates Ian Rae and Benny Rooney I optimistically picked up the pace a little and started to overtake a number of runners during the first part of the return leg. Sadly I ran out of steam over the last few miles and had to walk a couple of long sections although this didn’t come as a great surprise since my longest training runs had only been 21
miles due to illness in January. On a more positive note for the future I overtook many more runners than overtook me.
The downhill finish looked inviting but was not enjoyed as I found out the hard way that running for hours at a time does funny things to your quads, see picture left, (those two women with the pram were catching me!) so much so I almost fell over while standing chatting on a sloping path shortly afterwards.
On the bright side Ian came in 21st overall in a mightily impressive 4.25.16, over 3 minutes faster than 2011 (not bad for what for him was just a long training run) Benny was delighted with his trophy (and hair gel!) for 3rd Super Vet in 4.46.52, back to his form of two years ago. I on the other hand trailed in 20 minutes outside my target time in 5.50.21, coming home 152nd of 192 finishers on the day.
As is becoming the norm for this race the medals were unusual this time being ‘hand-branded on wood reclaimed from Hurricane Bawbag’, also handed out were very welcome cans of Guinness, bottles of Miller and their very own D33 beer from Brewdog. Oh and water too.
Ian, Benny and I were very grateful for the all-day help from Angela, Carol and Alison. Without the girls driving all over the Aberdeenshire countryside handing out drinks, gels, jelly beans and, in my case, honey pieces we would never have got to the finish. Given the amount of running Carol does while keeping Benny supplied I don’t know why she doesn’t just run the rest of the race with him!
Finally I’ll leave you with some motivational quotes from race organiser George Reid, aka Loon Dod,
‘do epic shit’, ‘trample the weak, hurdle the dead’(this could be our Grand Prix mantra!)
and his sign off line on emails…
Pee clear
Davie
1 comment:
Trample the dead...sounds like a day in the office!
Well done all three of you.
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