Aviemore Half Marathon

For the October week off school, we had booked a lovely house in Newtonmore. On the search for more race action, I found the Aviemore Half Marathon would be happening on the first Sunday of that holiday week.

I knew a colleague at work had run it a few years ago, and managed a fast time (for him) of 1hr40mins since he said it was mostly downhill. Sally had also run it in 2010 and reported the same. I hadn't run in Rothiemurchus before and thought it would be a great opportunity.

The booking process wasn't the slickest with a dodgy website and some post submission requirement to check your name on the entry list, but I paid my £35 fee and forgot about it.

After arriving in Newtonmore in a downpour, I headed the 20mins up the road to Aviemore and registration which was being held in the resort hotel. Parking was fairly chaotic, but I was in and out of the hotel with my runner's pack (brown envelope containing timing chip, number, bag label and pins) in a couple of minutes.

On the Sunday morning, the rain had passed and skies were overcast. Temperature was around 8C, but calm. Sally drove me up to Aviemore and I jumped out at La Taverna roundabout for the short walk up to the hotel car park and the waiting buses. Although I was wearing shorts, I did have extra layers on top, including hat & gloves. It was brass-monkeys waiting in the queue. There was a real mixture of runners, most of them looking cold!

On the bus, I chatted to the young lad sat next to me. He was from Aberdeen, and it was his first time running the race too. He had done a couple of other halfs (Nairn and Aberdeen), plus the Edinburgh full this year so was capable. He said he was aiming for 90mins which I was impressed with.

10mins up the road, we were dropped at the entrance to Badaguish Outdoor Centre in the woods. It was very busy, with hunners of other runners dotting about trying to keep warm. I thought it wise to make a toilet trip, so joined a queue. 20mins later I was still in the queue and clearly not moving anywhere fast. I took the next best option, along with other opportunist males.

Eventually it was time to line up along a single track road, beside the predicted time markers. I stood between 1h40 and 1h45 and checked out my neighbours who all looked as cold as I felt! There is actually a 10K race that starts from Badaguish at the same time as the Half, but heads off in the opposite direction so there was some confusion initially where to line up.

At 09:58 we all started to shuffle towards the actual start line. There was a lot of nervous laughter, a bit of stretching, last minute gear checks. And then we were jogging...over the starting mats...beeping of watches. I waited for the pace to increase but it didn't and everyone around me was settling into what felt like a slow jog. Sack this! I dodged to the side and squeezed past as many as I could until I was running at a better pace.

The field starts to open out

The initial couple of kilometres were a real delight, along a wide LR track through plantation, then downhill with an incredible vista over Loch Morlich and up to the Northern Corries. Now I was at race pace, with good spacing between other runners. Suddenly I spotted the young lad I had been chatting to on the bus about 100m ahead. I was gaining on him.

We ran through Glenmore, briefly on the road before back into the forest and then over the road again for some climbing up to the high point at 6km / 403m. The field was really spaced out now and there were some people walking on the gradients. I kept the young lad in view, conciously trying to catch him, and by 8km there were only 4 other runners between us, possibly 50m. If he was going for 90minutes, I was doing good and this only helped me run faster.

Between 10km until 11.5km, the paths became a little less maintained and at one point we had to splash through a shin deep river. The path also was narrow and winding, which made overtaking a little tricky. The tarmac arrived at last, and I took the opportunity to stuff a gel down my neck. I walked while doing this so lost a few places but managed to claw them back.

The road was good running since it was downhill and constantly changing direction without any long straight sections. I settled in behind a tall bloke, using him as a wind shelter but when he inexplicably started to slow, I made sure to pass him. At both of the water stations, I grabbed a cup and stopped to drink losing more places. The young lad was now 20 places away, perhaps 300m distant, but I wasn't bothered.

With one mile to go, a runner overtook me after being on my heels for a while. He had obviously noted me flagging, and said "Break 8minutes for this final mile and we'll be under 1h35, dig deep!"
What a motivation!! Was that true?? Was I really going that fast?? I didn't look at my watch and just kept plodding, trying hard to not be overtaken again.

We were now catching up with the 10K stragglers who offered shouts of encouragement at our passing. The Bridge Inn flashed to the left, then under the railway line, up the hill to the Aviemore high street where marshalls had stopped the traffic to allow us to cross. I got my GoPro out and tried to up the pace for the final straight across the grass.

People lined the tapes on either side, clapping us in and on the left I saw Sally with the kids waving. Over the finish line, stop the watch. Happy days!!!

101 / 1035
01:33:38

Meall nan Tarmachan hill race

In mid-August, I met up with Andy Nicholls for another Munro bagging trip accessible from Glasgow. He wanted a short day so I chose this Tayside hill with the option of the Ridge to add interest. At the same time, I had been looking for another race to do at the beginning of October. The inaugural Penicuik Estate trail race was scheduled for 6th October, but I discovered it was already full so looked for something else and the Scottish Hill Racing site came up with this race.

18th August on Meall Garbh with Andy

Over the subsequent weeks, I kept an eye on the SiEntries page for the race. There were only a handful of names down so I wasn't worried about missing out. On the week of the race, the weather forecast looked OK so I got my wallet out and signed up.

On the Saturday morning, I calculated my driving times and arrived in sunny Killin. I wandered along to the NTS office at Lynedoch, spying a few stick insects doing the same. Inside I was greeted by three windblown men at a table who gave me my number, a car park pass and map of the route. They reminded me that I had to carry weatherproof gear (waterproof trousers, coat, hat, gloves, whistle, compass). I said my bag was back in the car, but they grinned and said "We trust you."

After a visit to the public lav, I drove up the Lawers road crawling past the now full NTS car park and stopping in a grassy layby. The weather was fine and bright. All the hills were clear but there was a slight Nwerly breeze coming down from the damhead. I ate some food and got changed, initially deciding on a single t-shirt, but quite quickly adding my thermal & eventually my wet weather coat.

I trotted along to the start line. a couple of hundred metres up the road on the LR track that heads off round the Meall nan Tarmachan hillside. There were perhaps a hundred people gathered there, runners, supporters and marshalls. I trotted about to keep warm, and then slotted into the melee with 5mins to go.

The organiser (Dan) stood on a gatepost and made a briefing about the route, the race, the prizes (of 288 bottles of beer!) We were asked to cross the bridge in single-file in order for them to count us out and finally we were off. I immediately found myself being subsumed by the pack and struggled to get into a rhythm on the rough track. After a couple of minutes, we suddenly left the track for the hillside and the footpath. There was an initial bottleneck at a burn crossing, and some swearing. Some athletes jumped into the heather to overtake.

On the initial ascent

Very soon, most resorted to fast walking, with a little trot on anything that was close to flat. Onto the ridge and then some faster progress towards the first checkpoint at 923m. It was manned by a couple of Killin MR team members, I passed a greeting before horsing down to the fenceline in the col. I was able to overtake the two I had been on the heels of, and then realised I was at the front of a small group for the final summit (very steep) summit ascent 😟

In the summit gully, heart pounding out of my chest

After the gully, I was overtaken again and the final metres to the Munro summit were a bit of a slog. I put the camera away just beyond the marshalls on the summit, and then tried to up the pace along the ridge towards Meall Garbh. My legs were like jelly and any ground undulating to uphill reduced me to a walk. The runners who had overtaken me before the summit were now a long way in the distance, I tried hard to stop anyone else passing me. 

At last I reached the marshalls at Meall Garbh and turned left off the ridge to follow the line of flags that had been placed to mark a 'recommended' descent route. Although I followed it closely, it was clearly not the optimal line. A handful of other runners came careering past away to the right of the ridge. They obviously knew something I didn't! 

I was overtaken by at least ten runners on the descent, and didn't overtake anyone. Not good. Dropped onto the LR track and then tried to trot the ~2km back to the finish. This transition reminded me of the Earlston race when I hit the tarmac after the hill descent. My legs struggled to get back into a rhythm, and once again another runner came past. But I kept the pace, and was able to claw back some metres, even passing one person. 

From the finish, I continued to jog back to the car and home as I had commitments waiting. Latterly, I was interested to read that the 2nd place runner was only 18 (Kieran Cooper), and had beaten the Lairig Ghru race winner George Foster, both of whom would feature on the Adventure Show the following weekend. 

1hr10min09s  43/79