This summer I spent two months in Europe, all in Scotland except the last week, when I was in Berlin. For the first 3 1/2 weeks, I lived in Glasgow and did math research with my advisor and two other professors. While there, I ran with the Glasgow University Hares & Hounds. Then, when I was trying to figure out how to plan 4 weeks of wandering in the highlands and islands, I decided to find some races that sounded neat in places that sounded good. As a result, I ran 5 races over a span of 25 days, over distances from 5 to 28 miles. So here are some stories about them.
Well, the GU Hares & Hounds went to races every week or two. After my first or second time running with them, Lachlan mentioned a race the next thursday - a 10K in nearby Helensburgh. It was supposed to be flat and fast (a rarity in Scotland), a real PR course. So I was looking forward to this until my advisor invited us all to dinner at his house after the lectures on that very same day. For two weeks I had been in Glasgow with nowhere to be, and then two things at the same time. Oh well. Everyone came back with good times too. Anyway, there was another 10K at Dumbarton two weeks later, so I stayed in Glasgow a few extra days to run it. We took the train out to Dumbarton on a gray, rainy Friday afternoon and walked to the Dumbarton Academy. I saved a pound by attaching myself to the GUH&H. There were six of us in all. Lachlan would be much faster than me but Richard and Colin had run 35 or 36 minutes at Helensburgh and I figured I could stay with them. About 10 minutes before the start, there was an announcement that the race would be delayed. When more news came, it was bad - someone had had a car wreck on the course and they had to use the jaws of life to get her out. So the race would be delayed half an hour, the course would be cut short, but another loop would be added at the end. As a result, there were no mile or kilometer splits and the race ended up as the longest (literally) 10K I've ever run.
The race itself was unremarkable - a standard road 10K through a rainy provincial-feeling (to one accustomed to Glasgow) town. People took off at the start, and I didn't catch Richard until about 20 minutes in. Colin was just ahead as well, but just then Richard put in a surge and I didn't go with him. At the end of the smaller loop, instead of turning in at the school we headed around again. This second time around never seemed to end, and my watched passed through 35, 36, 37, 38...minutes. I imagine I slowed down a lot this last bit, which is too bad, as Richard and Colin were not that far ahead. They finished in 39:42 and 39:43 (I dont remember who was ahead) and I came in at 40:11. Comparing times and efforts from Helensburgh, the consensus seemed to be that the course was about a kilometer long. Sad, because this would have been a good time, and this was the only course I ran in Scotland that was at all conducive to good times. As a last excuse, I did hold something in reserve, for I was planning to run a hill race up Aonach Mor 2 days later. When I arrived in Fort William, though, I found many conflicting dates for this race. I know it didn't happen when I was there; it may have happened a week later, but by then I was on the Isle of Skye running a half-marathon.
The Skye Half-Marathon was on Saturday; I hitchhiked from Fort William the Sunday before. The wind was ferocious and blew rain in my face as I walked north from Sligachan to Portree. I decided to spend that night indoors in Portree; of course, once I was safely inside it turned into a lovely evening. The next evening I took a bus down to Luib and walked into a glen on a footpath. I camped out that night; my feet already had blisters from my inadequate boots. The next day I hiked about 17 painful miles with the pack, over to Elgol (almost) and up through Glen Sligachan to Sligachan with a side trip most of the way up Bla Bheinn. I spent a rainy windy night at the campground at Sligachan, then decided to hitch down to Glenbrittle to walk a bit in the Cuillins and heal my messed-up feet. It rained for two days straight, with never more than 5 dry minutes at a time. I never saw the Cuillins, let alone walk in them. I spent most of my time in my tent, eating Ryvita crackers, drinking some terrible orange drink and reading 1950s British Book-of-the-Month-Club Books. The people that ran the store were nice and I would talk to them for a few minutes a day to fulfill my socializing needs. On Friday I tried to hitch back up to Portree. I waited for 2 hours in blowing rain (taking shelter in a phone booth) as only 7 or so cars went by. Glenbrittle is literally at the end of the road, and the weather was so bad that no one was coming out there. I imagined at some point all the cars would be gone and I would still be there. Finally, though, a tow truck driver stopped and took me all the way to Portree. This was perhaps the turning point of the whole trip.
I bought some second skin for my blisters and slept well in the youth hostel that night. I had picked a hostel close to the start of the race, and I could head back to drink water or use the restroom as much as necessary before the race.
One thing that I was learning was that in Scotland people go out like mad at the start of a race. None of this start easy, pick it up later stuff. So I found myself fairly far back in the pack as we plunged down a hill and out of Portree. I took it fairly easy during the first half of the race, noticing that it seemed we did nothing but gently go uphill. Around the 5 mile mark someone faster went by and I thought "I can go that fast", so I did. Soon we hit the halfway point and I was starting to catch people. At some point I caught on - Portree, being on the coast, was the low point of the course. We spent the first half going inland and up, and now we were headed back down. So things went pretty quickly, and I didn't catch many more people, as everyone was moving well. I passed the 13.1 mile mark (a regulation half-marathon) in 1:24, a pretty good time considering the circumstances. Then into Portree and back up the little hill that we came down at the beginning, to finish in 1:28 for 13.8 miles. I came in 29th of 197, again fairly good considering the circumstances. Another note - in Scotland, the running population as a whole is much more serious, as there aren't (yet) the large group of fitness runners that there are in the States.