Loch Ness Marathon - 1/10/2006

Saturday was a perfect day to be a tourist. Inverness was bright, sunny and warm, and littered with tourists. I took it easy, wandered around a little bit and found my way to registration. I didn’t care much for the city centre area, but the walk along the river was beautiful. I was happy that I could enjoy short sleeves for a few hours! I spotted Nessie just outside the registration tent, cheerfully ogling what turned out to be the finish line.

Nessie had a sign on her left shoulder that said “Meeting Point”, as if people would struggle to think of a conspicuous place to find one another.

There were about 10 marathoners staying at the same hostel, so I had plenty of company to enjoy bad television that night. The next morning, even though some were taxiing to the start, I chose to walk it to help me wake up.

Earlier in the week, I had watched Touching the Void, a climbing documentary that had managed to get a really terrible discoey song called Brown Girl in the Ring lodged in my head. The run was a point to point route, so they had hired a fleet of buses to move us all. The bus trip to the starting point replaced Brown Girl in the Ring with the Self Preservation Society from the original Italian Job as these massive buses twisted their way through Highland singletrack. The person sitting beside me had a marathon habit and had run Loch Ness before. We talked a little about the course. He warned me of the hills and specifically the hill at mile 18. I talked about liking the hills because by that point, any change is good to distract the mind. He laughed and halfheartedly agreed with me. As we neared the start, we looked around outside and decided it was not a question of if it would rain but when.

The buses dropped us in the middle of nowhere. Farmlands surrounded us on both sides, with just a handful of houses visible in any direction. They had coffee, tea and water for us as we queued one last time through the portaloos. We dropped our luggage with vans bound for the finish and crossed to behind the start. They had an aerobics instructor lead us through a warm up, a pipe band get us in the mood and sent us on our way back to Inverness.

I started near the back of the group so walked and bobbed my way toward the start. As the gun would really go off when I crossed the line, I did not want to get caught up in the flush of runners. Their signposts for times were a bit spread out, so I started with the four hour group. There were no signs for anyone slower. My gamble paid off. I found my pace in less than a mile. At mile 1, someone ahead of me called out 10:37 to the rest of his group. Perfect. Nice and easy to start. The first few hills would help me adjust my pace.

As we ran along the first road, the race officials needed to get past us as well. I found it a bit frustrating and I learned quickly that left was better than right for letting them past. Right meant sucking exhaust when the cars got stuck behind the next pack of runners. Left was better.

Sometime after mile 2, we turned onto a twistier windier road that would lead us down to Loch Ness. Eventually.

The scenery was great as the road and the creek beside it competed for the limited amount of space available in the gorge. Mile 3 brought us to the first water station and hundreds of plastic bottles lined the roads for the next mile. A few small hills tested us. Some people walked already. A bigger hill waited for us after Mile 4. The rain had started, although it was more of a mist initially. More people walked. Lots of people passed me on the downhill that followed. “Run your own race” echoed in my head. I passed them all again on the next steep climb after Mile 5.

Between Miles 6 and 7, we found ourselves high above Loch Ness. Rolling hills continued and the light rain became steady. Except for the few steep downhills, it didn’t feel like we were heading downhill and I didn’t really notice it until we were running alongside the loch. One of the official photographers stalked people right by the loch. He took pictures of me with loch whiteout behind me. The rain picked up the pace and the headwind became noticeable.

The trees gave us some shelter but by mile 10 the rain had broken through. I was soaked through. I was cold when the wind was noticeable. The hills on the other side of the loch were visible but the tops were lost in fog. Among the runners were about 10 Highlanders from the British Army running and walking in camouflage trousers, green cotton t-shirts (it said Highlander, which is the only way I would have known) with full rucksacks. I passed the first around Mile 10 and the next by Mile 12. Miles 10-15 were good for interesting snippets of conversation as people fell into and out of pace. The ground was relatively flat along the loch, but the rain and wind really messed with people. Miles 10-15 were also good for random thoughts to wander in and out of my head. The gels I was using to get me through the race were Honeystinger Gold, so basically fortified honey. I wondered what the bees do with the honey we don’t steal from them. Around Mile 13, I saw the first DNF huddled in the back of a truck under a pile of space blankets.

The route drifted away from Loch Ness, slowly at first. By Mile 16, the loch was no longer visible. On a clear day, the hills on the far side would have been visible. The rain picked up as a small crowd and a lone piper greeted us in the village of Dores. Flower of Scotland echoed in the distance past Mile 17. The hill at Mile 18 felt like nothing, although the handful of people walking it might disagree.

Up until that point, I had been drinking from my bottle of dilute Lucozade and occasionally taking water offered on the course. After Mile 18, I took a full strength Lucozade that was offered to me. The UK equivalent of Gatorade (which exists but is rare and extremely expensive), Lucozade comes in powder, bottle and squeezy packet form. Orange flavoured Lucozade tastes like Tang. The first sip of squeezy packet Tang evoked my perfume face. I was good for about five sips before giving the rest to nature, hoping the rain would help the grass not stain orange.

Mile 20 approached and I felt strong. I felt like I could run forever, rain or no rain. After the hill at Mile 20.5, I felt absolutely shattered. Halfway up, a race official was offering to share her chocolate biscuits with runners passing by. Some accepted her offer. I looked at her like she had three heads. One of those heads said there was more Lucozade ahead and cheered me onward. By the time I neared the top, I was the only one in view still running. Every step hurt, like someone was pinching my quadriceps, but I kept running.

The course eased downhill and then levelled. Between Miles 21 and 23, I force-fed myself the last gel in my pack. It took me two full miles to eat it. We were approaching Inverness so we had more steady traffic around us and more houses and businesses, too. The course had flattened and I knew from the elevation map that it was relatively flat to the finish.

When I passed the Mile 23 sign, I decided my legs had a 5K left in them so I picked up the pace. My legs still hurt but no worse than when I was running slower. Bribery took over. A faster pace meant fewer steps, which meant less pain. The bribe worked. Not a single person passed me along the River Ness.

The course followed the river to the bridge at Inverness City Centre, crossed the bridge and headed back along the other bank to the stadium. I didn’t even notice Inverness Castle. My eyes were on the bridge. After the bridge, my eyes were looking for every familiar turn in the road back to the stadium. I gagged a few more sips of Lucozade after Mile 25 more as a mental assurance that my pace wouldn’t fade than out of necessity. One of the earlier finishers laughed at my perfume face as he walked past.

The turn to the finish was not where I expected. Instead we continued on our road and turned at the next right. It threw me for a moment. After the turn, I could see a smudge in the distance that had to be the Mile 26 marker. As I ran past two men walking together, one said it looks like she has fresher legs than ours. I laughed, but I doubt they heard me. I turned the corner at the 26 and picked up the pace again. The rain did, too. I turned the next corner and had to mind the mud in the 10 metres between the pavement and the track. Race officials pointed at the mud and cheered me on. A hundred metres to go. The clock in the distance looked like it had a 4 on the left. That is all I needed to see.

The guy announcing people approaching the finish misread my number and called me Oliver Somebody. Even in that state, I don't think I looked like an Oliver! Intermittently during the last 5K, I heard him encouraging people to the finish. He was too confused to make such a cheer for Oliver. The clock came in view 4:58.28 was the last time that I saw before I crossed the finish. My last thought as I crossed the line was a hope that one of the official photographers was crouched at just the right angle to get the finishers crossing the line with cartoon Nessie and her googly eyes looming overhead.

At the finish, they handed us our medals, goody bags and t-shirts. The Nessie t-shirt is quite cute. The race logo is a running shoe with the lace loosened into Nessie silhouette. They had several volunteers set up to help reclaim the race chips. In the rain. Having to undo laces because the chips were so new that they had not yet thought of the ease of cable ties. I felt bad for them, since they, too, had spent the better part of the day in the rain.

No longer running, the rain and wind started catching up to me. I decided to see if first aid could give me one of those nylon space blankets. The paramedic took me by the hand and then freaked about how cold it was. The space blanket wasn’t enough. He bandaged me into what felt like a tablecloth and added a wool blanket over top. He demanded that I sit down. I thanked him for the blankets but refused to sit down. We argued. Finally, he gave up and walked away. Another paramedic came over and she renewed the argument. I told her when I collapsed to the floor she was welcome to put me in the chair. She laughed and left me in my bunting.

I spent about an hour in the tent warming up. As it cleared of more exciting casualties, they moved me closer to the heater. My legs alternated between scorching and freezing, but gradually the extremes diminished. Finally, I thanked them for the warmth and went to find my dry clothes and a hot shower. They gave me a nylon space blanket to get me inside. The tent with the bags was connected to the tent with the first aid, masseuses and charities except there was a big “No Entry” sign in the one direction I wanted to go. It was enforced. We had to go back outside to walk to the other side of the tent to be allowed in, nevermind the rain.

Surprisingly, the showers inside were not crowded at all. I could have spent hours in the warm, but I settled for about 10 minutes. My stomach suggested that it wanted real food before the three hour trip to Edinburgh. I had spotted an Indian restaurant on the walk back the day before, so my plan was takeaway for the train ride. I had just enough time to waddle my way there, pick up dinner and reach the train a few minutes before departure.

The last time I ran a marathon, I didn’t feel the need to run another one. I believe my exact words were, “ask me in a few months… If you ask me today, the answer’s no.” They say history repeats itself. If another opportunity like Loch Ness comes along, after this pain is long gone, maybe. Otherwise, no.

Epilogue: My gun time was 4:59:09, which does not mesh with what I saw on the board approaching the finish. Chip time was 4:57:00. I placed 101/133 in my age group and 1077/1233 overall. The race started with over 2000 participants, which meant nearly 800 runners didn't run or dropped out before the finish.