Loch Ness Marathon and 10k
Report by Matt Holt
Nine Ripon Runners made the long journey north to the city of Inverness, capital of the Scottish Highlands, for Sunday’s annual marathon and 10k event.
On the Saturday, people adopted different approaches as they prepared for Sunday’s efforts. While three runners (Elise and David Nicholson and Matthew Holt) completed the city’s parkrun, Andrea Richardson, Alex Nicol and Wendy Green took a boat trip, got sea sick then calmed their stomachs with red wine. Meanwhile Stuart Pender went back to bed for 6 hours additional sleep.
At 7.30am on a rainy grey Sunday morning, over 100 buses shuttled 6000 runners 26.2 miles away from Inverness centre to a remote hill top in the middle of nowhere. With over an hour to go to the start of the marathon, runners huddled together in the rain to keep warm. Fortunately the coach driver for Elise, Stuart and Matthew allowed them to stay on their bus, and with the engine still running, they relaxed in the warmth while Stuart entertained them with some interesting chat while demonstrating some dance moves (!!!!!!)
Eventually, the three toasty warm athletes left their bus to join the cold and drowned trio of Alex, Wendy and Andrea for the start and first three miles of downhill running that mark the start of the marathon route. Many little villages and hamlets were passed on the tarmac roads running alongside Loch Ness, although Wendy apparently took some woodland detours in the hope of viewing of the legendary Nessie monster
After the ‘hill’ section, between mile 19 and 20, Elise Nicholson proved to be the true athlete among the RR contingent, and pressed on to the finish line in a great new PB time of 3 hours 44 minutes 56 seconds to claim 28th in her age category. Unable to keep up, I watched Elise disappear in to the distance after 20 miles and finished 6 minutes later in a PB of 3 hours 50 mins 37 seconds. Stuart Pender meanwhile was joined by Jane Grundy at the 18 mile point to finish in 4 hours 41 minutes 6 seconds. Alex Nicol, Andrea Richardson and Wendy Green all crossed the line together in 5 hours 50 minutes 47 seconds
In the 10k event, David Nicholson and John Grundy were inseparable as the crossed line hand in hand, in a magnificent sub one hour time of 58 minutes 18 seconds, enough to bring a tear the eye of any of the cheering crowd
If you think that’s only 8 recorded times over the two events, you are quite the right. The ninth RR put aside her personal quest for a marathon PB, and instead stayed housebound in Inverness while using every known device connected to the Glastonbury website, to try and secure tickets to the 2020 event. With the 200,000 tickets sold out in 24 minutes, Jane Grundy emerged triumphant, securing 6 tickets and thus ensuring RR will be represented at the largest music festival in the world next year. Well done Jane, a true demonstration of grit and determination
PS; Alex (husband of Becky and son in law of Andrew and Jackie Turner) finished in a fantastic time of 3 hours 35 minutes.