A daft double done

The Great Tartan Skidaddle 50k

Having spotted a new ultra last year when doing another Skidaddle race in Callander I decided it would be on my to-do list for 2016 but was a little discouraged to discover it was to take place on the same weekend as another race I often take part in, the Round the Houses 10k in Grangemouth. After a couple of minutes thinking about it, and Alison saying go on, go on, go on (we usually spend the weekend with a girl she was at school with so she’s always keen for me to do the Falkirk race), and hey presto, I’d entered them both - another busy couple of days to look forward to.

A huge amount of preparation and planning goes into running an ultra and combining that with being away from home and running another race the following day meant loads of stuff laid out all over the house while I decided what to wear, carry, take, eat, etc, etc. It was just as well I had prepared so thoroughly because I proceeded to sleep in, waking with a start at 05:45 when we should have left the house at 05:15! There followed scenes reminiscent of a Whitehall farce with me running round half-dressed trying to eat, get the rest of my running gear on, taking bottles and food from the fridge and putting them into dropbags and packing the car while Alison did her best to keep out of my increasingly bad-tempered way. Finally we were away at 06:17, surprisingly quickly but still a full hour behind schedule and without a hope of being able to stop, as planned, at Stirling services for a relaxing couple of shots of caffeine before heading to registration and in serious danger of not making it in time. Being a careful driver I don’t think I broke any speed limits during the journey, other than the first few hundred metres coming into Callander where I must admit my impatience got the better of me.

Turning through the gates of McLaren High School at ten past seven  I spotted the parked bus waiting to take the runners to Inversnaid for the start and pulled up in front of it, jumped out of the car and sprinted past the coach in the direction of where I thought the main entrance to the building should be.  Fortunately someone pointed out the correct way to registration and I promptly had to run back the way I had just come past the coach again and my car then round the other side of the school. I only discovered later, while talking to various others during the race, that I had been the cause of much amusement as the bus was almost full by that point and my antics were observed by virtually the entire field!  I finally made it onto the bus with, as it turned out, less than five minutes to spare.

Having allowed my breathing and heart-rate (more on that later) to normalise I spent most of the journey chatting to a lad called Neil, whom Ian Rae will know well as he has the same number of WHWR completions under his belt, namely eleven. Grand company indeed to make the distance speed by! We arrived at the Inversnaid Hotel and were pleased to find all runners had the use of the bar (no, not for alcohol but serving teas and coffees, woo hoo – caffeine deficiency sorted)

It was as we left the hotel and headed to the start (cruelly situated on the pier, as low as you can get without actually putting your feet in the water) that I remembered to turn on my Garmin to pick up the satellite signals only to find – no watch on my wrist! Feck, where was it? In the bar, in my pack, in the car, on the bus, lying on the ground somewhere, at home? My mind birled with so many possibilities but, having decided that if I’d lost it I would simply treat myself to a new one, I was able to stay calm and (almost) forget about it. Which was just as well because looking up from the pier the start towered above us, up and away eastwards from Loch Lomond for half a mile or so and relentlessly steep to boot. We nervously watched as the ten duathlon competitors set out and, after a short wait, it was our turn. 

Competitors on the start line, otherwise known as Inversnaid pier.

42 runners (gulp) set out along the pier and started the ascent, the early conversations quickly petering out leading to easily the quietest start to a race I have ever experienced  as everyone was very soon gasping for breath. After splodging our way through what turned out to be the wettest part of the entire route we finally reached the road crossing where the chat resumed and things became more normal with the field rapidly spreading out leaving just us plodders near the back.

One of the main reasons I wear a GPS watch (apart from loving the wee map with the red line tracking across it!) is the abilty it gives me to regulate my pace accurately over the first few, absolutely crucial, miles of an ultra. Just as in any other event, but more so, if you get carried away and head off too fast you will inevitably pay the price later. In an ultra that can mean an hour or more slower than expected or, worse, not finishing at all (which I have never, yet, done). So it was strange to have to control my pace on feel alone but I reasoned it was good training as no one should rely on gadgets all the time - running, after all, is as simple a sport as any so no harm in going back to basics.

The track above the north shore of Loch Arklet was gently undulating for around five miles or so and led us onto the road at Stronachlachar and the first checkpoint. I knew it would be all tarmac for the next 13 miles, which I was dreading, and it turned out to be even hillier than I had been led to believe. Even so I would gladly have stayed on the black stuff rather than face the huge climb up Primrose Hill, three miles or so short of the main pier. I had never heard of this hill before and boy, did it come as a shock – relentlessly upwards. I can’t tell you how many metres of ascent, of course, but it was a loooong way! 

Running with the lassies again, before the glute started giving me gyp

It was during the even-longer and very rough, stony descent back to the road that my left glute started telling me it wasn’t at all happy. This is an old problem from eighteen months ago which had chosen an inopportune time to reappear. For the first time, but not the last, I quickly downed a painkiller in the vain hope it would lessen the pain. It was around this time I noticed my right shoe lace had broken near the toes and decided not to waste time trying (and probably failing) to fix it and carried on. As this shoe was now loose around my lower foot I was aware a blister was forming against my bunion (when I took my shoe off later it turned out to be two!) and some toenails were also protesting which, when added to my original pain in the bum, sorry glute, meant I was hurting when either foot hit the ground. 

East face of Ben Lomond from Loch Katrine

 

Having taken some food and drink at the pier checkpoint I struggled badly over the following few miles which, on paper, should have been enjoyable. Only a wee bit hilly and very runnable under normal circumstances I was forced to run/walk across the Duke’s Pass and down beside the shore of Loch Achray where we picked up the route of the Loop O’ The Loch race which a few harriers took part in last year. Walking for the most part through Brig O’Turk and finally reaching the final checkpoint at the foot of Lendrick Hill I at least knew that this hill was not the biggest in the race as I had previously thought although it was only a minor consolation as it would still be a slog.  

Taking my third and final painkiller I started the trudge up the hill and, although goosed by the time the path finally began to level out, rather perversely began to feel better. I guess the Solpadol was finally kicking in. The five or six mile run-in from this point contours along the side of the hill to the north of Loch Vennachar although I did wonder if it had been designed more with mountain bikes in mind as it swooped up and down. On the long gradual descent towards Callander I could see a number of runners ahead and started the painful process of reeling them in, managing to advance three or four places.

According to the marshall at the road crossing (near where we do the car park hill efforts at the TTC) it is only three kilometres to the finish, sadly it felt more like five. Running along the old track bed of the Callander to Oban railway line it seems never-ending, curving away gently to the left into the trees. 

Russell on the 24th June?

Thankfully there is an end where the route turns off the line and enters the Meadows where the sound of the race organiser Maz playing her bagpipes (an idea for Russell perhaps?) and the welcome sight of the finish line was only a hundred metres or so away. Once again Alison was waiting for me at the finish, having driven some 270 miles in the course of her day which had also included ferrying my son and his fiance to and back from Edinburgh for some final wedding preparations. Love is…indeed. Thanks honey.

Finishing, still hirpling despite the painkillers

I was recommended by a race helper that I would feel better if I had a dook in the river but decided against taking his advice only to discover that the Duathlon winner almost did so, having a wee seat in the floodwaters instead! See picture below.

Duathlon winner Cameron Whyte from Edinburgh recovers in the Callander equivalent of an ice bath!

When the race organiser asked me if I would be at the prize giving I sadly didn’t pick up her hint which meant I wasn’t there later when my name was read out as the leading Wondervet (their quirky name for the 60+ category) which is a bit of a shame because I’ve never had an award before. The fact that, as it turned out, I was also the only 60+ in the race is irrelevant because, as a friend of mine remarked, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Coach has kindly offered to collect my medal from Skidaddle to save me sending them £5 p&p, cheers Alan. I’ll post a picture of it later if it’s any good. 
Update: I completely forgot to mention I finished in 6.06.19, 28th of 39 finishers with 3 DNFs. Not too shabby for the oldest fart in the race!

Instead Alison and I headed to our friends house in Brightons where we proceeded to stuff our faces with some wonderful home cooking and, in my case, sharing two bottles of red with our host and topping that up with a couple of nips from an Islay malt I was given for my birthday recently. Not the best preparation for a Grand Prix race the next day perhaps but I thoroughly enjoyed my evening.

Round The Houses

Rising very late the following morning I had enough time for a leisurely breakfast before once again being chaffeured to the Grangemouth Stadium, setting for the 50^th running of the Round The Houses 10k. This would be my twelth time taking part in this great wee race (told you I’d done it before!) and knew the drill. Arrive late, collect number, head to the changing rooms to find an unused locker (I find empty lockers every time despite there being around six or seven hundred male competitors, I guess most assume there will be none left) and head out for a relaxed warm-up.

Had it not been for the state of my legs I might have enjoyed my pre-race run as the weather was pleasantly warm, so much so that I headed back to the changing room to dump my t-shirt afterwards. Ah, Scotland in April can be soo nice (yes, I know it now feels like January again – it’s actually snowing as I type this!) There ensued my slowest ever warm-up as I ever-so-gently eased my legs back into some form of forward motion, not to be confused with running.

With the memory of said warm-up on my mind I took the first two kilometres at a very steady, sensible (read slow) pace – of course I can’t tell you that pace as I still had no watch although at least this time I wasn’t wearing a redundant chest strap. Worryingly I hadn’t spotted Russell, who had had his usual elite start, but saw him in the distance after about 3k when I relaxed a little, finally passing him just after the 5k mark. After that, as Coach has already noted, the stretch alongside the M9 was difficult heading into the wind but, anticipating escaping from said wind once we took the right-angled left hand turn into Inchyra Road which leads directly past the stadium, I was most put out to find we were still running into the wind! I almost looked around to check I wasn’t back in EK but the flaming chimneys reassured me we were indeed in Grangemouth! Battling down (I wish!) the long straight, past the stadium I, like many others, had forgotten about the 200m or so ‘extra leg’ to the traffic cone and back which had a few of the runners around me groaning, I didn’t have enough breath to join them. With the wind finally at our backs I began picking up the pace, briefly forgetting I had covered 50k the day before, and started passing runners. My lungs and legs soon reminded me and so I rather enjoyed the pleasure of running steadily to the finish, not chasing anyone down or trying to sprint past someone, a luxury my competitive instincts usually deny me. 

Evidence of the blanket finish with three runners separated by only one second, the tightest finish for many years. Look closely and you will see Stuart Gibson entering the track in sixth place although he managed to finish fifth.

I crossed the line in 54:18, quite possibly my slowest 5k, but I had enjoyed (eventually) my day out and soon went to join my clubmates for some post-race chat.

A slightly out-of-focus group of harriers

The look on the face of number 355 is priceless as big Davie storms past him in the finishing straight.

The preponderance of black and yellow race t-shirts made it much harder than usual to spot the Calderglen vests and then, on the way over to the harriers and much to my astonishment, I spotted a familiar face - a lad I had run and chatted with the day before during the 50k – see, I’m not the only daftie around! 

The other daftie, Daniel Kershaw from Bankfoot 

PS I found my Garmin watch still in it's storage bag in the dining room when we arrived home on Sunday evening. Phew, I can keep my wallet in my pocket! 


PPS No more long runs for now, my son's wedding is on Friday the 22nd so that rules out most of the weekend and then the Fling the following week - for the first time, as far as I'm aware, four Calderglen Harriers will be toeing the line at Milngavie, Ian for the eleventh time and the only ever-present 'flinger', me for my fourth attempt and both Ruth and Jim making their debuts. My hope is that we all enjoy ourselves and come away with happy memories of a great day.