Some Carnethy heroes tackled the Glentress trail marathon on Sunday 24th Feb. It’s a two lap, hilly race around some of the Glentress mountain bike trails, although at only 25 miles it perhaps shouldn’t be called a marathon! However there was 5,036 foot elevation gain so it was no walk in the park. It was a very cold and frosty morning but the trails were beautiful, the views were splendid and the sun was out. The lap started out undulating gently with a small loop around a car park, and then joined the fire road climbing steadily up, before we joined the black mountain bike run. The trail kicked up sharply in places and then wound through the forest on switchbacks which weren’t too steep and easily runnable (on the first lap at least!) There was snow on the ground at the top which meant some of the descent was icy. There were a few mountain bikers out on the downhill which certainly made it more interesting (turns out I speed up a lot when there’s a bike approaching fast from behind on a winding single track!) The route was different from previous races: we went up higher and had a more technical descent before we joined a larger track down to the end of the first lap. Cruelly we had to run up the short steep hill to the start / finish to the turnaround, before heading back out to do it all over again!
James Britton ran an excellent race to come home in 2nd place. Remarkably James had only entered the marathon at the last minute when he found out earlier in the week that the half was full. Chatting with him before the race he said the furthest he’d run so far in 2018 was 16 miles!
I finished as 2nd female (12th overall) after struggling through a dark place for most of the second lap. Nicola Duncan finished just behind me as 3rd female (13th overall). Andy Gravett, not content with having run the 10km with his wife the day before, was the next Carnethy home.
Looking at the lap breakdowns, we definitely all suffered (or at least slowed substantially) on the second lap. More sensible folk opted for the half marathon the previous day. One lap was probably a much better idea! Mary Lye had a great run to finish 2nd female v40.
Some key things I learnt from the race: 3 cliff shot blocks and 250ml of Tailwind isn’t enough fuel for a race that tough and probably goes a long way to explaining the dark place I was in for lap 2. I need to run up more hills and not give up and walk when it gets tough. Sounds like a reason to go to hill reps. As soon as my legs recover…
Rachel
Carnethy finishers | ||
Marathon | Half | 10km |
James Britton 3:29:14 | Adam Gamble 1:40:19 | Oliver Reed 51:07 |
Rachel Normand 3:59:46 | Steve Best 1:44:13 | Fiona Fulton 55:35 |
Nicola Duncan 4:03:43 | Brian Kennedy 1:57:34 | Andy Gravett 1:02:50 |
Andy Gravett 5:06:24 | Mary Lye 2:02:15 | |
Scott Robson 2:06:22 | ||
Nikki Maclean 2:20:57 | ||
Rod Dalitz 3:28:45 |
Photo credit to Stephen Wilson https://www.granddayoutphotography.co.uk/