Loch Ness Marathon - Sunday 2 October 2005

[El Gordo]

I've just entered the above. Paid and confirmed. I've also bought and paid for a seat on an EasyJet flight from Gatwick to Inverness on Sat Oct 1st at 09:40. Going on my own this time.

Decided that these big urban races are all very well, but it's time to take a peek at a different sort of marathon. There are a couple of tricky hills, but most of it is flattish, and is a long plod along the banks of the Loch, in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

Anyone else fancy it?

http://www.lochnessmarathon.com/

[Sweder]

Hmm . . . tempting, especially the hills. Looks a bit wet though . . .

Sadly I'm spending most of September in Aberdeen. Sadly? A little harsh, for there are many good reasons to be in Aberdeen, not least a feast of fine golf courses and wonderful beef. However, I will be helping to co ordinate Europe's largest bi-annual oil & gas exhibition, and the opportunities for good long runs (3 hrs +) will be few and far between. This may well prove prohibitive, along with my seasonal ability to gather debilitating respiratory illnesses around Autumn Marathons - right SP? (I entered, fully paid up and then cancelled Dublin and New York in the past two years).

Just finished the Hamburg epic. Fantastic, moving, heart-wrenching stuff. It's so weird how reading a fresh account brings back all the feelings (and pain) of one's own recent race. I think you're spot on - Marathons aren't simply running races; they are puzzles; tests of human enurance and commitment, measurement devices of devlish complexity. They never seem to ask the same questions from race to race; rather they find a weakness, a fissure in one's mental or physical vaneer, and it's all you can do to keep it together and finish.

And you did, as clearly noted on your T-shirt, just in case there's any doubt. To this extent 'winning' is irrelevant; your PB, rightly accepted as a fine substitute for the sub 5 Grail that will surely come, is almost besides the point. Marathon took you in his fearsome grasp, squeezed you 'till your eyeballs popped, threatened to blacken your very soul - and you spat in his eye and laughed the maniacal runners' laugh, flaunting your medal in pure defiance as you sought Bratwurst and Lager.

Good on you old son.

[suzieq]

Andy, I can't believe you've signed up for another marathon! I'm feeling very lazy just doing half marathons this year. If it was a half, I might think about it...

Just read your report. It was great - you do capture everything about the marathon, which is more than the race itself - and you do it so well. I appreciate you talking about what you put in your bag...and all the other little things one does preparing for the race.

I could feel your pain and know how you must've felt in the last half. Things become so foggy and seem to blend together at that time. And I could relate to how you were feeling after the race - with your t-shirt on! That's the thing - you finished...live in that glory!

And to even contemplate running another marathon this year...you're a stronger person than me Andy!

Suzie

[El Gordo]

Hi Suzie

Great to hear from you, and thanks for what you said. It's funny, but I don't see it as anything to do with strength or courage or anything like that. I just need to have a goal to help keep me chugging along. It seems very exciting to be signing up for another marathon. I said something in the report about the marathon being a puzzle (picked up by Sweder), and I think this is half the attraction as well as half the frustration. It's like some computer game that you're trying to crack. You lose all your lives and the game is over, but you want to go back and start from the beginning again to see if you can get it right this time.

Another thing that you've inadvertently made me realise is that I don't feel any great emotional hit this time, like we sometimes do after a marathon - a feeling of mental exhaustion that can last for months. That's usually the feeling that prevents us from signing up to anything else for a while - and was the problem that Andy (SP) had when sensibly deciding to defer London till 2006. Obviously I felt pretty drained immediately after Hamburg, but I didn't feel that great sense of loss.

Perhaps it's related to the slight sense of disappointment I felt with the way the race went after a good start, and after all those good months of training. As I said, I don't feel bad about the race, but just a faint sense of anti-climax, as though something was nearly but not quite fulfilled. Maybe that's something else that is urging me to get onto the next one without too much delay.

But above all, I've decided to aim for Loch Ness because I love the sound of the race. I don't know if your UK travels have taken you up there (forgive me if we had this conversation in Almeria, I can't remember) - but it's a truly fabulous part of the country. I actually feel very different from the way I'd be feeling now if I'd just signed up for another major city marathon, where I think I probably would be thinking: "Oh no, here we go again...." This time around I'm relishing the thought of plodding along the banks of Loch Ness, beneath the mountains.

Yes, that's it - I seem to have managed to fool myself that this one is more to do with relaxation than effort and energy. Oh dear.....



Do keep us updated with your running, and let us know next time you're over. I'm sure we'd all love to see you again.

[Sweder]

Do keep us updated with your running, and let us know next time you're over. I'm sure we'd all love to see you again.

Amen to that, brother.

[Tim]

I've just entered the above. Paid and confirmed. I've also bought and paid for a seat on an EasyJet flight from Gatwick to Inverness on Sat Oct 1st at 09:40. Going on my own this time.

Decided that these big urban races are all very well, but it's time to take a peek at a different sort of marathon. There are a couple of tricky hills, but most of it is flattish, and is a long plod along the banks of the Loch, in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

Hi Andy, I've been there. done that and got the T-shirt. Definitely my favourite marathon out of London, Edinburgh & Dublin.

If you're tiring of urban races, have you thought about trail races and hill races? Lairig Ghru, Devil O' the Highlands, Pentland Skyline to name but a very few (but all great races).

[El Gordo]

Hi Tim

Welcome to our small-but-beautiful community.....

Thanks for the Loch Ness reassurance - I've not yet heard anything bad about this race.

I'm sure I'll be doing plenty more urban races (injuries/old age permitting) but I have started to feel a hankering for something wilder. I don't need any persuasion about the aesthetics of running off-road, but my main problem is that I'm a pretty crap runner, so I have to build up to the hard core hilly stuff.

I loved the clamour of Hamburg, but it did make me see a couple of things. One was that it would be interesting to experience the complete opposite - relative remoteness and silence. Another was that my legs might not have seized up if they were stronger, which in turn led me to accept that I didn't run enough hills. Put together, something like Loch Ness was the answer. Rural and scenic, but still a well-organised/marshalled event on roads that I couldn't get lost on. In the approach to Hamburg, I'd pencilled in the Combe Gibbet-Overton 16 miler but decided against it at the last minute. Thought it might have been too much 2 weeks before the marathon.

Yes, I'm interested in sampling some of the off-beat races you mention (not that I've heard of any of those in particular, to be honest), but I need to work my way up to them. I'm a few chapters into "Feet In The Clouds" by Richard Askwith - a brilliant evocation of fell running. I'm sure you'll have read it. If not, do pick it up. It's just come out in paperback.

What other marathons have you done?

I hope you'll stick around. (For people who don't know, Tim is a big cheese at uk.rec.running. Well worth a visit.)

Cheers

Andy

[Tim]

Hi Andy,

You might like to look at at my report from Loch Ness (see http://kinder.cis.unf.edu/rec.running/30...3-tim.html) which isn't anything like as good as your reports but I think you'll get the gist of my views on the event.#

I wouldn't let worries about being a "crap" runner put you off the long distance trails. Speed really doesn't come into it for most of us and it's dogged persistance that gets you through. A trail ultra is *much* easier on the body than a road marathon. What's more, you're even allowed to walk up hilly bits without losing face, everyone does it. ;-)

You asked about my other marathons, well, um, those *were* my other marathons. I prefer the hills and trails these days.

Enjoy the rest of Richard Askwith's book. It's a great read.

[El Gordo]

Hi Tim

Firstly, I should say that I edited the quote marks out of your race report URL so that it becomes a clickable link...

Thanks for the report which pretty much confirms what I know about the event. Very impressed with your 3:25 on a course with notorious hills though - well done.

Good to get the reassurances about speed. I sort of get that impression from seeing that a lot of off-road events, particularly the longer ones, are open to walkers as well as runners.

Cheers.

Andy

[Bierzo Baggie]

You're reading "Feet in the Clouds"!...this was my Christmas reading last December. Brilliant stuff! It's up there with "Samba in the Smethwick End" (Regis-Cunningham-Batson-West Brom in the late 70s) and David Remwick's Muhammed Ali biography as my 3 favourite sports books of all time. It'll inevitably make you want to take up fell running.....err, maybe you'd better put it down...

[Tim]

Hi Tim

Firstly, I should say that I edited the quote marks out of your race report URL so that it becomes a clickable link...

Thanks for the report which pretty much confirms what I know about the event. Very impressed with your 3:25 on a course with notorious hills though - well done.

Good to get the reassurances about speed. I sort of get that impression from seeing that a lot of off-road events, particularly the longer ones, are open to walkers as well as runners.

Cheers.

Andy

Thanks for editing the link. The quote marks sometimes help to prevent losing the end of a wrapped link but clearly they're not needed here.

Regarding off-road events, slow doesn't necessarily mean that walkers are welcome. Particularly if they are in remote areas there may be cut off times. Of course it depends on the event. Obviously it makes sense to check first.

I'll look forward to reading your first trail ultra report. ;-)

[Sweder]

I decided to pass on Nessie - went out for a Sunday morning lope across the Sussex downs and encountered several hundred thousand flies. Not having run in the Fly Season before I hadn't given the little sods much thought. My experience of lakeside Scotland is they have a global supply of midges. Sadly these critters seem to quaff my blood like good champagne, and whilst I'd love to lose weight I can't imagine running a marathon wilst donating several pints of the stuff . . .

[Tim]

Sweder, don't worry about the midges. I honestly don't remember there being any at all. That doesn't mean that there weren't any, but any nuisance they may have caused was insignificant. Certainly don't discount the Loch Ness marathon on that score.

If you want midges, try the West Highland Way or Devil O' the Highlands. Two years ago runners in the DOTH were literally covered in a black crust of pure midge.

Tim

[El Gordo]

As a Highlands midge survivor from years gone by, I think their heyday is August. I suspect October is a bit late in the season for them.

You'll have to think of a better excuse than that, Sweder...

[Sweder]

Bugger . . .